This is going to be a really sporadic post. I’ve been doing a lot of wrting, but I’ve been selective about what makes it on the blog. I felt like it was finally time for a life update.
Life has been crazy. Aside number one: I just turned on Toy Story, and I love watching her react to the show. She says, “Aah” when she sees a baby or when Andy hugs Woody. She’s concerned when Andy goes spinning with Woody on the chair. I just love watching her react.
Back to crazy life. My godmother Cookie entered hospice a two weeks ago after losing her battle with round two of breast cancer. (That picture is one of the last *good* pics I took of her…she’s with Emma during a visit in June of 2011.) I spent just about 10 days in St. Louis with Emma. We made it to my Aunt Norine’s funeral, Emma got time with aunts, cousins, and grandparents, and I got to see Cookie alert. Each visit, though, she lost a little bit of that alertness and more and more confusion set in as the cancer took more control of her body. I expected to go home for her funeral, and while that didn’t happen, my expensive visit meant that I won’t be home for her actual funeral. Everyone kept telling me spending some of her last days with her would be more important than coming to the funeral. Despite her confusion, she asked my mom if I had made it home safely. That made it worth it; she knew I was there to see her through some of her darkest times. I just hope she’s not alone when she finally passes.
Now that I am home, reality is starting to set back in. There are numerous stresses looming over my head. The big one is the move. I know we’ve been told we are going to DC but until Mark gets those official orders, part of me remains unsure about our fate. This will be our third PSC. We knew SUPER early on our first one that we were moving to DC. Last move, we had thought we were going to Albuquerque until Mark got orders that we were coming here. I had been accepted into a Ph.d program at UNM, and I had to decline my spot. Now, we’re waiting again. Only this time, I have a job I want to confirm I have and tell people I have, and I want to get a house and things set up for this baby. I need to find Emma a daycare/school (but I can’t do that until we find a house). Once Mark gets orders, we have to get them changed so that we can move around April 1. My mom can’t order her plane ticket to help with the move until we know when we’re moving. It’s just a logistical nightmare, and we’re waiting to get the litany of things that happen set in motion.
All of this has made me super stressed and crabby. Throw on finishing a master’s degree and doing work for my new job before I get there…and a crabby two-year-old that I need to potty train…and life is just plain overwhelming.
I know there are people that LOVE this military life; I am not one of them. I LOVE my husband. Even on days we fight and take out the looming stress on each other. I can’t imagine life without my best friend by my side, so I deal. I hate that my fate is tied to some assignments guy who is working on Randolph that cares nothing about me and who, let’s be honest, cares very little probably about my husband. We are simply items on a checklist for him, and I am waiting everyday hoping he checks u off his list, knowing that check creates my fate for the next two, four, or seven years.
Military life can be hard for a control freak like me that doesn’t make friends easily. I want so badly to be done with this part of our life, but a part of me fears that when we move back to St. Louis we’ll have been gone too long, our friends will be used to life there without us, and I’ll experience the same social loneliness I experience now.
One of my goals for the next move is to work on finding friends…in DC, I have people I think I can pick back up with (hopefully), but I’ve realized military life is really challenging with you don’t have a psuedo-family. Hopefully me working means we’ll be able to do things as a family, and we won’t feel so stuck financially.
So, here I wait. I wait for our life to be completed by some stranger so we can move on. I hope that the plane tickets we bought to house hunt in DC weren’t bought in vain. I hope the logistical nightmare that will be taking place once those official orders come goes smoothly…that we can get orders dates changed quickly, that we find a house, that I have good work meetings and can announce my new job, that we find Emma a great pre- pre-school, that everything with Baby #2 keeps going well, and that I don’t lose my sanity waiting.
