betwixt & between

I slept in my own bed.  In my own home.  With my husband. last night for the first time in almost a year.  It was pretty great.  A little bit sad/crazy-making knowing I can't do this on a regular basis for another 3+ months but wonderful nonetheless. 

We subleased our DC condo throughout the deployment.  I had moved out in July (no words for how sad/emotional/weird that was). Last night we got to start moving back in.  Kind of.

Right now I'm sitting @ our favorite Starbucks across from this guy.

Philip is rocking his "crazy veteran" look today.  It's the I'm-on-leave facial hair.  *shaking my head*  I love him.  I really do.

We're in this really bizarre inbetween place.  We're both kind of somewhat displaced people without a country.  Especially now that we've got one foot back in DC.  We're doing weird back and forth stuff.  Philip just spent the last week on leave in CO w/ his fam.  He'll spend a bit more time in NJ over the next couple of weeks.  Then be working at the Pentagon for a few weeks in May.  Then gone for the summer @ training in TX.  And then finally.  FINALLY. FINALLY. After 15 life-altering/world-changing/painstaking months of chaos, we can both really "come home" in August.  Seriously, I can not tell you how much good this is going to do my mental/emotional/physical state.  Or how painfully far away it still seems in some moments.  But I keep telling myself that we've made it through the hardest stretches.  And, by all accounts, time generally feels like it is moving along at a pretty good clip.

In the mean time, we're trying to maximize time despite distance/choppiness/back-and-forthness.

Our recent adventures have included but have not been limited to the following:

* a wonderful Sunday afternoon date in Philly last weekend

We've done enough traveling that we really don't get into touristy stuff. At all.  It's more about enjoying being together in a new enviornment.  But seeing the Liberty Bell certainly was meaningful and thinking about the time and the space in which the Declaration of Independence --- the fundamentals of what men and women are still dying for right now--- took center stage is a pretty powerful thing.

LIFE. LIBERTY. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

Though I'm pretty sure we're the only people who go to Philadelphia and ask this question when planning their trip "Where is the closest Chipotle to the historic district?" not "Where is the best cheesesteak?"

We could have eaten at this nice little kabob house, but that would have interfered with our trying to have a Kabul-free 12 months. . .

* a not-so-awesome adventure (which by definition "are never fun when you are having them") was the time we *attempted* to drive down to DC from Princeton on a Wednesday night when I was done w/ work b/c Philip had to back be at the Pentagon for work on Thursday am.  The plan was that we'd leave NJ @ 5, fight traffic, arrive in DC at 9, and I'd drive back up at 3 am Thursday and then return to DC to pick Philip up Friday (being a 1 car family working in 2 different states is awesome!!!).  Yeahhh. . . notsomuch.  The car may or may not have died approx. 48 miles into the trip down to DC.  Thankfully and miraculously the car made it back to our mechanic in Princeton.  We got there JUST as they were closing and were able to take it to fix in the am.  We called friends from small group --- one family has said "use our car as much as you need while Philip is around!"  so we took them up on that offer and then called other friends to bring us from the mechanic to the car we were borrowing.   By the time we would have been arriving in DC, we made it back to the NJ apt.  Ugh. The next morning I brought Philip to the train station at 4 am to head down to DC and show up at the Pentagon for work in the morning.  Friday I left work, drove to DC, picked Philip up, and after what had been a really challenging 48 hours, we headed back to NJ.  It was kind of like reintegration stress on steroids.  Hashtag cortisoloveroad.  For real.  But certainly another "wow-remember-when-[insert w/ example of crazy stress]-I-can't-believe-we-survived-slash-praise-the-Lord-that-is-over" memory to catalog in the L family Chronicles.

But seriously, I get to see my husband on weekends.  He is safe.  He's Cross Fittting like a crazy person to keep sane. We're rapidly approaching the finish line.  We get to see family in a few weeks.  We see God's hand in very obvious ways on a daily basis - even on the darkest of days.  I am so incredibly grateful.  And overwhelmingly blessed.