You're moving where?

Today's musings are about moving.  About community.  About friendship.

The past few mornings I've been waking up with an emptiness in my stomach. (And no, it's not just because I'm ready for breakfast.)  It's the quiet moments in the morning, before the whirlwind of requests, appointments, meals, emails, decisions, hugs, discipline, to-do lists, schedule changes, conversations, moving preparations... this is when I actually have time to connect with my emotional temperature.  I'm conflicted, in my heart I'm sad.  I'm grieving.  I'm excited for the next adventures awaiting our family.  I'm curious to find out who and what God has waiting for us at our next duty station.  I'm wondering how I'm actually going to be ready for the packing crew to box up our belongings in a few weeks.  I'm trying to ignore the empty feeling that comes with saying goodbye to the people I have grown to love over the past 5 years.  I'm holding it together, mostly because I don't have time to fall apart.

I know I can keep in touch, I know I'll see many of these people again, but I also know I won't get to hug them regularly, watch their kids play with mine and keep up with their daily lives in the same way.  I won't notice the subtleties in how their children are growing and maturing, I won't be able to just savor the joy that comes from being present to these friends, to our children.  I will not be able to see the joy or exhaustion in my friend's eyes and be able to respond appropriately because text messages, Facebook and phone calls just don't compare to sitting across the table or at the park and having a heart to heart conversation (interrupted of course by toddler and preschooler requests - but able to pick back up more easily than an interrupted phone call.)  Moving. This is life.  Military life, and, increasingly I think life for plenty of non-military families as well.  There are people I will definitely keep in my life, but all of the sudden the relationships that have grown to feel effortless are going to require much more intention to maintain.  While this paragraph laments all the things I will miss - there is beauty in the experience.  Each person and relationship has helped shape and refine my character - I've been loved, challenged and at times carried by my village.

I've done this moving thing enough times to have faith that there are good people everywhere and to know I'll find people I can do life with wherever we live.  I also know those soul-sister relationships don't happen overnight, so I'm likely looking at a few months ahead that will include some lonely times.  Not lonely as in all alone.  Lonely in that I can't jump right in to deep conversation and what's really on my heart, the way I can now.  I'll have to think about who my kids' "in case of emergency" contact is on their school forms -- likely filling in a name of a new acquaintance my children (and I ) barely know.  I'll have to start 'dating' friends again.  Although I love meeting new people, the effort required to build new relationships feels exhausting to me at this moment, pre-move, when I'm savoring the time I have left with my current village.

What's different this move? My kids are old enough to have real friends and be impacted by the same feelings of loss, loneliness, excitement and uncertainty about new adventures and apprehension about finding and making new friends.  What's different is after 10 years of meeting friends at playgroups, I'm moving out of the mothering of babies and toddlers phase - where I find my new village is going to shift.  What's different is that we have lived in the same community for 5 years - more than twice as long as we've lived anywhere else since college.  This five years has been such an incredible gift and simultaneously held some incredibly hard experiences.

I embrace hard things.  I know they make us grow.  I struggle to share what I write about hard things because I don't want to sound whiny or ungrateful for the many blessings I know I have in my life.  Writing helps me work through hard things, but I'm uncomfortable with the vulnerability required to share the details about what I'm working through.  I'm a thinker.  A problem solver.  I'm learning experientially that the price of true connection and deep, satisfying relationships is vulnerability.  I'm learning this in my friendships, in my marriage, in my parenting.  I'm learning to let my community hold me up and carry me when I'm stumbling through my day unable to keep my phone charged, my car keys available, my attitude loving, gracious or patient.

What's different about this move?  We're moving to a closed military base.  Overseas.  In a communist country.  With four children.  The expressions of confusion, disbelief or intrigue when I share we will be moving to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay are entertaining.  "I didn't know they sent families there." "I thought they were closing that." "Really?" "What a fantastic experience!" "Um, how do you feel about that?"

