The murmurs have begun about another move in our near future. This one would most likely keep us in Europe but move us out of Germany and with each potential move, I have to rethink... regroup and mentally prepare for the change.
It's amazing how much I have changed over these last five years. I came into all this as someone who was a planner, who always had an emergency bag packed and an understanding of where I would be in the next year and what I would be doing. That person was, in some ways, more grounded, but also more easily toppled. She was someone who was so busy dealing with the day to day that she often forgot to step back and see the big picture.
The person I am today smiles at the challenge that moving to another country brings. This person is still practical, and she'll have houses picked out and the area scouted before her family steps foot on that foreign soil, but she is more open to the process than ever before. She will watch as the movers pack and unpack photos of her family and friends, she will put the dishes in her new kitchen and find the market and stores to stock the fridge with unfamiliar food. She will set up a home in a place that she never imagined she would be and watch in amazement as the culture presents itself.
I am not in as much of a hurry as I once was. I realize that in my early years as a military spouse, I was trying to fit a round peg in a square hole and I struggled so much as a result. At some point in the last three years, I came to realize that if I stepped out of the box entirely, I could get a view of things as a whole and better navigate the terrain. A part of me wishes I could go back to those first two years. Wishes I could step into that role again with the knowledge I have now and just enjoy the moments. Watch C. transform from a soldier to my husband at the end of each day, accept the tears that came with deployment, feel the hot, dry heat of an El Paso summer on my skin, and embrace my outsider status.
But we don't get to go back, we can only live forward. I railed against those first two years. I tried to pretend that my husband's chosen career didn't have to affect my life, didn't have to change everything... but it did. It does. It has given me a unique perspective, one that I never imagined. It has opened my eyes to things I didn't necessarily want to see or know, but for which I am richer for understanding.
So there may be another move. Another country, another city, another home, another adventure. I will not live in my country of birth for a long time to come, if ever again. I will see more than I ever imagined, but be far from those I love. And my address will change again and again. The story will get longer and more complex with sharp twists and turns, but here is the thing I did not understand in the beginning... here is the part that it took be five years to really see:
I am never alone in this. That there are two people navigating those twists and turns. That I can lean on him and him on me and we can take turns loving and struggling with this life. That I don't need to carve out my place here because there has always been a place for me, even when I was looking too closely to see it.
It looks different than I had imagined. I do not have all the things in line that I thought I would by this point in my life, but if I had followed the path I'd set out on, I would have missed out on everything that followed.
I've hiked in North Korea, been covered in mud at a festival in South Korea, wandered through bookstores in Mexico, talked politics with a restaurant owner in Amsterdam, shopped the farmer's markets of Germany and Spain, stood on the Great Wall in China, ate sushi in Japan, explored the streets of Venice with my parents, been caught up in protests in Bangkok, slept on an uninhabited island in the South of Thailand, and eaten the best food of my life in Paris. At times, I feel more fortunate than I deserve... and I need to keep that in mind.
I need to keep it in my mind when I'm so homesick, when the skies are grey for weeks, when the move results in broken treasures, and I miss out on another family dinner or milestone. I need to remember it as little nephews are growing so quickly, and cultural differences make the smallest task difficult. When I am stuck in airports and government offices, near tears because the weight of the deployment is washing over me and I can't find the words to explain what it's like. I must remember... we are fortunate. Nothing is promised to us. And no matter where it takes us, it's guaranteed to be one hell of a ride. ;o)
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