Keeping up appearances

It's that time again.

My husband is about at the halfway mark in the course he is taking here in VA, so his branch manager has emailed him (and all the other people his rank that are eligible to move) with some options. You know, the "please look through this list and rank your top three assignment choices," with some guidelines about who is first in line for those augmentee to Afghanistan positions. Mercifully, we are not. He's only been home seven months.

The insanity of the whole thing just makes me laugh.

My husband is aviation. It seems that his branch is stretched even thinner than the rest of the Army.  The pace that they are keeping officers on is crazy. That isn't a complaint. Just an observation. We are fighting a war in a country with something like three roads and a big old mountain range in the middle. So yeah, they need helicopters. Hence, a lot of the assignments are more like picking where your spouse will live while you're gone.

I find it funny that they are still trying to keep up the image of considering people's preferences.  And it was with this cynicism that I helped put together our dream sheet. Are we eligible for the locations/ positions we asked for? Not sure. The job descriptions were pretty thin. Will we get any of those locations? Maybe. Maybe not. Can't hurt to ask.  If we got one of those jobs we requested, would I be excited? Heck, yeah!

We are getting to the end of this Army journey. I am mostly focused on my oldest son's high school experience (he's in 8th grade right now) and where I want to be in the long term, post-Army. I am trying hard to balance that with my husband's career progression. It's harder than it sounds. My mama-bear instinct kicks in when I think about how little the Army really cares about my son's school career or how he has moved pretty much every other year of his whole life. 

Keeping #1 reassured is a big task now. He knows what is going on. He knows we are waiting to see what will happen. I don't know if he has grasped that some guy in an office in KY that he has never met is deciding where he will go to high school.  These same people will decide if he gets to stay at that high school for four years. I am doing my best to keep it positive. Reminding him that this is all an adventure. That God's plan is not our plan, and we will end up where we are supposed to be. I am trying to focus on that myself, when the worry starts to creep in to the corners of my mind. 

When will we know? How long will this take? We could have a late June report date, and February is next week. If we get an overseas move, wow. We'll have a busy couple of months.  But we also asked to stay here, and I am trying to fight the cutting-of-ties that I subconsciously start a few months before I leave a place. You know, you just gradually ease your way out of all the things you do. And then, one day, the truck shows up, takes all the stuff, and poof. Gone. Just like that.  Why fight it? Because we might not be leaving, so I can't disengage yet. 

It may sound a little crazy, but my only comfort is that I am not the only wife slowly going insane while we wait to see where our life goes next.  Plenty of Marine wives are going through the same thing with me right now. Hopefully, the kids are feeling like they are not alone either. Because they're not. Especially not here, at the school full of military families. And they won't be alone at our next duty station. Wherever that is.