Earlier this week I was talking to another military spouse who is in a similar boat as myself. Her husband has orders (keyword being 'has' and that's the difference between us as we just have spoken words...and we all know what those are worth) to the same area that we are. Same size family, two adults, four kids. And no clue where they'll live in a matter of months.
It's not a small thing.
With so many BIG decisions that need to be made within just a few short months (Where will we live? Where will the kids go to school? When will the movers come pack and take our things? What are we going to pack and send ourselves? Where do we send the things we are packing ourselves if we don't have a house yet? Where will our youngest go to daycare? When will I be able to find/start a job so I can START a career?) NONE OF THEM CAN BE MADE WITHOUT HARD, PHYSICAL, IN-OUR-HAND ORDERS.
All of the wives PCS-ing this season see each other at the bus stop and the conversation is always the same:
Mom 1: you have orders yet?
Mom 2: yeah, right. Still waiting. You guys?
Mom 1: We got "verbal confirmation" but no orders yet.
Mom 2: Hopefully soon.
Mom 1: Yeah, hopefully.
And we go about our daily business. Until the next week...when we have the SAME conversation all.over.again.
All the while, on our neighborhood group chat we are all asking for moving boxes.
"I don't know how you do it" is a phrase I hear....a lot...as a military spouse. It covers a broad spectrum of life things. Deployments, long and unpredictable work hours even when he's home, moving every few years, not being able to plan family vacations or large trips, my husband having to work random weekends at a moment's notice, etc. I honestly don't know how I do it all either except, I just do it because what's the alternative? Not being with my husband?
But in reality, the answer to 'how I do it' is by taking things one small task (that is in my control) at a time. My current example is with our upcoming PCS. Do I know we are moving? Like 99% sure that, yes, we are moving. Do I know where we are moving to? Again, like 99% sure. Do I know when? (I hope you can see a pattern forming) So with all of these 99% sureties in my life, but no real ability to take care of the big decisions because you can't do any of the paperwork for the big things I listed earlier without things like an address, or the orders, I am cleaning out my house one room at a time.
One benefit of moving every few years is the PCS purge. You don't pay attention to all of the things that accumulate in your house when you have kids because, usually, you're too busy to notice. Between Christmases, birthdays, Easters, and all the other random times they just come home with things (seriously, I don't know how many little squishies my daughter's Kindergarten teacher has, but she just needs to stop it) stuff just piles up all over the place. PCS purging forces you to look through all the things and just get rid of the crap, so you can start with a fresh(er) slate in your new home.
Until things start piling up there, too.
I have 4 rooms left to go through in our house. My 8- and 6-year old's room (they share a room, and it currently looks like a Pokémon card bomb exploded in there so I'm putting that off as long as possible), my husband's office, my bedroom, and my craft area. I've taken numerous trips to the Thrift Store to make donations (aka dump the crap I no longer want for someone else to sell because I don't have the will or inclination to do so) and I have a 'to be taken to the Thrift Store' pile in my garage that I add to as I continue to go through my house, or whenever I trip over a toy that hasn't been picked up in days.
It feels good to purge. It feels good to lighten the physical load of what we carry around and all the stuff that just clouds my mind just because I can see it in my house (I can't explain the anxiety I have sometimes when I can just physically see things, but I'm paralyzed to do anything about it until something clicks and then I can do nothing but fix the problem, so I live in a perpetual cycle of paralyzing anxiety and hyper-focused cleaning. Don't ask.). I also have a list on my phone of big furniture items that we will be parting with before we leave here. I am in control of what we take, what we get rid of. It puts a tangible grasp on the chaos that surrounds, and essentially is, PCS season.
I Can.Not.Wait. to move (T.B.D.), to get to our new home (T.B.D.), in our new 'hometown' (T.B.D.), and fill it with our things (T.B.D. what will make it), and to make it officially ours (eventually). But, I'm going to focus on what I can control and not worry about the things I can't.
Pfffft...who am I kidding? For real though.
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