I'm just going to write. I don't care how it all comes out and in what format, or in what order. It's all jumbled in my head anyways, so maybe I can make sense of it later. Many fragments, little wholeness.

As my husband has been gone the last week, I've felt the inner pull to prepare my heart for the future. We're embarking on a path together that wasn't in my vision of the future. I thought we would get out of the military, go back "home" and start our own brand of life together. That changed, and with that change I feel like I have to change, too.

This whole last year, plus some, has been one long-winded change of all kinds. At times it's been really difficult to find a branch to grasp on the long fall from the top of the tree. In essence, it's been like falling from "here" to "there", and "there" is the here and the now, the reality, ground level.

Becoming a wife, a military wife, a mother, a housewife, a person taken out of her familiar element. Taken further away from my own ambitions, my personal desires, the things I used to fill my days with. At times it's been unsettling, others it has been amazing, mostly it's somewhere in between the latter two. I know, without a doubt, that I am not the first or last woman who has had to struggle with coming to terms with my role as a person changing. Also, having to deal with my own sense of identity, grasping at the tangled remains of who I was, who I want to be now, who I want to be in the future.

I miss the feeling of being able to create my life one day at a time without regard to tomorrow. For many years I lived my self-created adventure. I laughed in the face of ho-hum existance and tried to make even the small things exciting, meaningful and memorable. I think of myself as a person that tries to live "deeply", absorbing as much in as I can handle and then maybe a little more, just for good measure.

I've become awfuly complacent about my life recently. There are phases that last for a few months and I ride the high of evolving and changing and then it pitter patters out to blahness again. I did a group book study on a couple of books and felt wholly and completely invigorated, then I went into the practical stage of putting the new things I had learned into application and now I'm here. Here is not pretty, here is not nice. Here is a little bit stagnant, a little bit dark. And I don't like it! I figure this is a good place to start - not in denial, but recognizing that I have come to this place and now is the time to start shaking things up. If you've been reading, then you've probably caught wind that I haven't been feeling 100% fulfilled in general.

I think it all boils down to me and how, in the process of all this change, I forgot to create a new vision for myself and my future with my family. The balloon of passion that has been steadily carrying me through life has lost some elevation and I know that now is the time to start pumping it back up.

One of the big things that has been missing in my life is the creative process. Yes, I've been knitting, but it's for the most part a solitary activity. And solitary is how I feel. I feel a little like a social butterfly with her wings folded together. When we moved here I moved away from a church where I volunteered a lot of my time. I moved away from a really fun full-time tattoo job where I got to meet new people and hear new stories all the time. I moved away from all the interesting countries that were a day's drive away. I moved away from my then-budding interest in creative photography. I was spontaneous, always creative, always on the move.

Now, I stay at home quite a bit so that my son is well-rested and well-fed, and also so that I can see my husband for short stints between his ever-changing, all-demanding job schedule. Life with a young child is a beautiful thing, but it is also poses a restraint to spontaneity. And time. All that time I spent with a tattoo machine in hand, a camera in my face, my hands on the wheel - replaced by the here and the now. I'm left wondering - how do I win some time back for me? I don't want to lose touch with myself any further. I don't want to throw in the towel and become the "white button-down, jeans and sneaker-wearing soccer mom in the suburbs". I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being that person, I'm just saying it's not me.

And that's all I've got on my plate right now. I feel like I have to become a little stronger again because there are times ahead of me that will require me to be much more self-reliant and proactive. I need to prepare my heart for strength against temptation, for patience and more kindness.