The Restart

There are several things that I was not mentally prepared for before moving to Alaska.

I didn't think about how difficult it was going to be to get all of my stuff here from Texas.
I didn't think about (or refused to believe) how much more everything cost up here. (It's scary.)
I didn't think about how frequently I was going to have to drive 47 minutes into town--each way, on a highway through Alaskan wilderness--just to get basic household supplies.
I didn't think about how often I would drive those 94 minutes just to discover that the two whole stores in town would not have what I needed.
I didn't think about how all of the fun outdoor tourist-y things would close in September. And then not open again until May.
I didn't think about how I might move from a single family home on an acre and a half with a fishing pond into a townhouse with a teeny backyard on a military installation.
I could have never fathomed in a million years that my children would be attending a school that does not have a cafeteria. (A cafeteria, y'all!!!)

I didn't even think about little things--like how much more it would rain here.
Or how slow my Internet would be.
Or what I'd do for dinner if I forgot to turn on the crockpot and everything around me closed at 7 pm.

And I most definitely didn't think about how the place I had dreamed about going for so long would be such an instantaneous struggle.

I didn't have any reservations when we first learned we were moving here about how I would like it. I knew it would be beautiful. I never for one moment thought it would be hard. Cold, but not hard.
I was excited. My family was excited. My friends were excited. My church was excited. I'm pretty sure that complete strangers were excited.
Alaska is a dream destination, and people really seemed to rally around it.

I moved with a bunch of enthusiasm and good vibes. I explored new things with fresh eyes. People were responsive and supportive. Everything felt full of promise.
Sure, there were some hard bits when we first arrived here, but I was being powered by the newness of it all. I could endure the first hiccups, power through the first challenges, and make the first hard choices because I was running on the momentum from the launch.

But eventually, as it always does, the newness wore off and the rallying went away. The hiccups kept coming. The challenges kept stacking up. Hard choices started to look an awful lot like bad options.
And I still had to live here.


Last week is the first time that I cried about living in Alaska--not about my stuff, or because I was feeling lonely, or because I was mad that my kids don't have a cafeteria in their school and I can't remember how to plug in a crockpot. I cried about having to live in my dream destination after it stopped being dreamy.

I realized I had two options here:
1. Be miserable
2. Start over

(Guess which one I choose.)

One thing that I have come to expect in this particular lifestyle is that--even with the really good things--there will always be a need to restart.
Military homecomings are followed by reintegration periods.
Promotions often come with a relocation.
Block leave leads to another training cycle.
"Dwell time" is followed by another deployment.

Newness is the thing that's often celebrated in our culture. But hardly anything lasting is accomplished during the initial launch.
Almost all of life's successes are achieved in the long game.
You win because you keep choosing to restart.

Persistence, man. That's the less-shiny stuff.
That's the stuff that's done in secret, without the excitement or rallying or momentum.

It's the stuff that's hard to recruit cheerleaders for because it looks like driving for 94 minutes for a toilet bowl cleaner, or completing your morning run in the rain (again), or figuring out how to feed your family after 7 pm if you accidentally ruin dinner.
It's the stuff that keeps you doing the workouts even after you skip a day. Or five.
It's the stuff that keeps you attending the new church even though you feel invisible in it.
It's the stuff that keeps you looking for your people even though you feel lonely.
It's the stuff that keeps you looking for your place even though you feel lost.

It's the stuff that keeps you fighting to love something even after it stops looking dreamy.

(Bonus points for Alaska. It is really good at looking dreamy.)

(Just remember, schools don't even have cafeterias here.)

I don't know what it is, friend.
Job? Fitness? Education? Faith? Service? Relationship?
You started out shiny and full of momentum, and then everything just kind of...stalls. The shine wears off. The people rallying for you seem to have gone silent.

Restart anyway.
It probably won't look glamorous, and that's okay.
You know what things look like after they're done looking dreamy?
They look real.

And that real world--that's where we get out of our head space and get the good stuff done.

We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized.
(Hebrews 6:11)

(Here's to all the restarts. May everything you hope for be fully realized!)