The Summer Anne Never Worked

I wrote a blog post previously about the notion that people’s circumstances cannot simply be labeled as either a blessing OR a challenge; rather, the circumstances that make up people’s lives include within them BOTH blessings and challenges. Nothing can simply be labeled as one or the other; it’s much more complex and nuanced than that. You can read that full post HERE.

I’ve reflected deeply on this idea as we come to the close of summer. You see, I am currently a single woman with no children. These circumstances, like any other circumstances, certainly come with BOTH their challenges and blessings. I could expand on the diverse ways that I experience both the blessings and the challenges, but I really want to focus on a particular aspect that was highlighted this summer.  

This summer was one of the occasions where I really felt the “blessings” part of my circumstances. I joked to several people that summer 2018 will be forever known as “the summer that Anne never worked.” Or, “the summer that I’m surprised I still have a job.” I say all of this somewhat in jest- I did actually work extremely hard this summer when I was actually at work because I care deeply about grief support- but I did take a LOT of PTO. I just….I had some pretty amazing opportunities come up this summer, and I have a lot of PTO, so….I took a crapload of time off.

Let me list a summary of the past 2.5 months for you:

1)     7 trips to Adventureland (and still more to come!) with numerous friends and family members

2)     Almost a week trip to Memphis, Tennessee with my dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew to visit sister Kristen before she moved to California. We also went to Arkansas and Mississippi while we were down there. 

3)     An extended weekend trip to Yankton, South Dakota to visit one of my best friends (and former graduate school roommate), Holly.

4)     A trip to West Branch, Iowa to check out the Herbert Hoover memorial and also to Iowa City to my sister’s ol’ stomping grounds

5)     4^th of July celebrations with family visiting Des Moines

6)     Boating excursion to Lake Red Rock with some coworker friends

7)     Wedding weekend in Omaha, Nebraska with my best friends from high school, RanDee and Sherrill. As a professional chaplain, I officiated RanDee’s wedding.

8)     An extended weekend getaway in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My college girlfriends and I rented a house on Lake Manawa and had a fabulous time boating, swimming, and drinking plenty of coffee and wine.

9)     A week and a half vacation to celebrate my dad’s 70^th birthday. This vacation was absolutely incredible and took us to South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. I can’t believe how many amazing sights we saw- check out some of my Facebook pictures.

10)  We aren’t entirely sure yet, but there is a possibility that we are going to go visit my brother-in-law in Atlanta, Georgia over Labor Day weekend. He is living there for a couple of months to train for his position with the National Guard.

PHEW. I’ve been in 8 different states so far this summer. I’ve seen friends from high school, college, graduate school, and my current career. I’ve been with every single member of my family (on multiple occasions). And all of this isn’t even counting the “small” social outings I’ve had this summer with bike rides, patio dinners, movies, aerial shows, swimming pools, etc.

It’s been…an amazing summer, and I feel so incredibly blessed. And I know that there is no way that I could have pulled everything off this summer if my life circumstances were different. If I didn’t make a professional wage...if I had small children in my home…if I didn’t invest the time and energy to maintain all of these relationships that are important to me…if I wasn’t blessed to have a job where I have great PTO…etc. If any one of those was different, I would have been able to perhaps do a couple of items on that list, but certainly not all of them, and not with the intensity I had of being fully present for each of them.

And it’s not simply that I was able to do a great NUMBER of things this summer (let’s not value quantity for the sake of numbers.) It’s that I was able to experience the RICHNESS of so many people and places. I loved being able to visit Holly and connect on a level where Holly said that her 1.5 year old son, Garrett, had “made a new lifetime friend.” I loved being the person that stated the lifetime commitment and vows that my best friend and her husband made to each other as I married them. I loved seeing where my father was stationed in Idaho when he was a part of the hot shot firefighting crew 50 years ago. I loved reflecting with my college friends on where life has taken us since we all lived together in college. I can’t tell you how much these experiences mean to me, and how grateful I am that I was able to deeply embrace and share these portentous moments with others.

I wouldn’t have been able to have this number of experiences this summer, or embrace them as deeply, if any of my life circumstances were different. Now, again, I want to reiterate that I’m not saying that there is any type of life circumstances that are “better” or “more blessed” than any other. If, for example, I was presently married with children, I would be experiencing a different TYPE of blessing. And that blessing would still be incredibly rich, and yet not better or worse, than the ones I had this summer.

But I’m not presently married, and I do not have children. And one of the blessings of this present circumstance was that I was able to be fully present with many people that I cared about, and I was able to deeply share in experiencing the sacredness of our lives and time together.

And for that, I do feel #blessed.