Let Me Just Get This Out There

Glass half full.

That's how I typically like to see things.

I'm an optimist through and through. 

Until I'm not. 

I've always believed that everything happens for a reason.

And I'm pretty good at finding those reasons.

I'm pretty good at seeing the silver lining in every situation.

Until I can't.

Until I get tired of being the one to say "it'll all work out". 

Even though I know deep in my heart that it will, in fact, all work out.

Sometimes I just get tired.

I get tired of pretending like everything's okay.

Pretending like I'm strong enough to deal with everything thrown my way.

Sometimes I just want to sit in a puddle of my own self-pity and wallow.

And cry.

And drink wine.

And yell irrationally at my husband (like it's actually his fault, when it's not at all.)

I know God has a plan for me.

Bigger than any plan I could every dream up.

I believe that, really I do.

But sometimes, I get really annoyed with the plan He's setting up for me.

Sometimes, I want MY plan to be the one that actually happens.

I've debated for sometime whether or not to leave y'all with a vague "woe is me" post 

or if I felt like actually divulging all the dirty details. 

That's the weird thing about the internet. 

Some things, most things, are so easy to throw out there.

But other things make you stop and think.

I'm not going to be vague, because I hate that.

But I'm also not going to get completely down and dirty with the deats because it's not totally my story to tell. 

Also, as much as I love a good pity-party, I've spent the past week in one of my own and I'm getting a little tired of it. No need to dwell.

Robbie lost his job last February. 

I've never blogged specifically about it, but I may have mentioned it in passing here or there.

I honestly don't remember.

Him being unemployed has become such a part of our lives that now it seems normal.

Not normal good. But normal nonetheless. 

For those of you actually doing the math,

that's 15 months of living on my NC teaching salary alone.

And for those of you who haven't paid attention to political news in NC, 

we are one of the lowest ranking states in teacher pay in the country. 

To say things have been tight is a vast understatement.

He was able to draw unemployment for a little while, which helped.

But it didn't last long. (Thanks Obama.) 

So we've been counting our pennies, cutting back, and doing every thing imaginable just to survive. 

Another little fun tidbit of information - Robbie lost his job less than a year after we bought our very first home, a home we bought and planned to pay for with two salaries. 

It's been real fun y'all.

BUT being the silver lining hunter that I am, I quickly saw the "bless in the mess".

Robbie hasn't been able to find a part-time job because he's been over qualified for everything and because he's been in school part-time which makes his available hours weird.

BUT he has been able to put all his time and energy into school and has had the most ahh-mazing student teaching internship....ever. 

Seriously, I could not be more proud of the work he has done for the kids in his internship.

He was called to be a teacher. 

And God found a way (however sucky it might have seemed) to blatantly point that out. 

Then he ruptured a disk in his back. 

In the lumbar area to be exact.

And has been in severe pain pretty much since January.

There's been several days of relief, where he feels like he can actually move around without a shooting pain running down his leg.

But for the most part, it's sucked and he hasn't been able to do much of anything.

So we've seen doctors and we've seen surgeons and we've gotten an MRI and he's done physical therapy and he's popped every amount of hydrochodine you can safely ingest before you're labeled a drug addict.

And nothing. has. helped. at all. 

We finally saw a neurosurgeon last week who wanted to operate as soon as possible.

Which scared the living daylights out of me, but ultimately meant relief for Robbie.

The first date he proposed didn't work out and the only next available date he had was the first week of June. 

June!

Which I know is now technically just next month. 

But still.

June.

That's one more month of waiting.

One more month of hurting.

One more month of dealing with something that we shouldn't have to be dealing with at all.

And that's where my pity-party comes in.

I love my husband.

More than I could ever try to express in this blog.

More today than I did the day we got married.

I wouldn't want to do this life with anyone else. 

And honestly....I'm pretty freakin impressed at how well we've handled all the bullshit thrown our way these past few months.

Not to toot our own horns or anything, but we've pretty much rocked it out. 

We've done the whole "through richer and poorer, in sickness and health" thing

need I remind y'all of my rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis and the "spots" I dealt with last fall.

And we've done it well. 

But I'm ready for a little bit more of the "richer and health" part and less of the "poorer and sickness". 

I'm ready for Robbie to feel better.

I'm ready for his back to be back to normal. 

I'm ready for him to find a job doing what he loves.

And doing what he's been called to do.

And that will bring some bacon to the table.

I'm ready for things to be easy.

And because I've now spent two days too long wallowing in my self-pity,

I'm going to #backthatazzup and return to my normal, glass half-full, forever optimist that I like being. 

Just because I can't ever get enough of JT or this song.

And because I know, I know...

Also, because I'm not too pitiful to realize that even though things aren't easy right now, things are still happy, and there are still multiple moments in my day where I am completely blown away by the blessings around me, I've decided to join a challenge (because apparently I'm all about those lately) to find one happy thing in my day for the next 100 days. 

I'll be blogging and instagramming my happy things. 

Hashtag marshappydays. 

Hashtag I promise to not be annoying (maybe). 

So follow along!

And thanks for listening to me rant.