Solo Parenting

So I have re-written this post several times.  Sometimes I struggle with what to write - wanting to be "real" so I can remember this time of my life and what I was really feeling but also not wanting to be too personal either.  This is one of those posts that definitely falls into that area for me.  

I am now nearing the end of my second week of "solo parenting" as I like to call it.  It's gone better than I thought it would.  Most days I am actually pretty positive - well, maybe positive is too strong - but I am definitely not moping around either.  I continue to find ways to be productive and in a lot of ways my everyday happenings haven't really changed.  

I don't really like to talk about Mark being gone and all of my thoughts and emotions about it.  Maybe that's not healthy but I don't feel like I am completely bottling it up inside me either.  I pray a lot.  My Heavenly Father has to listen to all of my cares and worries, which almost always involve some tears, but I feel stronger and comforted by the end.  And that's all I can ask for.  

This definitely isn't how I imagined things to be.  I never thought Mark and I would be separated for this long.  Ever.  Maybe that was foolish but I truly never saw that coming.  I thought having a husband who was going to be a pharmacist pretty much guaranteed me a husband who would be home every night.  

And I know that day will come.  

I think the hardest thing, other than Mark being gone of course, is the fact that I feel like I am living in limbo right now.  I feel like everything in my life is at a standstill.  I don't feel like I am moving forward.  It's hard and frustrating.  Whenever I think of a way to try and move forward in some aspect of my life it feels like everything always falls through.  

I know that things are hard right now.  That is just how it is going to be.  I also don't think that when Mark gets his diploma in three months that we will be granted a bag of pixie dust and our world will become one giant fairy tale.  I know that life is filled with ups and downs and right now we are just in a down.  All of my focus is on enduring, just making it through this.  This is just one more sacrifice on the path to Mark's career and I am 100% willing to do that so that Mark can be apart of a profession that makes him feel fulfilled.  

So we are doing okay.  Not great.  But okay.  

Luckily, I get to spend all day with the two greatest kids.