T-minus and counting

I'm so tense, I can hardly breathe. I just got up from a nap -- a restful one, too -- so I'm not sure why all the anxiety. David is scheduled to leave on the 17th. Next Saturday. Six days from now. Less than a week left. I suppose that may have something to do with my difficulty breathing, since my chest is constricting even as I write.

There's so much left to do, and none of it, it seems, can be accomplished simultaneously. I want David to help me move things out of the house that I don't want to take to Durant. I want to sit around as a family and play Uno Attack or Mancala. I want the kitchen and living room cleaned and rid of anything unneccesary. I want David to spend each day doing whatever it is he pleases. I want, and continue to want....and after all the wanting, the wishing begins -- and my breathing becomes more and more shallow.

I think it's funny (in a not-funny kind of way) how people say to me admiringly, "We could never do what ya'll are doing. It would be too hard. We don't know how ya'll do it." I can't find adequate words to convince them that we are no different from them...I am no different from them. I don't feel like I can do this. I'm not extra strong or super prepared or "prayed up" or anything at all. This is a job David took, for us as a family, and now we, as a family, have joined the Army. It's his job, and now he's having to do some business traveling...for 12 months....in Baghdad. For work.

Sometimes I think surely this would be easier if I'd come in to this lifestyle earlier, if I weren't such an old dog trying to learn this new trick. I'm not 19, I'm not straight out of school, my parents weren't military, David's family wasn't military. I do have a brother who served for four years. He did two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, was stop-lossed, and now he's out and seldom has a kind word for the Army. But even though my brother and I are close, I wasn't able to learn much about Army life from him. My uncle was Army, and now he's Reserve. But we hardly spent any time with him during my youth, so no "military experiences" could be gleaned from that relationship either. This lifestyle could not be more brand new to any of us. And I can't emphasize enough how much it feels like I've been moved to a foreign country, only everyone speaks English and none of it makes sense.

*****

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1. Why did ya'll join the Army?

We moved to Liberty, MO, an awesome suburb of Kansas City, so David could pursue his graduate degree in Jazz Studies at UMKC. After about a year, David was playing trumpet full-time for several Latin and salsa bands and subbing in lots of other bands, too. Not long after that, he took a hiatus from UMKC as the schedules of full-time grad student and full-time musician weren't compatible. Some time later, we felt his music career had stalled and was in need of a push. (This is where I come in....*sigh*....) I began checking online for studio musician vacancies or big name acts who were forming tour bands -- anything, actually. I looked into everything I could find. From site to site, I continued to see postings looking for musicians to join the military, and trumpets were always in need. I casually mentioned it to David, saying something like "The numbers they have advertised seem really good. Maybe you should check into it." He was silent -- and he stayed that way for almost three days. On the morning of day three he said he was going to call the Army recruiter. The very next evening I was staring at an Army recruiter sitting at my dining room table. This is fine, I thought. Just because he's here doesn't mean anything will come of it. We're just talking, that's all. ....Just talking. 10 days later, on December 14, 2007, David was sworn in. Then, on January 2, 2008, he left for Basic Combat Training. He was four months shy of his 35th birthday.

2. What will you do after David leaves?

Originally my plan was to move to Charlotte, NC. Both of my brothers are settled out there now and every time I've been to Charlotte, I've loved it. It's so beautiful out there and winters are mild, which makes me happy. But besides all that, my brothers and I rarely ever see each other. We were all three together for David's graduation in March of 08, but prior to that it had been more than four years since the three of us had all been together....since my dad's funeral. (I'd seen Daniel once during those four years, but it was only for a day, and it was a very unfortunate occasion.) I figured, what better way to spend the year than with family? So in November I started looking for a place to live. I kept close tabs on the Charlotte Craig's List, my brother's were doing their fair share of house hunting, and I even had a realtor who kept in touch with me regularly. But the longer we looked, the more evident it became that moving from Killeen to Charlotte was going to be quite difficult, especially once we considered facts like, we'd only be living there for 12 months, and this move (as well as the move back to Killeen 12 months from now) would be entirely out of our own pockets. It started to look nearly impossible...like more stress than I wanted to take on. But it was what I wanted, I want to live with my family!, so I wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Christmas came and we spent our break in Durant with David's family. I tentatively began toying with the idea of just moving back there. After all, I'd graduated from Southeastern OSU in Durant and I'd lived there for almost 10 years....Moving back would be something like moving home. The cost of living there would be considerably less than living in Charlotte, or even Killeen. I already have doctor's in Durant; my optometrist, the kids' pediatrician, even my ob/gyn...and lord knows how stressful it is shopping for a new one of those! Besides all of that, Dave's family is well known in the community -- their name is known and respected, and that comes with benefits.

