A new year rolls in and I have high hopes it is going to be a better year. Anything has to be better than the past three years. John and I have always said “together we can get through anything”, but this last past year we even questioned that. We are each other’s rocks, but at times in 2011 it was if a bulldozer was crushing us into pebbles.
Then towards the end of 2011 we finally got a break. I gained full-time employment. After 430 days of no employment (no unemployment); there was light in all the days of darkness. I have never seen my boys (including John) so happy. Finally the Metzger’s could get back on track.
We had lived through a year of beg, borrow and beg some more. We lived daily with collection calls, water and electric disconnection and countless phone disconnections. After a while it doesn’t even embarrass you anymore when the trash isn’t picked up or the cable/internet people are climbing up the pole to disconnect your services. We learned just to look the other way. Still embarrassed on the inside, but doing our best not to show it on the outside.
For me the hardest thing to deal with is the disappointment on our boys faces, when for the second time, they had no presents under the tree Christmas morning. They had experienced this in 2009 and again in 2011. Each passing year they have either grown very mature or have lost all hope. I like to think its maturity and resilience. They no longer ask for things or expect much. Every now and then they will inquire about something, but even those inquiries have stopped.
John and I promised the boys, after I got my first paycheck, we would give them Christmas. On January 1st we did just that. I took the boys shopping and then we all went out to dinner. My boys were extremely grateful for every moment of it; which in some ways makes me even sadder they even had to endure it.
Four days later on January 5th (three days before my 44th Birthday), I lost my job and once again the Metzger’s light of hope was shut off. The pebbles, John and I were left with have now become Sand. I struggle with the sand grinding down so far that all I am left with is dust. So I retreated and decided to take down everything social (website, facebook, twitter). Talking about embarrassment, for me it couldn’t get any worse. Celebrating my 44th birthday became “how could I hide from the world”.
This time job loss seems different than in prior years. I am not sure if it is complete numbness or complete trust. Sounds crazy I know. I just don’t feel as scared as I have been in the past. Part of me says, if we got through 2011, we can get through anything. We still have our home, for now. Most of all we still have each other. The other part of me says, “It’s time to fully trust in God”.
Even though I feel different this time, the ‘trusting in God’ is a hard one to sell (for lack of a better word) to my boys. They keep questioning where God is in all of this. My boys keep asking what have we done so wrong. I even see John questioning it all. I see him filled with anxiousness, worry, and doubt. I see his pebbles becoming sand and it worries me too.
Every day I am thankful for my husband and my boys. Every day I thank God I was given such beautiful gifts. I cry and ache for the disappointment I have caused them all. I struggle with the defeat of, once again, losing a job and not being able to provide. But I am getting to old and I have been through way too much to let all this defeat and disappointment get to me anymore. Our lives are different now. I don’t see us ever going back to the way things where. How could we? Why would we want too?
Our family is so much stronger than I could have ever anticipated we could be. We have weathered many storms and in some ways have prepared ourselves for others. We are survivors and dreamers. We are lovers and believers. And sometimes, like now, we are carpenters and electricians. We are learning to rebuild and rewire so that we can be stronger and shine brighter. And if we have to become ‘sand’ in the process, so be it. Sand is what keeps us from sliding in an ice storm. Sand is what is used to cement our foundation. If sand is what John and I need to be for our family right now, then sand is what we will be.
Luv, Luv,
Julie
