In Episode #79, I’m sharing my tips with ways to love the ones your stuck with right now. It’s a crazy time to navigate, but if we can all share tips along the way, it will be easier as we go. We were the family that always had people with us. Our kids were raised in this tribe of friends that were like family. Our house was where everyone came to eat. If someone didn’t come over, my kids wondered what was wrong. We didn’t vacation alone. We didn’t truly do anything alone as a family. We were flooded in one time for three days and thought we were going to lose our minds because we were so accustomed to having friends around. Up until then, we had always thought it would be so cool to own a private island. It seemed so romantic and adventurous. Until we were trapped on our own island of sorts without people being able to reach us. The actual conversation my husband had at that point was “Babe, I was wrong. I don’t want to live on an island. I love my family, but I need my friends.” Many of you find yourself on what feels like an island right now. You’re stuck with your spouse and kids only and you have no idea how you all are going to survive. I get it. That was us too up until the last few years. Through some life events and growing pains, we found ourselves choosing to spend most of our time with our immediate family. At first it was hard, I’m not going to lie. Our kids were 8 and 11 and they had only known a life of being surrounded by people. The first time we went on our boat, just the four of us they were completely confused. I’m not sure that they knew we could take the boat out without anyone else. They asked daily who was coming over and why it was just us. It felt lonely and isolated. My husband and I loved each other and enjoyed each other’s company, but we didn’t know how to be alone together. We had always had distractions in our marriage. We had people around. If we were irritated with one another, we had a friend we could vent to. If we wanted to avoid one another, we had friends we could escape to. In the beginning, it was easy to turn on one another. We would let the loneliness push us to the edge where we snapped at one another and snapped at the kids. HOW TO LOVE THE ONES YOUR STUCK WITH UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A NEW SITUATION FOR EVERYONE When the kids asked who was coming over, we would be irritated and tell them that they didn’t have to always have people around. However, we had to understand that we had created this situation. They were accustomed to being raised in a village. We had never taught them how to be content with one another and only our family because had always had distractions. EXTEND GRACE TO ONE ANOTHER • As we began to enjoy time with just our family, we deiced it was a great time to buy a motorhome and take off for a 12 day journey. We had dreamt of owning a motorhome for ten years and were so excited about this adventure. Within the first four hours of the trip, I was regretting the purchase and wondering if it was too soon to late to back out. While we had gotten used to spending more family time together, we were not accustomed to being so together in such closed quarters. The kids were constantly wrestling, fighting, or asking for something. My husband needed me to help him with navigation, and needed things from me. I needed peace and quiet to get work done. At the end of day 2, we were all ready to murder each other. This was when it hit me that we had never really spent that much uninterrupted time together. So, we had to have a family conversation that looked like, Dad apologizing for having a short temper. Mom apologizing for losing her mind and cursing. And, the kids apologizing for being a-holes.... yeah, that was an actual conversation....