"It's like we're a real married couple for a day!"

On October 12th, AJ finished BOLC in Virginia and began his trek back to Illinois for a week and a half of leave. He arrived just in time for pizza on my birthday, October 13th. Thus began our short time together as husband and wife, living together in the same state. Now there's an idea!

I'll admit, things had been really tough for me ever since we found out AJ's unit when I was still living in Virginia. Once I came back to Illinois, living without my husband and with the fear of war hanging over my head seemed to become less and less manageable. Eventually, I lost almost all hope and it was all I could do to keep up with my responsibilities at work and school, much less do anything else. I was in a very sad, dark place for months. A place I couldn't imagine being in for the next year.

So that's how it all started, when he came back to see me. As always, it's not exactly easy to start living life together after spending so much time apart. We grow accustomed to being responsible for ourselves and doing our own thing, especially me, since this is my temporary home. Add to that deployment stress and midterms and you have a recipe for some trying times.

Thankfully, all this changed when we got some very unexpected, yet potentially good news from the Army. All of a sudden, my hope was restored and life seemed almost blissful. This set us up for what turned out to be a great week of semi-normal married life. Sure, we were and still are completely homeless as a couple, but we have had the amazing blessing of a finished basement that we usually get all to ourselves in AJ's aunt's and uncle's house. It's been a delight to get to know my in-laws better this way, and I never would have had that opportunity if we lived a more conventional life. It's not always easy moving between my parents' house and Aunt L's basement, especially with everything else in my life, but it's a minor inconvenience when you consider how blessed we are.

During this week of leave we were able to spend some (but as always, not enough) time with family, which is always great when you know you're not staying in your home state. AJ treated me to a fun night in the city just to do something different, and we ended up staying in the fanciest hotel we've ever slept in (which means a lot after sleeping in lots of cheap hotels on road trips so far in our marriage). A couple days later he accompanied me to a pretty important doctor's appointment, where we gained some insight into what's going on with my health these days and made some important decisions. It was a little scary for me to incorporate him into a part of my life that I prefer to keep to myself, but in the end it really strengthened our marriage.

After what seems like a blissful week and a half, AJ had to begin his road trip down to Texas. We decided to go all out and buy some ice cream and orange juice from the grocery store and rented a movie to watch on a Tuesday night. We're getting the hang of this last-night-together thing, so even though it's really sad, we know how to take the pressure off ourselves and just make the most of our time together. It's a talent you learn in the Army, I guess.

Yesterday morning we parted ways again. I drove to class alone while my husband headed the opposite direction for Texas, a state I have never visited but one that will be our new home one day. It was a sad parting, as usual, and I've learned that it's okay to show up to school with my makeup a little smudged from tears. The first night and morning apart is always the worst, because I'm sometimes turning to AJ to tell him something and then realizing I have to text him. In the morning, I'm completely alone instead of having my husband keep me company. I miss him a lot. 

All the same, if this news from the Army holds, I feel genuinely at peace these days. For the first time in a long time I'm not in a constant state of depression and the nightmares have stopped. I'm even happy! And that is not something I have truly felt in a long time. Even my parents were amazed that I was smiling yesterday after AJ left. So, we are back to being apart, but we are good. We have hope for our future and believe in the goodness and mercy of God. I suppose once you have glimpsed the reality of war, anything else we deal with right now seems so much more trivial. Don't get me wrong though--in the Army, it is challenging whether your husband deploys or not. The challenges are just different.

Stay tuned for updates on AJ's life in Texas, our future home!

Three Reasons to Move to Minneapolis.

1.  Food trucks serving everything from sushi to curry to tacos show up downtown for lunch every weekday. Yum!

   

    2. Minneapolis is home to a large refugee population. It has a large Hmong community and a huge Somali presence. We stayed in one of the most diverse neighborhoods, right by the “Somali Towers” and a global market selling food and other merchandise from all over the world. They have delicious, cheap coffee and pumpkin muffins. Mmm. I really want to work with refugees and immigrants, so it would be a great place for me.

   

    3. It’s so clean and quiet! Whenever I walk around downtown Chicago I come back feeling gross, but not so in Minneapolis. And people only honk when it’s necessary! Which is rarely! It was so much more peaceful than Chicago.

CCDA.

Early last Wednesday morning I hopped on a Greyhound to Minneapolis with three social work friends and one professor for the annual Christian Community Development Association conference. Trinity’s social work department sends students to CCDA every year, and this year my professor and a friend presented at the conference. I had heard great things about CCDA over the years and was strongly encouraged by other friends to go, so I decided I had to seize the opportunity for my senior year of college.

I’ll admit, the first evening of the conference was not a happy one for me. I had received some unexpected bad news on Monday night that will make it even more difficult for me to graduate on time. That coupled with the stress of AJ’s impending deployment and being away from him all the time made things really tough for me that night. Sometimes I really do feel as though I am being crushed under my cross and am not sure how much more I can take. As I headed downtown very early in the morning the next day to volunteer for several hours without breakfast or coffee, I was seriously questioning why I had even come (my friends and I chose to volunteer at the conference to save money. I spent a total of about 13.5 hours volunteering in three days. That’s a lot!).

Now before you start to feel sad, I will tell you that things went much better after Thursday morning. Once I really started to spend time exploring the city with friends and hearing amazing speakers talk about their passion for social justice, I was in my element. Being among such a large, diverse group of Christians from all kinds of backgrounds really nourished my spirit. I often feel frustrated or sad about the many divisions between American Christians of different denominations, so it was wonderful to see those barriers transcended this week.

It was so much fun getting to spend time with my classmates and professor outside of Trinity in a more relaxed environment. We all got to know each other better and now share lots of good memories. More than that, I loved having the chance to put my life on hold and do something that makes me happy. Honestly, the demands of AJ’s job on my entire life often cause me to lose my sense of identity. I do find joy in being a wife to AJ, and it is my dream, but being an Army wife consumes a lot of my energy. His responsibilities to the Army seem to almost always come first, so I sometimes forget who I am as just Hannah, not Hannah the Army wife. I love my husband more than anything in this world, but when I’m not able to be with him, it’s refreshing to enjoy other things I’m passionate about. CCDA really nourished my spirit and renewed my sense of who God has created me to be.