Learning to cope with the uncertainty inherent in being part of a blended family has prepared me to handle uncertainty in every other aspect of my life, too.
In just a few weeks, I will have my last “first day of law school,” and in December, I will graduate, officially becoming Megan Eldredge, JD. After that, I will hunker down for the rest of December, January, and February, and sit for the bar exam on my twins’ first birthday. And after that… well, after that, I have no idea. And that terrifies me. A lot.
I knew from the moment I began law school that this was not just a fun personal goal I was chasing. Knowing that I have five little kids depending on me stresses me out more than I can describe, and I fear no one will completely understand unless they’ve walked a similar path. I told myself starting on day one that I had mouths to feed and debts and bills to pay, and failing was not an option. This mantra, even if it just added to my stress, has dragged me through even the toughest of days, the days when I honestly wondered if law school would ever end.
But now, the end is in sight — very clearly, in fact. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’ve realized the tunnel just empties out into a vast unknown, and what am I supposed to do with that?
I sat down last week with all of my kid’s school schedules, like I always do right before another school year. My daughter and my two stepkids go to school in two different counties, so they each have different starting dates, different holidays, different end dates, etc. Add in my school schedule, which is also completely different from any of the others, and it quickly becomes like a game of Jenga straight from hell. I normally have to carefully craft both my school schedule and Kevin’s work availability around it all, but sometimes, my schedule cannot be flexible, either. I try and sit down at the beginning of the year and add everything I can to my calendar, so that there are no surprises and I can line up help when we need it.
But this time, I got to March of next year and there was just… nothing. I can’t plan out any spring breaks, I don’t know how we’re going to get the kids to and from school, I don’t know when or if my husband will be working, all because I don’t know where I will be working. The questions about my future sometimes keep me up at night.
Will I work from home? Will I have to go into an office? Commute to a nearby city? Will my hours be 9-5? Or 7-3? Or something else? How much money will I be making? Will I make enough to pay our bills? Will I make enough that we can afford a family vacation next year, or am I going to just want to focus on saving for awhile?
If I’m not careful, these questions will swallow me whole. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever faced this much uncertainty in my life, and the fact that the possibilities are endless is stressful, not comforting.
But then I remember that every single time I’ve faced uncertainty in the past, even if it was to a lesser degree, things have worked out. Every. Single. Time.
For example, two years ago, my husband and I were at somewhat of a crossroads. I was only a semester into law school, and it was proving to be way harder than I thought it would be, both on me and our relationship (and our kids). I don’t think Kevin or I really knew what we were getting ourselves into. We had gotten engaged in September, and were really excited to get married, but that didn’t erase how difficult our situation was. For starters, getting married after divorce can bring up a lot of emotional wounds that would otherwise lay dormant. Then there’s the added complication of trying to figure out how to blend families and adapt to new stepparenting roles. When you add in law school on top of that, well, it’s not hard to understand how that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Things got easier once we accepted that we didn’t have all the answers, and we would just have to figure things out along the way. People change and grow over time, and it would be up to us to learn how to take those changes in stride, while still prioritizing our marriage and our family. Any parent knows that right as you “figure out” how to parent a certain age, they grow up and you’re on to new challenges and adventures! So it would be impossible to get a clear, permanent picture of what the rest of our lives would look like as a blended family before even saying, “I do.”
Our motto during that phase of life became “one day at a time.” Anytime a new problem popped up that we didn’t have an immediate solution to, or questions arose for which we had no answers, we would remind ourselves and each other that all we were responsible for was for taking things one day at a time. It’s impossible to change the past, and nobody can predict the future; instead, it’s crucial to lean into and embrace the present. That’s all any of us have control over anyways, our own actions in any given moment.
There’s a famous quote from a cinematic masterpiece that goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” And it’s so true.
Our motto became a lifeline during a hectic transitionary time in our lives, so much so that Kevin actually got it tattooed on his forearm, in my handwriting. Now any time either of us sees it, it serves as a reminder of both the uncertainty we have already survived, and how we’ll make it through any uncertainty in the future: together.
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Step by Step Parenting 