The Line wife Life – More about Me
Being a line wife is a unique journey. It means navigating unexpected and expected storms- like a sudden 50 mph wind gust or emergency that happened and you partner can’t come home. All while, you are handling a chaotic schedule and managing the home front while your partner works to keep the lights on in a very dangerous environment. It’s a life of pride, but it can also be exhausting, and it’s very, very easy to put yourself on the back burner.
Once building a family was thrown into the mix, it felt all that much more overwhelming. Not only are you responsible for yourself, by yourself, but also for any little humans that come along. It means planning birthday parties only to have them missed, or having family plans go completely awry. It’s anniversaries, birthdays and important moments that you sometimes have to handle alone. However, it is also something that allows us to enjoy those moments that much more when they are uninterrupted and go as planned.
After decades of doing life together as husband and line-wife, there are many things that I have learned.
Finding the Power withing Yourself
You Can do A LOT more alone than you ever thought you could. Especially once I became a mom, it was incredibly empowering to realize my own strength. I learned that I could start the snowblower when there was a 7-foot snow drift and take care of it myself. I could, and did learn how to start the generator, hook it up to the house, and refill the tank. I can continue our life even though he isn’t here, taking care of what would technically be “his jobs” because I simply learned to do them myself.
That self-reliance is a huge part of the motivation behind the title of this blog and website. It’s about learning how to motivate myself, so that I know I can handle everything when he is away. I find that incredibly empowering. If I had someone when we were younger and just starting out to help me see that I could do these things, maybe I would have become accustomed to this lifestyle earlier, knowing the power was within myself.
It also brings me great joy knowing after he has been out for 36 hours, he does not have to come home and move 7-foot snow drifts just to get into the house-no honey, I took care of that! He can just come home and rest before another 16-to-24 hr. shift. It’s an amazing feeling to know we can actually get out of the house even when he is states away. Yes, this realization came with time and age, but better late than never.
Advice for the Journey
I recently attended a wedding for one of my husband’s colleagues, and the other line- girlfriends all had worries and concerns about what comes with these jobs, especially when growing a family. The best advice I could give them was to motivate themselves to keep moving forward. You have to find a balance between not knowing and yet figuring it out.
Don’t stop your life because he is on storm; continue on and learn how to do things. Your life will continue on whether he is there or not. So, instead of worrying about it or dwelling on the fact that, yes, the phone rang from work again, keep going. Learn how to keep your life moving, motivate yourself, learn how to do things you may have never wanted to learn before. Start the lawnmower, the snowblower, the generator. Continue pursuing your passions. Yes, they may be interrupted by little feet and hands, eventually, but keep going. You can find the time and the drive to do it. In time your life will have rhythm even when the phone call does come in.
Starting a blog was a way I could feel like I am able to share part of my story, build a community and share some of the things that I am passionate about. Below are some tools that I like to have on hand to help me stay more organized whether the storms roll in or not.