Sometimes if you want change, you have to resign yourself to normalcy. It never seems to fail that as soon as you give up on the thing you’ve been striving for, it falls into your lap. I’m not saying that everything works this way, but it often seems to.
Take homeownership, for example. My husband and I are originally from the west coast and have spent the better part of the last four years trying to figure out how to get orders out of North Carolina and back to the west coast. After renting or living on base for those four year,s we had resigned ourselves to what many call “the black hole of the Marine Corps.” It seems that once you get here, you’re stuck here.
Finally we’ve stopped fighting it and gave in. We bought a house, we got chickens, and we spent the better part of most days fixing the house, gardening, remodeling, painting, and building. You name it; we have put our blood, sweat and tears into that house and now we have orders.
Instead of unpacking, I’m repacking. The chickens need new homes and furniture needs to be sold, but we finally got our wish and are heading out west. No matter how much I’d rather not continue living out of boxes, or how much I’m going to miss my chickens, I know that everything happens for a reason. I’ll finally be close enough to home that spending the holidays with family won’t be such a stretch.
There are positives and negatives to almost every aspect of this move, but the key is to hold onto the positives. Every time I look at my brand new countertops and start thinking of how much I’m going to miss my new kitchen and new floors I think about how much fun it is going to be to be close to my family, and let’s face it; Disneyland!
When we bought our house, several months ago, the monitor told my husband that there were plenty of jobs here and that he would have no problem moving to a new unit based out of Camp Lejeune. However, his packet sat on someone’s desk just long enough for the slots to fill. My husband met me as I was walking into work to ask me, “how much of a gypsy do you feel like being?”
It took almost all I had to accept the news calmly. I hadn’t even finished unpacking this house! Yet calmly accept I did, and repack I will, because at the end of the day, home is where the heart is and he is the keeper of my heart. I will find another job that I love just as much, I will continue writing, and I will keep on thriving. The military has a habit of throwing curveballs and I simply need to adjust my swing.
As for this move, I plan to hit the ball out of the park. I’m already searching for my new home, a new job, and I am beginning the networking I’ll need in order to thrive in our new zip code. There are so many opportunities for happiness no matter where the military sends us. We just have to keep our eyes dry long enough to see them. As I resume my packing, I imagine the adventures that await me in our new duty station, and the gypsy in me is satisfied.
