Go With What You Know
"A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn." ~Author Unknown
The air conditioner stopped working last night. At precisely 8:45pm I noticed that the house wasn't cooling down like it should have been, that is when I made the discovery. The thermostat was set on 78 degrees but the temperature in the house was 81 degrees and climbing. Houston, we have a problem.
I should mention that military husband is away for temporary duty. He flew out early on Tuesday before an impending tropical storm could hit our area. The fact that I never questioned him leaving at such a potentially crazy time says a lot about knowing that being a military service member means you serve all the time. The tragic part is that I never even put up a good argument for him staying. I've had to weather a lot of storms on my own, and to no fault of my husbands, I've gotten used to it.
The storm took a turn to the East and we were spared. The air conditioner on the other hand was something I wasn't prepared for. As I stood in the hallway, one hand on my hip, staring incredulously at the failing system, I felt like panicking. It is August in Florida, for goodness sakes, beyond a hurricane hitting this is the worst thing that could happen.
I have learned that it is times likes these that you dig deep within and go with what you know. You run on instinct and use all that you have experienced to get through the chaos. I searched my mental data base for air conditioner experience and found that I had little. I turned the system off, turned all the fans in the sleeping children's rooms on high and sat down to think.
When we bought our first home in 1993 the air conditioner broke the first four weeks of us living there. I acutely remember the bill being over $1,000. Just the thought of the repair bill made me want to panic more. All of my other experiences have been with military housing. When things break, you call the maintenance hotline and then wait. Good, bad or ugly, that system was easy. When we lived in South Korea we had window units that needed to be finessed. If you turned the nob to the wrong place it would fall off. If you didn't keep the filters clean it would freeze up. We had a second floor apartment and cool was a relative term as the heat rose from the apartment below. In Germany we didn't have air conditioning at all. In the warm summer days I had to learn to wake up before dawn to open windows and air the house out. If the wind was blowing the right way, the freshly manured fields of the farms nearby would lend a special smell to the air. Regardless, I had a few hours to capture the cooler night air before I had to pull the aluminum roller shades down to ward off the beating sun of the day. It was like hoisting the sails toward the wind, if I did it just right, I could control the air in the house like a good air conditioner would have done.
With that memory I opened the upstairs windows and allowed in a cooler breeze than the 82+ degrees that were inside my house. With a cross breeze from the patio and the help of fans I made it through the night without kids waking up drenched in sweat.
In the past 17 years I have thrown my hands up at each challenge that has come my way and wondered why it was given to me. Why the broken air conditioner in the 90's, the temperamental window units. or the no air home in Germany? Last night it all came full circle. Those moments and so many more, make up my tool box. When things happen that are unexpected, I have a lot of experience to carry me through. It has been a rich military life with lots of bends in the road. Those bends have turned into minor bumps as I continue to navigate my days. Much of the confidence and wherewithal that I have today I owe to the life I have lived. Those experiences and so many more have served me well.
The air conditioner stopped working last night. At precisely 8:45pm I noticed that the house wasn't cooling down like it should have been, that is when I made the discovery. The thermostat was set on 78 degrees but the temperature in the house was 81 degrees and climbing. Houston, we have a problem.
I should mention that military husband is away for temporary duty. He flew out early on Tuesday before an impending tropical storm could hit our area. The fact that I never questioned him leaving at such a potentially crazy time says a lot about knowing that being a military service member means you serve all the time. The tragic part is that I never even put up a good argument for him staying. I've had to weather a lot of storms on my own, and to no fault of my husbands, I've gotten used to it.
The storm took a turn to the East and we were spared. The air conditioner on the other hand was something I wasn't prepared for. As I stood in the hallway, one hand on my hip, staring incredulously at the failing system, I felt like panicking. It is August in Florida, for goodness sakes, beyond a hurricane hitting this is the worst thing that could happen.
I have learned that it is times likes these that you dig deep within and go with what you know. You run on instinct and use all that you have experienced to get through the chaos. I searched my mental data base for air conditioner experience and found that I had little. I turned the system off, turned all the fans in the sleeping children's rooms on high and sat down to think.
When we bought our first home in 1993 the air conditioner broke the first four weeks of us living there. I acutely remember the bill being over $1,000. Just the thought of the repair bill made me want to panic more. All of my other experiences have been with military housing. When things break, you call the maintenance hotline and then wait. Good, bad or ugly, that system was easy. When we lived in South Korea we had window units that needed to be finessed. If you turned the nob to the wrong place it would fall off. If you didn't keep the filters clean it would freeze up. We had a second floor apartment and cool was a relative term as the heat rose from the apartment below. In Germany we didn't have air conditioning at all. In the warm summer days I had to learn to wake up before dawn to open windows and air the house out. If the wind was blowing the right way, the freshly manured fields of the farms nearby would lend a special smell to the air. Regardless, I had a few hours to capture the cooler night air before I had to pull the aluminum roller shades down to ward off the beating sun of the day. It was like hoisting the sails toward the wind, if I did it just right, I could control the air in the house like a good air conditioner would have done.
With that memory I opened the upstairs windows and allowed in a cooler breeze than the 82+ degrees that were inside my house. With a cross breeze from the patio and the help of fans I made it through the night without kids waking up drenched in sweat.
In the past 17 years I have thrown my hands up at each challenge that has come my way and wondered why it was given to me. Why the broken air conditioner in the 90's, the temperamental window units. or the no air home in Germany? Last night it all came full circle. Those moments and so many more, make up my tool box. When things happen that are unexpected, I have a lot of experience to carry me through. It has been a rich military life with lots of bends in the road. Those bends have turned into minor bumps as I continue to navigate my days. Much of the confidence and wherewithal that I have today I owe to the life I have lived. Those experiences and so many more have served me well.
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