It's after Christmas, there's no more space for anything in either of the boys' rooms, and I'm in purge mode - not just purging their rooms of the mountains of crap they've amassed in the last 2.5 years, but purging every room in the house.
It must be time to move. (In AF speak, we call it a PCS - permanent change of station.)
I think if you surveyed many AF spouses, you'd get a majority to say that every 2-3 years they get that "itch". It's time to move on...to clean out the house, pack it up, leave friends, find a new house, and a new school for the kiddos, meet new neighbors, make new friends, learn a new city (unless you're "fortunate" enough to return to a base/location that you've lived previously), learn what your spouse's new job will be and how late he'll be at the office, set up the new house to be your home for 2-3 years and get ready to do it all over again. Yes, we long for this.
Since hubby (heretofor referred to as Nort) has been at "school" this year, we've known that there's a 99.9% chance that we'll be leaving here this summer. Odds are good that we'll end up in our nation's capital.
I'm not excited about it. I know lots of people have been assigned there and have survived. I'm just not a "big city" kinda girl. (You can take the girl out of Iowa, but you can't take Iowa out of the girl.) Granted, we'll have to live an hour away from the city to find affordable housing and a good school, but it's still "big city" as far as I'm concerned. Sure, it would be great for the boys. They're old enough to get something out of the assignment - to visit all the museums and monuments. I'm sure they would even manage to make friends in the neighborhood and do well in school. I'm just not excited about it.
We've lived in major cities before - Sacramento, Tucson, Little Rock, Montgomery - ok, maybe they're not that major, but they're bigger than our 6,000 population hometown. They were all great, and we were excited to go to all of them. Honestly, I think I can say we have been excited about every assignment - big city or rural - and I'm sure we will be again, once we find out where we're headed.
The good thing is, in my 19 years as an AF spouse, I've learned to expect the unexpected. Don't assume anything (especially an assignment) is a done deal or written in stone. I've also learned to not worry about it. There's nothing I can do about it, why stress about it. I'll deal with it when we find out...which should be February or March. In the meantime, I'll think about all the other options that could come down. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that the powers-that-be take a good look at what assignments are best for Nort in the long run...shoot, I'd even take a deployment - at least it fills a square, actually more than one square!
Anyway, I'm going to eat breakfast and start purging...the house, people, the house!
2 comments:
I hear your song, sister.
And I know your itch.
Let me know if I need to make room on my side of the curb for trash next week.
been to good will twice this week, pcsing this summer from DC. Happy to chat about housing in the area. Been here 5 years and taught here in Fairfax county before the kids were born so have good intel on the area. Happy to share.
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