Villages

I had an a-hah moment yesterday. I have a cousin how is about 8 years younger than me, who just gave birth to her first baby. She and her husband have been married about a year and a half. I think I mentioned them before. Neither is highly educated or trained and consequently both work(ed) very entry level, low pay jobs.

Despite this, they recently purchased a house. (my understanding is that their parents helped...must be nice) And went ahead and had a baby.

Now, from my point of view...I was quite a bit older, (one would hope wiser), had been married longer, and was far more educated when I had my baby last year. And I remember being so overwhelmed, as I'm sure most parents are. I was musing on this the other night and mentioned it to Mr. Random - kind of an off-the-cuff remark...do you think Cousin is so overwhelmed right now?

And he said no.

No!? No. Of course not, and if she is, she has her parents, her sisters, her brothers, her husband's parents, and her husband's sisters all within about 15-20 minutes of her house.  So if she is feeling overwhelmed, she can call on any of them for help.

Oh.

And it just became so clear why Mr. Random and I have been struggling soooo much. We gave up our Village. And we didn't find a new one. We're totally on our own down here. We have a few friends who we can call if we need something, who might be able to help us. But we have no family. And no one that we can call that we'd know, even at 3am, would pick up, rush over, and help us out. No one. And that's hard.

It is what it is, and I don't regret moving so far from family for the most part. But it was just a nice, Oh! moment to realize that things ARE hard for us. And there's a very simple reason. And it's not that we're inadequate. Or stupid. Or somehow less than we ought to be. In fact, given the circumstances, we're probably doing reasonably well.

It's bittersweet, to be sure. But I'm just so glad to realize that I'm not less.