Learning to Let Things Go

Last week I wrote a post that was pretty difficult to write.  It's not like anything is technically WRONG, it just spoke about the frustrating life of having a husband who is a surgery resident.  I intended it to be one post, be over and done with, and before I knew it I had written the worlds LONGEST post and barely even scratched the surface. 

I don't necessarily have plans to make this topic a regular on my blog, but like I said before, it consumes SO much of our lives and of my mind that I felt like a fraud not writing about it.  More importantly, I WANTED to write about it.  Writing is so cathartic for me.  It helps me truly understand how I feel about things and it just helps me be HONEST with myself.  Sometimes I'll read over the blog months later and laugh at how small some of these details seem now but how BIG they were then.  That's part of life and I'm sick of fearing it.

Last weeks post was all about learning to LET THINGS BE and LETTING THINGS GO. 

This weekend was a PERFECT example of that.  Evan was on call all weekend which meant he was practically gone the entire time. He will be doing his Urology rotation in March and April.  We THOUGHT that meant his schedule would be lighter and hoped as such since he'll be doing ONLY Urology for the next four years.  So far, he has been busier than ANY other rotation this year.  The good news?  He enjoys the field and the work.  SO important.  If you HAVE to be gone all day and night, might as well like your job right?

He was up and at the hospital for about 4 hours on Friday night (broken up in two different cases).  Saturday morning he was at the hospital from 6:30 am - 1:30 pm.  When he got home, he put Liliana down for her nap and took a nap on the livingroom floor while I worked on Liliana's birthday party invitations.  After their nap, we headed out to Kroger to be together as a family for the first time that weekend.  Not two minutes from the house, guess whose pager went off?  BACK he went.

Fortunately, it was a short consult and he joined us for dinner with some friends.  Saturday evening was tough.  He got paged while getting ready for bed and was gone for a few hours.  He didn't have to go back after 2 am, but did get paged multiple times and was back at the hospital by 6:45.  He was able to join us for a big brunch with friends on Sunday and we were hoping the rest of the day would be lovely.  WRONG.  He took another nap while Liliana napped and got paged during his nap.  He left and RIGHT after he left I realized my keys and cell phone were in his car.  In other words, Liliana and I were TRAPPED!  So ... here comes that letting things go motto ...

I had PLANS to go grocery shopping while he was at the hospital.  I do my grocery shopping for the week on Sundays.  I make a weekly menu and we stick to it pretty stringently, even though it's hard to plan our lives much.  I made the most of it doing things that needed to get done around the house, but by the time Evan got home (4 hours later) I was too beat to head to the grocery store.  Fortunately, my husband is an angel, insisted I get a break, took Liliana to the grocery store with him, brought her home, gave her a shower and put her down for sleep, made himself a sandwich, and finally plopped down on the couch with me around 9:30. 

BUSY weekend to say the least.  And like I said, I just have to learn to let things go.  This business of being unable to go grocery shopping would have FREAKED ME OUT before, but now I just know "he probably won't be home for hours so let's be resourceful here," is what we have to do.  And we did.

I missed my husband TERRIBLY this weekend.  It doesn't really feel like weekends when they're gone so much.  It might as well have been a Monday or Tuesday for me.  Even though I don't go to work like I do during the week, I don't get the same feeling of relaxation that I do when we're together.  I'm so lucky that Liliana is an absolute angel and gives me NO problems.  I rarely hold her any longer, mainly because she's 22 months and doesn't require it, but also because she's a BIG girl and it isn't comfortable with my growing pregnancy belly.  She is very independent and if she wants to read a book, she'll go get her book, bring it to me, say "read Mommy!" and plop on my lap.  We have an amazing time together and I love that she keeps me company.

One way that Evan and I have copped with not being able to talk as much as we'd like to is ... believe it or not ... email.  We email each other a few times a day (similar to texting but the texts were getting so long that we reverted back to good 'ol email).  Sometimes they're silly, sometimes they're saying things that I want to make sure I don't forget to let him know (ex: I sent him one today saying "don't call lawn guy, I just left him a voicemail saying we need him to come desparately."), sometimes they're sexy, sometimes they're romantic, etc.  It's just a good way to let the other person know we're thinking of them throughout the day.  Yes, we did this before he started residency, but we do it more than we used to.  We used to text each other daily ... now we WRITE each other.  Talking on the phone isn't an option, so we use the next best thing.  My favorite part about it?  He tells me things such as "i can't wait to tell you the story about _______ later today."  Don't worry people, he NEVER violates HIPAA.  But him emailing to tell me that gets me SO excited just to share some stories with him while lying in bed that evening. 

It sounds like this weekend was all negative.  NOT THE CASE.  We did have some time on Saturday evening before he got paged.  And we did something we haven't done in MONTHS.  We played a board game together! It was actually Evan's idea.  It made us not just watch a TV show or be inactive.  We played for at least an hour and had SUCH a GREAT GREAT time.  We laughed and just shared a nice US time break.  Highly recommend the game because it's for 2 players so couples can have a nice romantic/ fun time.  Great husband right?  Already worked 60 hours in a weekend and still recommending sweet things?  I hit the jackpot.

This game is a good way to keep learning about each other.  I actually commented on how differently our minds worked.  There are certain "categories" that I was horrible at and Evan exceled in.  And then there were some that Evan could just not do and those were my strengths! 

Sharing a different, unique, fun moment like that was the highlight of my weekend.  Hopefully we'll play again next weekend when he's OFF FROM WORK!  That's right TOTALLY OFF from work!  WOO HOO!  Liliana's daycare has their annual easter egg hunt on Saturday and we're ALL going...time to train somebody to find some eggs!!!   ; )