I woke up abruptly in the wee hours of the morning today, inspired by an instinct to record the thoughts that were racing through my mind. My husband who is active duty in the Navy is somewhere out at sea at the moment and is scheduled to be gone for the majority of this year. I guess my subconscious is still trying to wrap itself around this fact and somewhere a voice from deep inside woke me up to share this.

The message has to do with living in the moment and never wishing away time. It is so important to be present always no matter what situation one is in because there are always valuable lessons to be learned and exceptional beauty in every moment. It is so easy to fall into the habit of living for an endpoint in a distant future whether it be the day your baby is born after a long and difficult pregnancy, the day you will find a job after the tough times of being unemployed or the day you will finally be pulling back onto base to search the horizon for the approach of the warship with your husband. But there are many sweet memories and moments to cherish from these simpler spaces in between that may prove to be vital learning points for the times ahead that we must make sure we do not miss. Because it is the times we look forward to so much when the time flies by the fastest and the wisdom we have learned from the challenges of our lives guides the crucial decisions we must make. And we could easily miss those lessons if we focus too hard on the end instead of the means.

I think this time apart is actually a wonderful gift if we use it wisely. It gives us the space to take a step back and reevaluate what is really important to us and what path we should fight for that will ultimately lead us and our families that exist now and in the future to the best places for ourselves. For when he returns, all will be a whirlwind of bliss and it could be very easy to be swept away in the wrong direction on a wave of emotion. I hope that he will find comfort in this and that it will make his time away meaningful. I hope that he will write down any thoughts and realizations he has while experiencing the clarity of being out at sea with nothing on the horizon to distract but the blows of whales and the occasional turtle that swims by. We are on our open ocean now with nothing to focus on but our thoughts and feelings so let’s make sure we notice and record them for future reference.

I promised myself that a long time ago and still look to old journals from my times traveling everywhere from France at fifteen to the Maldives as I was missing him from a tiny speck of dead coral on the other side of the world. When everything gets overwhelming here and I can’t even connect with my instinct because it is being drowned out by the noise of chaos, those glimpses of wisdom and realizations generously given by spirits of relatives past are the only true advice I know I have to guide me forward to the place I am supposed to go. No living soul could ever possess the wisdom of the ancient places and natural beauty of the world we have been lucky enough to witness. And sometimes the biggest truths about ourselves can be learned from a creature as pure and simple as a sea turtle that has weathered the beatings of the open ocean but still presses on to get back to the beach they can only find by following their instinct.

The job of my husband is to navigate the ship safely through the waters and I can’t help but think of how important it is for him to look for certain markers to be his guide. I want to commit myself to using this time apart to be aware of the wisdom we are being shown and record it to use as the markers for ourselves and our unborn children to steer us through the ocean of our own lives.