Roots, The Military, and Big Decisions

There's this pinnacle moment for anyone who has ever been enlisted in the military (or married to it), where a big decision has to be made. And it's as simple as the lyrics of that song that's all over the place.


Should I stay, or should I go?

This is a simple but overly complicated question that my family has been painfully mulling over the past three and a half years. Do we remain in this financially stable(ish), tight knit but sometimes stressful and uncomfortable lifestyle, where the location of our home and the length in which we stay there are at the mercy of the Powers That Be? Where uprooting children from their school and friends and routine is a way of life instead of a social taboo? But on the other side of the coin, where our medical coverage is top notch, our paycheck is (usually) guaranteed and layoffs are nonexistent, and we gain some of the best family friends that anyone could ever ask for, everywhere we live. Where a job isn't a job, it's a lifestyle, something that is actually truly fulfilling to both the person doing the job, the family that pridefully stands behind them, and the country and they are supporting. Can people working the counter at Starbucks really say that?

OR, do we decide to leave this lifestyle that has sent us so far away, and return to our home state, our family, our friends, a house we won't ever have to move away from, and the things that we are used to that we don't have way over here in New Jersey like Fred Meyer, mountains, a Target within errand-running-distance and you know, trees. But in so doing, we risk walking away from a retirement that we are already, at 29 years old, halfway towards, a GI Bill that our oldest son can use to pay for college, and the ultimate stability of a paycheck that so many people are really worrying about at this point in our Nation. Is it worth the risk to be closer to those we care about?

How can this be so unbelievably difficult to figure out? So difficult that it's taken us three and a half years of hair-pulling conversations and debates that take away hours of our day and in the end we decide that we are completely undecided.

Well hell, it's not like we're dealing with life changing decisions or anything.

But, we had to make a decision by this month for transfer reasons, and we've come to it. And believe it or not, we're both at complete and total peace with it and surprised by our own answer.

We have decided that it is the smartest thing for our family to remain in active duty military for the remainder of Brad's twenty-thirty year career.

And really, the reason that we came with this conclusion was nothing more than the benefits of staying in out-weigh the negative. The Coast Guard has treated us very well in the eight years that we've lived it. In fact, there really isn't anything but nit-picking to whine about. We have never been withheld a paycheck, never had a single medical bill over double digits (I won't count dental because my mouth and my Pepsi habit do not agree with each other and dental only covers so much), and really have thrived in the military community that we live in. And really, the one single small and yet very big and complicated reason to leave the military was to be closer to make some roots near our family. And that's something that we can work with and I will discuss later.

So now that we have THAT decision out of the way, the other big decision that is creeping up on us looms:

WHERE do we transfer to this coming summer of 2014?

Really we don't have any power of where we move to, but we do put in a list of where we want to go, and usually, the Powers That Be chooses off the list. So then the question is, what do we put on the list?

Of course, our ultimate goal is to have our cake and eat it too, so the absolute perfect gold plated choice would be to remain in active duty but be stationed in Seattle, OR, anywhere on the West Coast. Because let's face it, a 12 hour drive back to Seattle from San Francisco (or wherever) is a hell of a lot easier with preschoolers than an eight hour flight from Philadelphia (or wherever on the East Coast). So, we put a lot of West Coast stations on our list. Actually, everything on our list is on the West Coast. With the exception of ONE option that we put high on our list (but not the very top) that REALLY surprises MYSELF, even though I'm the one that put it on the list:

A one year extension here at Cape May.

And before I answer why on earth we would EVER want to spend another moment here in New Jersey, of all places, let's talk about something.

Let's talk about roots. 

Here's something that civilians might not know about displaced active duty families, that I didn't even understand myself until maybe a few months ago.

Military families grow roots wherever they are, whether they want to, or not. 

When we moved to Cape May from Seattle in 2010, I was not in the least bit interested in putting any roots down. Whatsoever. I was confused and disoriented in a new state on a new coast a trillion miles from a single person that I even knew. It was me and my husband and my 15 month old son and a couple of dogs, and that was it. The roads were different, the people were different, the grocery store was completely confusing and absurd, and they didn't even have Tillamook cheese!! I'll never survive here. Roots? Forget it.
But something happens when your family is displaced like that. Something that creeps up on you, that sifts through your home and rests there for years and you don't realize it until it's time to think about leaving.

Roots.

You make friends fast in the military. Out of necessity, because people (and yourself) come and go very quickly so you have a limited amount of time to be friends, but also because you are desperate for familiarity, for family, and for something to hang on to. And in the military, friends are all of those things and more. They become your immediate family, because there is no immediacy of family members that live across the country. They are your emergency contacts for your kids at school. They are the ones you spend Thanksgiving and Christmas Day with. They are there for the birth of your babies when your family can't get fly in in time. They are at every school play and tball game (because their kids are in the same class or on the same team). Your family outings usually include them, because it seems so weird to not include them. This also goes for lunch in the front lawn or family dinners in the back yard. They are your rock when your husband is deployed, or on duty, or out of state in training. They are everything. Pretty soon you are separating them in conversation (my "best friend at 'Home' versus my 'Coast Guard family'). And when they leave, or when you leave, the chances are you won't see them for years, if ever, again. And even though you will make new friends at your next station, your heart is completely ripped from your chest when the separation happens, and it might take weeks or even months to recover from it, but they remain the best friends you have ever made and each and every one is impossible to replace.

And whether you want to, big, emotional things happen over the course of four years. Which because you live in so many vastly different places, you associate it with the place. We were married in Seattle. Our first son was born in Seattle. Our second son was born here, and we brought him home to this house. We celebrated five birthdays of our children here. We "survived" two major hurricanes here. We didn't just live here. Life happened here.

You can't help but like Cape May. Even if you try not to.

Less emotional but equally important, you simply get used to things. You know how you decorate your house per season and what fits where. You know where to grocery shop. You know where the closest Wawa is (this is insanely important in this area people). You have a doctor, pediatrician, dentist, hair dresser, and veterinarian. You know what there is to do in the area for recreation, how to dress per season, how to simply live day to day. And after living somewhere for four years, you might even grow to like it. I for one, have grown to love Cape May over the past two years (out of the 3.5 we've lived here). I like the climate, the activities, the base, the housing, the school, the list goes on. I know how to live here and I like how I live here and I'm not necessarily ready to rip out the roots from here, move on to some new strange place, and start all over, grow new roots, rinse, and repeat.

This is home, whether we planned on it or not.

So the possibility of staying somewhere longer, even if it's just for a little while, especially if it's somewhere we like, is insanely appealing. And why then isn't it on the top of our list? Because, our ultimate goal remember is to get on the West Coast, and then bounce around over there for the rest of his career. So the sooner we get over there, the better.

Not that I wouldn't cry if they asked us to stay here though. My roots are satisfied here for now. But wherever we go, whether it's our new favorite station or the worst place we've ever lived and we can't wait to escape it, whether we want to or not, we will grow roots.

So now that you've read through that novel, here's the short version of what is happening. We're moving next summer. Or we're not and they're extending us here for an extra year, and then we'll move in 2015. But we're staying in the military regardless. This is the list we just submitted:

Petaluma CA, Seattle WA, Cape May NJ (extension), San Diego CA, Alameda CA. There's two or three positions in each city.

Now that the list is submitted, The Powers That Be will let us know of where exactly we're going anytime between tomorrow and like, March.

So now, we wait.

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