This past move was quite a doozey. DH’s orders came less than two weeks before we had to get halfway across the country ourselves. In the four months we were there, we lived in two different houses, I got a temporary job, and then we got orders again on short notice. It was an exhausting holiday season for us. Even our few months there wasn’t pleasant.
We briefly stayed at my in-laws since we had no time to find a place of our own before we got there. After some family drama, DH decided we couldn’t stay there any longer. (I was overjoyed, but I want to go on record as saying it wasn’t initiated by me! In-laws problems are messy, but I was a good girl.) We found an apartment close to DH’s work. It happened to be an apartment complex that was mostly geared toward college students since it was close to the university in town. It wasn’t a biggie for us (it was cheap), but the landlord company looked at us like we had three heads. They said non-students lived there, but they did nothing by mess up our lease and were confused by every non-student issue we had. Even paying out rent was a problem because they couldn’t just tack it on to our tuition. Once we inserted the military issues, it was a huge quagmire. They still haven’t given us our security deposit back because our lease is still in limbo since we had to break it early. They said it was no big deal, but clearly it is.
DH got a gym membership while he was there too. He cleared it with them first, finding out the ways to cancel the membership if we had to leave early for military issues. Again, they said it was no biggie. I spent quite awhile on the phone with them today trying to clear it up, so it’s obviously a bigger deal than they thought. It turns out they didn’t know how to read military orders, so they misread DH’s. They marked on his membership that he was only going to be gone 7 weeks instead of permanently re-stationed, so we’re still paying a monthly fee for a gym in another time zone. I have to resend in orders to the corporate office to try and possibly get it approved. Possibly? Uhh…I refuse to pay for a gym membership if I live two thousand miles away. And if they couldn’t understand military orders the first time, how are they going to reread them and get it now?
I am very, very much looking forward to getting on-post housing where everyone has the same problems. Every place there is used to working with people moving in and out and single spouses and long distance issues and time sensitive material. I want to live behind barbed wire fences, so I can feel safe when DH is gone for long periods of time. I want to know that over half the population has been trained on how to use a weapon and will help me if I need it. I want to be around people who know the lingo and what it feels like to be so lonely. I want someone to know what they’re looking at when I hand them my military ID card. I want the feeling of uniformity. I want to quit being the exception and instead feel like I’m part of a large group that is all working, breathing, and thinking the same way I do. I know a lot of people who don’t like the restrictions that on-post living creates, and trust me, there are a lot, but I would gladly take them all. The military life can often be frustrating, and sometimes it’s hard to remember why it’s worth it when you’re stuck in the ocean of civilian life. November can’t come soon enough.
Solitary Wind Chime 