Making room

This might be one of those posts that gets a little "out there" for some of you.  Head's up.

I was thinking the other day about "making room" for your partner in your life, and the challenges that sometimes presents.

I started thinking about it in the "real" sense.  I have a queen size bed.  I had gotten in the habit of leaving books, magazines, and my laptop on the "other" side of the bed, instead of keeping it clean.  And I admit there are some things piled on the floor on the "other" side of the bed as well.

With S back in country, I have a little more incentive to clean that "other" side of the bed, although the realities of our lives make it much more convinenet for me to go see him than for him to come see me. (And seriously, that is MY opinion, no sour grapes.)  I am not keeping it clean in the expectation that he will drop in with no notice.  I am keeping it clean as a symbol, so that my mind realizes that there needs to be room in my life for another person.

While I was making a concerted effort to keep the "other" side of the bed, and the floor, clean, I wondered if the Feng Shui principles would apply here - are you more likely to have someone in your life if you make the room for them to be there?

Which raised an interesting paradox when it comes to the MilSpouse life, especially for a number of friends who are also going through re-integration right now.

While our loved one is away (or for the one away) there is a need to fill the "empty spaces" with other activities, friends, etc (hopefully not other partners, although that does unfortunately also happen.).  You don't want to have the constant gaps, the constant reminders that your loved one is not there.  So you fill up the time, you fill up the empty spaces in the closets, the front hall, etc.

And then they (you) come back.  And the spaces where they fit have been filled with other things.  You need to re-create those spaces, both in a literal and figurative sense, so that they can fill them again for you.  The spaces in the bed, and in the closet; the spaces in your schedule, and the spaces in your mind and heart, the spaces you have filled so the ache doesn't hurt quite as bad.

Some of these gaps can be filled with other forms of contact from your loved ones; for us, real phone calls, FaceTime, and texts have replaced MSN and Skype, to a large degree.  But I think we have to conciously think about creating those gaps, and allowing our loved ones to fill them in the manner that works for them, instead of us deciding where they will fit.

So I am conciously purging right now.  Cleaning my closets, and leaving spaces empty, so there is room for "new".  Purging some habits, and my schedule, so there is room for S to fit into my life more actively.  Not changing who I am, but growing by shrinking a bit.