So many mixed emotions.  During the day there's so many other things to keep my attention that the only time I really am in touch with how I'm feeling about this move is first thing in the morning.  Despite my discomfort, I'm going to write about this.  Because although this is not what we would have chosen for ourselves amidst all the possibilities, when it came down to 18 months together as a family at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or 12 months separated while Bill went solo to Guantanamo Bay - the choice was clear.  Family first.  Our marriage and family are better when we have time together.  When the Navy tells us we have to be apart, we accept that and cope as well as we can.  When we have the choice to stay together, we do.

As we have learned more details about what our time may look like for the next 18 months, I can't help but believe this is a divine appointment for our family.  It is an answer to prayers we didn't realize we had, a chance to slow down and savor life, to appreciate the simple things, a chance to reconnect as husband and wife - to life life together instead of in parallel.  God's plans are so much greater than our own.  Are you as curious as I am to see what's ahead?

*** Sidenote:  I've been wanting, meaning, considering writing & posting - often... for years...  I've been wondering what to write about, how to say it, how to share the truth of the hard things in life without being a downer....  without causing my friends and family to worry about me from afar...  I've been hesitating because people like pictures, "good blogs" have photos - but I like words.  I don't love the time it currently takes me to deal with images.  So I'm starting again.  Just words for now.  Trusting I'll find my voice and my style as I go...  eventually I'd like to switch to a different platform, a blog with a cute, catchy name.  Eventually I'd like to enjoy the technical side of writing a blog.  Eventually, I'll fill in some of the details I remember of the last 10 years.  For now... this is it.  Just getting the thoughts out.  A digital journal... a cheap therapy session to help clarify my thoughts.  Please excuse any formatting issues, because realistically, I don't have time to tend to those for at least a few weeks - maybe months. ***

Patrick's Ready for Lemoore

A common concern among military families I've talked with when facing another move is "how will the kids respond?" I've been trying to prepare Patrick a little at a time, taking advantage of teachable moments to mention that we'll be moving soon. He's almost 3, so he has some idea of what's going on (more than we probably even realize....) Katie is too young to understand or care as long as she's fed and knows where "mama" is. Over the past few weeks I've told Patrick: we'll be getting a new house with a new bedroom and playroom for him, we'll have to say goodbye to our friends in Pensacola and meet new ones, and that all of his toys and furniture will go on a big truck "like Mac" (from Cars) to get to our new house. Overall, he has seemed fairly agreeable to this - taking it all in but not saying much.

Last Friday as I was organizing and starting to do a little packing Patrick came across the bag his Thomas the Tank Engine comforter came in and started telling me... "Oh! This is for my new bed at our California house. I will have a new Thomas and Percy and James!" "We are going to get a new house and you will have a new bedroom, but we are going to take your bed and your toys and books from this house to our new house." "Yes, and we will see Auntie Lindsey and Michael." On and on he went giving me back many of the little things I've mentioned casually to him over the past few weeks.

That evening I was looking at "For rent" listings on line trying to get an idea of what's available in Lemoore when Patrick walked up behind me. "What are you doing, mom?" "Looking at pictures of houses. Do you like this house?" "Yes!" " It could be our new house in California." "And that is my new bedroom...and my new playroom... " after that exchange he proceded to tell me he wanted to go get in the blue minivan and drive to the new house. Toddler time = now.

He threw a tantrum before bed because he wanted to go sleep at the "California house." How dare I show him a picture and not be able to back it up with an actual house. Apparently he has very few qualms about leaving Pensacola. Overall he seems rather excited about moving to a new house. We've been reading books about moving and I drew boxes and a truck on his calendar for our pack-out and moving days. We'll see if he's still thrilled about driving to the "California house" on day 3, 4 or 5 of our cross-country adventure! His comments have been dwindling this weekend, so for the sake of tantrum-avoidance I will keep the moving talk to a minimum with Patrick until the packers are ready to come box up our stuff.

