Change

Change is happening everyday and there's always more on the horizon.  Life is fluid and one must be able to ride the ebb and flow of the tide that change brings.  I try to be flexible, to bend and not break, but truthfully:  I HATE CHANGE!

This is not something that should come out of the mouth of someone who's husband serves our country.  Being a military wife is all about change.  It's all about never getting to stick to a schedule because you never know when your husband is going to be around or when he's going to have to pull a 24 hour duty.  It's about the unpredictability of planning for birthdays or anniversaries that inevitably don't work out right because your spouse isn't here.  He's got to train.  He's got a duty. He's got a class. He's in a war.  

Being a military spouse means leaving loved ones behind, sometimes on the other side of the country and never getting to be a part of their day-to-day lives.  It means missing birthday parties and "all girls weekends" with your aunts and the cousins who used to be your best friends.  It means desperately wanting to see your ailing grandparents but not having the money to fly so far with your kids.  

Family celebrations are discussed after they happen and though you want details, only the highlights get relayed.  It means children who don't know their grandparents because time and distance do not permit it.  It means nurturing relationships with family via phone, computer, and email when all you really want is to share the couch or the dinner conversation.   

We make new friends quickly, pouring heart and soul into relationships because they are so essential.  We need people who understand; people who live what we live and do what we do every day.  Then we watch as all those treasured friends move away.  They are gone to the next duty station and we are left with only another number saved to our cell phones and a promise to call often.  Calls come frequently for a while and then only every few weeks as change makes room for new friends.  

We live in a place only long enough to become comfortable, to learn how to find our way around in a new community, which areas to avoid, where to shop, which restaurants have good service, and, if you're us, long enough to establish good medical care and know which hospitals are equipped to handle children.  Then, like reopening an old wound, it's time to start over.  It's time for new schools, new doctors, and new friends who again become like the family that you miss so much "back home."  

The truth is this.  I miss my mom and dad and I mourn the relationship they *should* have with my kids.  I miss my sisters, my brother, my niece and my nephews and all my aunts, uncles and cousins.  I weep for every missed birthday party and thanksgiving and Christmas get-together.  I miss my friends from each prior duty station and those that have moved on.  While I love the people that I've met here, part of me wishes that I'd never met them because I know that too soon I'll have to say goodbye.  

This is how I feel about change.  Yet. . . time marches on and more change is coming.   The man is training and a deployment is in our future.  We will adapt.  We will overcome.  We will bend with the winds of change so that we do not break.