This has been one crazy summer! When it comes to life in the military, the only thing you can really plan on is not being able to plan on much. The past few months have been a perfect example of this. We left San Diego on really short notice and are temporarily in Jacksonville, Florida. In January, we are moving to Japan, courtesy of the US Navy! It’s a very exciting, although a little bit daunting, change in our lives.
Parenting is complicated enough, but adding an international move to the mix adds a whole new set of challenges. Our movers came three days after my husband got his written orders for Japan, so our world was turned upside down pretty fast. Our children watched their belongings get packed up and either sent to storage or across the Pacific, and we didn’t have much time to say farewells to our San Diego friends. The past month has been filled with a lot of paperwork that has required our attention and time like passport applications and medical screenings, and the kids had to be dragged along for all of it.
I thought my kids would turn into wild hooligans in response to all the changes swirling around them, especially at the rushed circumstances, but they are handling the move surprisingly well. We even survived a three-day drive from California to Florida!
My oldest son Sammy was starting kindergarten this year, and he is attending the neighborhood school in Jacksonville knowing that he’ll just be there for the first semester. I was so proud of him on the first day, not just because my baby had grown into a big kid, but also because he gave me a hug then, with a smile on his face, walked right into his new school, with new kids and new teachers. Gabriel, our two year old, started preschool with the same courageous, positive attitude.
My children’s resilience amazes me, but I still feel a little guilty knowing that they will be uprooted again in just a few months. I cringed when Sammy mentioned his “best friend” from kindergarten today, knowing he’ll have to say goodbye to him in just a matter of weeks. We were in San Diego for less than a year and a half, so my little boys have seen their fair share of moving trucks in their life already. I worry about what kind of effect all the changes will have on them down the road. Moving is hard on me, too, and I’m a grown up! I’m always leaving my friends or getting left behind, but at least I’m a grown up and can understand what’s going on.
Just as it’s not healthy for a plant to be transplanted over and over again, I wonder sometimes if our kids will be able to withstand all of the moves they will experience in their childhood. I hope they don’t resent us for never allowing them to put down roots and instead always having to be the new kid at school.
My wish is that my boys look at moving around a lot in a more positive light than my doom and gloom forecast. I hope that they don’t feel like they were being uprooted their entire childhood, but instead they feel lucky that they got to see the world. They will have the opportunity to soak up other cultures and languages, become experts at meeting new people, and hopefully have empathy for the new kid in school someday. I hope they appreciate and take advantage of the fact that no matter where we move, they will always have built-in best friends in their brothers.
Most importantly, I hope that Jesse and I can provide enough stability in their lives at home that they feel rooted to us, that we are their constant and their security, and that they’re okay as long as we stick together as a family.
I was also a “Navy brat”, and there was a little cross-stitched picture in my kitchen growing up that read, “Home is where the Navy sends you.” My goal is to make us feel at home together no matter where in the world we land.
So stay tuned for blogs from Japan!
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