Ah, the packers! Packing is my least favorite moving task (address updates to various companies, professional organizations & government agencies are a close second) so I am ecstatic that a military move can include people putting your stuff into boxes. What would take me a month to pack they can finish in 1-2 days flat. That's the beauty of packing up someone else's stuff -- you don't get stuck reminicsing or sorting or trying to decide whether it's time to get rid of this or that. Everything just goes into a box & reappears at the destination, for better or worse.

Our past two moves have been positive experiences for the most part. I have learned a few things about prepacking and preparing for the packing crew such as: don't leave 1/2 a loaf of bread on the counter for PB & J's later that night. When our boxes arrived in San Diego that bread was bright blue, green and black. Blue mold? That was new for me! Don't put coloring books on top of a wooden puzzle. When the packer flips the whole stack upside down to pack them (I'm assuming he did not realize there was a puzzle at the bottom of the stack...), a scavenger hunt for pieces amidst mounds of packing paper and unpacked boxes ensues during unpacking. It's much easier and less stressful to prepare without a newborn who needs to be fed every few hours.

So, Patrick is ready for the California house, I am ready to be finished with moving preparations and just get on with the move, and Katie is trying to steal the whole show by learning how to walk. She has taken a couple steps at a time this weekend and my gut tells me she'll be walking without much assistance before we leave Pensacola! She'll get her own blog post once I see her walk more than 2 steps before falling!

Movin' & Shakin'

Wow... our 6 months in Pensacola is coming to an end - less than 3 weeks until we hit the road to drive back across the country to Lemoore, California. I will say Pensacola has grown on me more than I thought it would in 6 months time. We've met some great friends and have done a ton of things in the last few months. I'm planning to add a few back-dated posts to document more, but I've got to start somewhere! I love to write & I'm frustrated that I haven't made blogging more of a priority. However, knowing that Bill will be deploying sometime early this summer I am very glad we have had so much fun and family time while here in Pensacola.

It has been such a blessing to have Bill home at night and on weekends compared to intern year when he "lived" at the hospital. It has been a relatively relaxing and restorative 6 months for me. I have enjoyed the answer to "Hey, Bill, there's book club (or girls night out, baby shower, scrapbooking, etc.) next Tuesday night, will you be home to watch the kids?" being a consistent "Yes, go have fun." Ahhh, the beauty of no call schedule. Even better is being able to consistently eat dinner together as a family and tag-team the bath & bedtime routine.

The photo above is from last Saturday's morning out at the McGuire's 5K prediction run/walk for St. Patrick's Day. I'd never heard of a prediction run before - you win not by being the fastest, but by making the most accurate prediction of how long it will take you to run the race. No watches or timing devices allowed on the course!

Katie, now 9 months old, is still trying hard to keep up with Patrick. He walks into the kitchen, she's crawling right behind. He plays with his trains, she's crawling across the train tracks as "Katie-zilla" knocking things down while trying to find a train Patrick is willing to share with her. One of my favorite things is when they "talk" to each other and Patrick starts making baby babbles back at Katie because they both end up giggling! This week she decided to explore underneath the stepstool - and got stuck trying to crawl out between the steps! She also discovered toilet paper...

Patrick has officially begun calling me "mom" more than "mommy" over the last few days. It makes me smile because he usually says it very quickly annunciating both m's very clearly. "Hey mom, you want to play trains with me." "Mom you want to read a book with me." His statements may appear to be questions, but what he really means is "Mom, I want you to play trains... read... color... watch Thomas... with me, now."

Patrick has also been really interested in books the last month or so which makes my heart jump for joy! My child who would not sit still long enough for me to read him a story for the better part of his first two years now brings me books & knows all the words to his favorite ones. He loves going to the library to get new books and tries to con us into reading "one more" bedtime story. Last week we went to the fire station for playgroup and he got to "drive" a fire truck afterwards.