the best laid plans (or: the army keeps us on our toes!)

Army life is just full of surprises, with details and plans changing by the minute. This week alone, we've been thrown several 'fun' changes of schedule. I'd already mentioned the surprise trip for Jerry, which he found out about the day he was scheduled to leave. When Jerry and I are apart, he's pretty great about keeping in touch with me and updating me about what's going on. Between the first and second days' reports, his expected Sunday departure time had changed drastically. Initially it looked like he'd be home in the early afternoon. By the next day, it looked like he wouldn't be back until Sunday night. After the first few days, Jerry was told that his weekend schedule would include getting out pretty early on Saturday (6:00pm) and starting later than usual on Sunday (noon). With that info, Jerry and I decided to take advantage of the extra personal time by me taking a shuttle to the post where he's training so that we could spend Saturday evening and Sunday morning together. I made it to the post on schedule and he was able to meet me briefly and get me settled at the hotel. When he went back to training, I walked around, visited the PX and then lounged in the hotel, watching a mini-series I brought with me (Anne of Green Gables - no matter how old I get, I'll always love it!) and playing online poker. As it approached 6:00, I got a call from Jerry who had just found out that instead of ending at 6:00, it was going to be more like 11:00! There went our evening plans! Well, it didn't run that late...he was back at the hotel before 10:00. But instead of returning at noon today, he was required to be back at training by 8:30. And while all of that is frustrating, I'm not really complaining for me. The little time we spent together was nice and included a late night walk in the rain. And I was able to leave my little bubble for awhile and explore a new place. I do feel bad for Jerry, though, who has had several very long days. He said that it's not unlike what he'll be doing in terms of hours when he's deployed. No real weekends. Just shifts off for sleeping and limited personal time. Honestly, I don't know if I could do it.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, we also found out this week that we might be moving considerably sooner to our next post. But until it's been set, it's not really worth even beginning to make plans. I'm starting to learn that these things can change from minute to minute, day to day. And until we have written orders, I can't count on anything being certain. Which is something I need to keep in mind when I get new or conflicting information from Jerry that has been passed down. I tend to react pretty emotionally or to latch onto things as being set in stone when, in fact, those things could change at any moment. Specifically, as new information comes forward about his deployment, I find myself getting very upset because I had already built an idea in my mind about how it was going to be, based on previous information. For instance, he had initially given me a four month window for his departure. Many other soldiers had assured me that it would really be at the end of that period. Which sounded good to me...four extra months before having to face the hardship of being separated under the circumstances of deployment. Jerry had also initially been told that because of the job that he does, he would only be looking at a six-month deployment, rather than a more standard 12, 15 or 18 month tour. I hate being away from Jerry for even a few days, but I felt that six months seemed a lot more doable to me than one of those longer tours. Well, now that he's starting to get pre-deployment training, he's starting to receive timelines. And now, it looks like he'll be leaving before the end of the year and being deployed for twelve months. Jerry told me this news over the phone a few days ago and it put me over the emotional edge.

The idea of twelve months apart is frightening to me. I'm scared of Jerry returning and us being strangers to each other. And that's on top of the fear of him being in danger's way every day that we're apart. It's a lot to digest. And it's at this point that I realized that I need to take a step back. It's one thing to be worried about the future and to want to prepare myself so that I can handle it better when the time comes. It's another thing to let the worry eat at me when I don't know anything for certain and my husband is still here. I need to be enjoying the time we have together and taking positive steps to make the separation better. So rather than getting weepy all the time (I gave into that for a few evenings) and feeling like it's the end of the world, I'm going to seek out deployment support groups now and start looking to build a network for myself in earnest. Of course I have my wonderful network of friends and family that I know I can turn to by e-mail, by phone or by a visit to the states. But I want to have a life that's mine here too, one that includes friends and activities of my own. I don't want to be just an appendage of Jerry's.

So I'm going to start putting myself out there in the coming weeks, sampling some of the post's group offerings and attending some workshops on getting a civilian or federal job. It's easy to stay in my comfort zone and say that there aren't people that I've really been interested in meeting or getting to know. It's much harder to push myself to seek people out. But that's what I'm going to do. The library hosts a book club, which might be a good place to start for me.

In addition to being introspective and examining myself, I've taken the past day to start examining this post that will be our new home, whenever that time comes. It's very different than Schweinfurt, in ways both good and bad. It's a sprawling post, several times the size of Schweinfurt. Because of that, post traffic is made up almost entirely of cars. In my walks, I saw very few other pedestrians and zero cyclists. The installations that make up the Schweinfurt post are smaller and set in a larger town. There, people are always walking or riding bikes to get from installation to installation or from installation into the town of Schweinfurt. It seems that life on the Schweinfurt post integrates American and German living styles. When I'm on the Grafenwoehr post, I feel more like I could be on a post in America (apart from the architecture). That will be an aspect that I will miss when we leave Schweinfurt. On the plus side, the Graf post itself boasts a lot more green and is much more scenic. It also has large and new facilities, including the PX and commissary and a fitness center. The grounds are immaculately kept and overall the post just seems cleaner (I'm a big fan of clean!). Being a larger post, there are also more housing options, more job options and greater opportunities to meet people and build that network I'm so desperately needing.

I've taken a lot of words to say that I think I can find happiness here. At either post. And that being in the army is challenging me to face some of my worst demons (loneliness, impatience and my own emotional reactions to things). I hope that these challenges Jerry and I face will help me to learn to take things in stride and to have greater faith in our future, despite the present difficulties. I'm sure this will be a long learning process!