Practicing Comfortable Uncomfortableness
Twenty Years, Countless Detours, and a Journey We Never Could Have Planned
June 24, 2006.
Twenty years ago today, two young people stood in front of family and friends and promised to build a life together.
Like most couples, we had plans.
Like most couples, we had dreams.
And like most couples, we had absolutely no idea what was coming.
One of our first dates wasn’t a fancy dinner or a weekend getaway. It was a phone call that lasted deep into the night and into the next morning after one of Tabby’s brain surgeries.
Even then, hospitals and doctors were already part of our story.
We just didn’t realize how much of our future would be spent learning medical terminology, meeting specialists, sitting in waiting rooms, and trying to understand words we never expected to know.
A few years later, we got married.
Then came Skyler.
Then came Bella.
Then came all the adventures that happen when you’re trying to build a family, pay bills, make memories, and somehow figure out adulthood along the way.
There were road trips.
There were side quests.
There were victories.
There were setbacks.
There were moments when we thought we had everything figured out.
And moments when we realized we didn’t have a clue.
Somewhere along the way, we became experts in things we never intended to study.
Doctors.
Hospitals.
Therapists.
IEPs.
School advocacy.
Insurance.
Special education.
Emergency rooms.
Recovery.
Resilience.
If someone had handed that young couple a preview of the next twenty years, I don’t know if we would have believed it.
I certainly wouldn’t have believed that I would someday spend hundreds of miles each week driving interstate highways between home, hospitals, appointments, and meetings.
I wouldn’t have believed that our daughter would teach us lessons about determination that most adults never learn.
I wouldn’t have believed that our son would grow into the young man he has become.
And I definitely wouldn’t have believed where we would find ourselves over the last year.
This past year has been rough on us as a couple.
There is no other way to say it.
One year ago, on our anniversary, I sat in a hospital and agreed to put my wife into a medically induced coma so her body could rest and have a chance to heal.
Not exactly the anniversary plans we had envisioned twenty years earlier.
The road since then has been difficult.
There have been moments of fear.
Moments of uncertainty.
Moments where tomorrow seemed impossible to see.
But there have also been moments of hope.
Just two days ago, I was reminded of something important.
Her brain is still sharp.
Her heart is still there.
Her caring spirit is still there.
The same person who has spent decades loving her family, helping others, and fighting through challenge after challenge is still there.
I know she’s a fighter.
I don’t have to look any farther than Bella to see that.
The lessons that have been passed down are impossible to miss.
The determination.
The grit.
The refusal to quit.
The ability to keep moving forward even when life gets hard.
Those things didn’t appear out of nowhere.
They were taught.
They were modeled.
They were lived.
Today, though, I find myself thinking about that young couple twenty years ago.
The couple talking on the phone after brain surgery.
The couple trying to figure life out.
The couple that thought they knew where the road was heading.
They never would have guessed this is where they would be twenty years later.
Then again, maybe that’s the point.
Life isn’t about perfectly following the map.
It’s about learning to navigate the unexpected turns.
It’s about adapting.
It’s about growing.
It’s about continuing forward when the route changes.
And if there is one lesson I have learned from twenty years of marriage, parenthood, advocacy, hospitals, side quests, victories, setbacks, and everything in between, it’s this:
Growth rarely happens in comfort.
The best things in our lives came after we stepped into uncertainty.
The strongest moments were born from challenge.
The greatest lessons came from situations we never would have chosen.
Twenty years later, we’re still learning.
Still adapting.
Still growing.
Still taking the next step.
Still practicing comfortable uncomfortableness.
And somehow, despite everything, that’s exactly where we’re supposed to be.