For All the Marbles

When Robert deployed, I immediately started counting down the days until he will be back home. Everyone said time would fly by. Everyone was wrong. That time that’s supposed to be flying is apparently stuck on a tarmac somewhere; it’s been replaced by seconds that tick by at a snail’s pace and hours that stretch out before me like a road I’ll never get down.

To help with passing the time, my niece and nephew (with some help from my awesome sister!) gave me a jar of marbles, the number of which matches the number of days he’s scheduled to be gone. Every night, I take a marble out and when the jar’s empty, he’ll be home. And as much as I’m a “glass half full” kind of girl, I’m excited for a glass completely empty!

Since I believe everything happens for a reason, it's no coincidence that the jar was filled with marbles as opposed to something else (like chocolates or pennies). I hear the phrase "it's for all the marbles" from time to time; it means that you believe in your choice so strongly that, no matter what, you're willing to stand by it for the long haul. You're willing to do anything, risk everything, and hold back nothing, in support of your choice. You wouldn't trade it for anything, and nothing in the whole wide world could make you change your mind about it.

My bedside jar of marbles shows me daily that our marriage is bigger than the momentary trials and challenges that will come with a deployment during our newlywed year. The marbles remind me that there's a very long Happily Ever After waiting on the other side of this temporary deployment. They are an unspoken promise that love and committment are stronger than the distance and the time. They are an encouragement that this too shall pass. They are the markers of time that tell me that day after day, we can do this and it's going to be all right. I guess you could say the marbles are keeping me from losing my marbles. :)