Loneliness

No one ever said being a military wife would be easy, and being the product of a military family, I certainly never expected as much. I am a very independent person, and relish my "me" time. I like spending some time by myself. It's just the way I am.

That said, the loneliness of this lifestyle gets to me sometimes.

I grew up in Washington, and during the first deployment after we got married, I had a lot of friends and family nearby for support and company. Though I enjoyed my alone time, there were times that the house just seemed a bit too empty. When we moved to Norfolk, I learned the meaning of "alone" (Isn't that a Backstreet Boys song or something? Anyway...). It was nearly 2 years before we made any real friends. Here we were, 3000 miles away from home, with no one but each other. I had never felt so isolated before.

Eventually, we made friends...some of whom are very close. And now, of course, we're moving away. We're moving to an isolated island, where we will be living on base, surrounded by other military families. I'm having a really hard time with leaving many of our friends behind. It's difficult to see people and know that you may never see them again. And it's definitely not easy to realize that we will be going to a place where we don't know anyone.

I think when Eddie was at sea over the past 3 weeks, I had a reality check about this. See, I just changed jobs. Eddie literally went to sea on my 4th day at my new job. I would go to work with people I didn't know, then come home to a computer where I could chat with Eddie and some of our friends. It was only after almost 3 weeks that I saw Matt, my old roommate, and realized just how much I'd been missing some familiar human contact. And now, Eddie is getting ready to leave again, this time for 6 weeks, while I work on getting stuff ready for us to move. At least I'll have something to keep me occupied, and at least I have my cats for company...but I realize now that I really do crave human contact after a while.

Also, we are a definite minority among the military family crowd: we are childfree by choice. This can make it difficult to find and make friends...not that we dislike children or parents, but sometimes our lack of children makes it difficult to relate to other couples who have children.

I'm rambling. I guess I'm just dreading that initial period when we get to Okinawa, before we make any friends. It's been a while since I've experienced that kind of isolation, and it unnerves me a bit. And I'm dreading that final departure, leaving our Virginia friends behind. I hope to one day see them again -- if not all of them, at least some. But I'm sad just the same.

I know that we'll be fine, that we'll make friends, and we won't be by ourselves. But these things take time.

So...I guess that's it. I know this is just part of military life, and that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. But that doesn't mean it's easy.