you knew this day would come

so i watched 'army wives' tonight, mostly so i could just disagree with everything they were doing and saying, but also to see what they actually got right.

first, what they got right: can i say pamela couldn't have been more on the money then she was about your career when you marry in to the military. it's an awful reality, but the truth of the matter is this. when you marry into the military you aren't giving up your career, but you must understand that you are giving up the chance to build a career in an area for much longer than three years at a time. sure moving every three years or so makes it hard to establish a career of your own, but you knew that would happen when you married your hero.

which brings us to the moving part. i'm sorry if i seem a little less tearful about moving, but when you've moved all your life, every three years like clock work, you get use to it. it's a fact of army life. as a kid, i knew that every three years the movers would come and they would pack us up and it would be time to make new friends. and well, when we didn't move after being at redstone in alabama, where my dad retired, it was rather odd. and well, as we, aaron and i (and now cayman) approach our three year mark at our base, the moving itch is creeping in. sure, i'll miss my friends, my church, that great little mom-n-pop lunch counter. but let's face it, with today's technology, they're all a phone call, an email, or even a myspace page away. and always the perfect excuse for a road trip.

so, the day the movers bring those boxes to your new house, that's the day you start the countdown to the next move. it's a fact of army life. so, you make what you can of the three or so years you have at your duty station and remember that God put you on this pathway for a reason, so don't go cursing his name when the pcs orders come.