I sit here. I'm at "History on Tap" at Conner Prairie. Watching him, my husband, sing songs that make hearts happy. They build the giddy emotion the swells in the air. I sip a raspberry beer and watch him from my own lonely table. I snap a picture and consider posting it via Instagram. But I don't. I can't. It would make things look too happy, more content than they actually are.
I cried 4 times today and the truest part of me doesn't want to paint the picture rosier than it is in reality. Today we signed our kids up for public school and mourned the reality that we can't afford to keep them in their sweet homeschool-school. I love this place dearly, the teachers love my kids and when Addi lost her guinea pig this year, she tells me, "Mrs Tuttle (Sam's teacher) really understands. She prayed for me." But we have to let that go because we can't afford the tuition, nor can we afford the brazen pre-pubescent attitude our miniature 9 year old is exhibiting these days. I'm approaching a year at East Elementary as if it'll be a year at Military School.
Nevermind the fact that NOT homeschooling works against any travel-music plans we'd like to hatch. Hence the 2nd reason I cried today. He (the one I watch singing) actually made mention of traveling without us. It might have been a short mention and he might have back tracked after we sat down and really talked about it but still he said it and that was enough to bring the tears. We also discussed the fact that we had zero dollars and zero cents in our bank account and our gas light was on and that didn't help things either.
Then I got an email and that was the 3rd time I cried and it was only 1:00. Safe Families is my life and breath right now. It's taking all of me to invest in the families, the children, the host families, outreach to other organizations and churches...and then there's fundraising. If I ever want to be more than a 1 man show here I'm gonna have to raise enough money to hire someone. So when I got an email saying that we had been denied even making the top 3 spots vying for a $10,000 Grant, I obviously cried for the third time.
Even though the success of fundraising is at a low right now, there are bigger successes I see with this work. Successes that could easily be missed by untrained heart and despite this disappointment the work is worth the effort. I have a mom right now who works from 3pm until 11pm 7 days a week. Safe Families keeps her kids on the weekends so she can work overtime. She picks them up at midnight at a 24 hour daycare and takes them home attempting to get 5 kids back to bed at 1 am. She doesn't complain a bit and although these kids have been through trauma in the past they are receiving love and stability with our host families. Their mom calls these families who are helping her get on her feet a "gift from heaven" because she knows that without them she'd have lost her job already. They love the kids AND her and it's making a difference.
A few weeks ago this mom texted me after she got a flat tire on the interstate. It was pouring down rain and an intern and I went to her rescue, picked up the kids and drove them into daycare. The mom wanted to stay with the car until the tow truck came, "he should be here in an hour. I already called him and my friends' getting me after work." I left her in the car, in the rain, on the side of 69 hoping she was right.
Eight hours later she was still there. Her friend didn't answer and the tow truck never made it. I pulled up at 9:30 pm and her ordeal had begun at 1:00. The tow truck finally came at the same time I did.
I can't imagine being stuck on the side of the road for 8 hours. When I get myself in a jam, I have my gracious mom who let's my kids come over anytime our schedules don't match up exactly right, or invites us over to for dinner if our day was too crammed to make anything. I have a husband who would never let me sit on the side of the road alone for 8 hours. The loneliness of some people's lives' makes me sad.
When you look at it this way, it makes it more difficult to judge them for spending too much money on a pair of name brand shoes for their kids, or blowing too much money at McDonald's or Walmart. You'd kind of have to give yourself a break every now and then when you know your never going to get to go on vacation and when you don't have a mom that will invite your family over to eat on a day and you planned poorly.
Which brings me to my next meltdown of the day. My parents house is no longer my parents house. The house we moved into when I was in 7th grade and the house my kids have walked to almost everyday for a push pop or to play in the yard or the sand box for the past 5 years now belongs to someone else. This one isn't going to be easy for us and that's why I cried for the 4th time, but I know I'll cry about that one more than once over this one.
Having them and that house nearby is the only way we were all able to pitch in and help "our" mom with 4 kids when she reached out to me practically out of the blue. Our communal meals were eaten at the table, and over the years we've had countless family BBQ's, birthday parties and the occasional overnights just because.
All I know is that it STINKS to be the one left behind. I'm sure there will be some positive things that come from it on down the road but today it just makes the day that much more bitter.
So posting that picture just feels like a stretch right now.
Jeremy and I are at the end of our fingertips. We have invested heavily in things we believe in; Safe Families, his music, homeschooling our kids, even my Shaklee business is a part of our bigger plan. We have scraped by for over a year but are becoming exhausted and realizing that another year of scraping is going to be too much. God is going to have to show us what's next because today, I'm having a hard time with all the closed doors.
