We’re creeping up to it being a year stationed at this post. It feels like yesterday that it took us three days to drive across country from our other post, stopping to visit my husband’s family before coming here. Summer is coming, the heat is already here, as is evident by the mounting sweat trickling down the back of my neck, and I can’t help but feel anxious.

You see, I’m a positive thinker. I try to find the best in everything and every situation. However, upon arriving and driving from one barren road to another, from one barren town to here, I knew that being stationed here would be an uphill battle. I knew it wasn’t what we were used to, that we were going to have to overcome adversity living here, and that we had a struggle before us. I never knew how much of an understatement that was.

Now that we’re here, and after many months we’re finally starting to feel settled. For the first time, our routine is on automatic, and when I step into the car and drive to run and errand, I can do so without second guessing myself “is this the right street?”. I’m finally feeling like I have the ‘lay of the land’, and seemingly have gathered my bearings. Only now that the ritualistic sleepovers have begun again, along with the play dates, the barbeque’s, the friends and playmates coming over, with calls and invites-a-plenty that I realize, no matter how much we strive for normalcy, there isn’t any. A few of our new friends have orders and are leaving us. Moving, PCSing, ETSing. Just as we begin to settle, just as we begin to find a new normal, the Army has it’s way to make it unsettled.

Permanent isn’t a recognizable word in the military’s dictionary.

It was hard enough before, but we had our ‘post’ before, having been there for so long. Now, since it’s all new and unknown, we clung to anything we could that represented some semblance of normal for us. We’ve made some incredible friends, ones we needed to make to feel like we belong.

It is so hard to realize they will be gone, and we’ll be back to square one again. It’ll be hard to see the big moving truck arrive for them, rescuing them from this post, leaving us behind.

If you learn nothing else from living the military life, it’s to cherish every day, whether it be with your spouse, your children, or your friends. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

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