At the half, it looks like our score is Durant-4, Charlotte-1. Still, no amount of decision-whittling does any of us any good without a place to live, right?

Saturday night after the Farewell Party that Dave's folks threw for us, my SIL Cari and I went to Chili's and talked things over. (I process thoughts so much better out loud. Then I can hear how ridiculous my ideas really sound.) We came up with a plan -- Tomorrow morning, we would look at the Sunday paper and see what's listed...Then drive around and check out the market, just see what's available. Good plan, easy enough. Sunday morning came and something came up. Cari and her fam had to leave before we could go on our rental tour of Durant. But no matter. I still had the plan, I'd just have to go it alone. Fishing through the Sunday paper, I asked Dave's folks where the classifieds were. I mentioned casually that I wanted to look at rentals in Durant. 10 minutes later, Dave's mom was on the phone with a realtor getting all kinds of inside intel. (I mentioned they had lots of friends, right? My SIL Rhonda jokes about having our own mini-mafia. And right then, it was working for me.) I figured we'd hear something in a few days or so. I was wrong! Monday morning, the realtor called and said she had houses for me to see. "I'll pick you up in 15 minutes, okay?" Whoa! Umm.... "Can we make it 20?" I still needed to get ready. 15 minutes later, she was there. 24 hours after I decide to look for houses in Durant, a realtor shows up with a list of properties. Hmmmm.... Minutes later, David and I were walking through a home that, for all intents and purposes, met every last one of our housing stipulations. Wow....That was strangely easy. Okay. Okay! After that, I spent the rest of the morning either sobbing or close to it. It was clear I wasn't going to get my way. My family would be provided for, we would have a good home, nice neighborhood, seconds from the grandparents house, excellent school, close to Dallas (which does makes everything better), near most all of my college girlfriends and my sisters-in-law, as well as all the pros already mentioned! But, I still wasn't getting my way. I had already imagined the year in Charlotte with my brothers and how amazing it would be. And now, I was very much grieving the loss of that year and all its memories, time I had so desperately wanted to spend near my family.

By the afternoon, though, I had reconciled with the decision. I'd always said where ever we wound up moving, it would have to be easy. For this imminent move to Durant, there were no countless hours spent searching Craig's List, no list of phone calls made, and not a single minute spent researching elementary schools. The months of labor I'd invested in finding the perfect home with the perfect school in the perfect area of Charlotte...it got me nowhere. Trying to move to Durant, well, honestly, it was pretty impossible to get any easier.

3. How do ya'll like Killeen?

We don't.

We were given a few choices to pick from for our duty station. And seeing that one of the choices was Texas (along with Hawaii, Alabama, and Korea), we naturally chose to come back to God's country. Yay, Texas!

Then...we got here.

I'll save my philosophical analysis of Killeen for a different post. I'm going to post pictures with it, too, so I'll need to get some more of those. In the meantime, I will tell you all the things we do like about Killeen: 1. We are now only 4 1/2 hours from Durant rather than eight or nine like we were in KC, 2. We are a mere 55 minutes from IKEA Round Rock. And that's just plain awesome. And, 3. We only need to drive 30 minutes in any direction to be back in real Texas. All things considered, it could be worse, I know. So for now, for the next three weeks, Killeen is just fine.

4. How does David feel about all this?

David hasn't packed yet -- packing makes everything so final. He's dreading being gone from his family for 12 months. He hates thinking about all the events he'll miss during this coming year; Isaiah turning 8, Lydia turning 7, our 10 year anniversary, school parties and pictures, lost teeth, field trips...Christmas.

So, how does David feel? He is honored and humbled to be serving his country. He is, without question or hesitation, proud to be a part of history in the making for our great nation. And his children know their father is an American soldier, and he walks taller with the confidence that they will be proud of him for his service to America, no matter the outcome.

"I feel like it's my duty...or my responsibility...my job to serve now, so that maybe in the future, Isaiah and Lydia won't have to."

That is how David feels about this.

*****

We played frisbee this afternoon. God, I love being in Texas! It's winter in the rest of the world, and we were outside in flip-flops and T-shirts. I made Indian Butter Chicken for supper. It was really good, I actually didn't make enough! David and I got about four or five bites of chicken and the kids ate all the rest. They would've eaten more had there been any left. And if you have any idea how picky my children are, then you'll understand what a success tonight was.

I love writing. It's very theraputic for me. But I generally have difficulty keeping a steady pace on blog posts. My life is kind of hectic and I consider writing to be an indulgence, part of my "me" time. As a result, it doesn't get done very often. But, I'm hoping.....like I always do.....that I'll somehow learn to dedicate time for writing.

That would make me happy.

Love and sunshine.....