I don’t mind the comin’
… it’s the leavin’ me behind…
That has to be a song; or at least an idea in a song I know.
I just can’t think of which one, right now.
We are in HIGH military PCS (permanent change of station) season. It’s no vacation. It marks a time each year when a great shift of the
people in our immediate lives — our neighbors; co-workers; friends — takes place. Sometimes it is us, but not this year.
The kids are experiencing many of their mates leaving for the first time, as it is our
first year in Department of Defense schools. Usually it is they who do the
bidding goodbye. They are not used to being the ones left behind.
Until now, there was a certain continuity in their minds of
all the places they’ve been and friends they’ve met. They are still where we
left them, for the most part. This is comforting, and we each find a way to
keep the connection. That is not the case here in England, where mobility is great. While we were here before, they were too young to remember. And our dearest friends on the island offer them the emotional bridge, which is such a blessing.
I feel for them, and I understand their sadness, which
accompanies saying goodbye to their newly-minted school friends and teachers. It seems we only just arrived,
and we are watching loads of people go.
I suggested to my youngest that she write a thank you letter
to her teacher last weekend, and she broke down into tears. Instead, she wanted
to write her former teacher from Northern Virginia. I didn’t understand this at
first, but then I realized she associated her third grade classroom with a sort
of stability and fondness she doesn’t enjoy here. Her current teacher is moving,
as well, and I believe my daughter understands she will lose touch. To her 9-year-old self, she is a shapeshifter.
(Of course her third grade teacher is awesome, and wrote her
back. She gets it. She is retired military.)
There are so many moving parts in this military existence. We hold dearly to our friends and memories, smattered everywhere. They are our constant.
While we say farewell to many, we anticipate the arrival of
others. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the circular motions of the
people in our life. It’s like trying to grasp onto and feel the rotation of the
earth. You sort of get it through imagining the spinning and internalizing the
feelings as you watch the comings and goings.
While the adventures are many, transience is not something I
easily embrace. We all learn to flex, and to hold on to our experiences in
different ways to create a sort of permanence.
My son has found a certain social stability through Xbox, of
all things. On weekends when the time difference doesn’t matter as much, he is
able to link up with friends everywhere and "hang out" with them all these miles apart. I have given Xbox a pass due to this.
I don’t dislike the time he spends here as much as I would, otherwise.
My oldest daughter desires more than anything to hang on to
her memories and friends in Northern Virginia. She is begging me to let
her stay with friends this summer so that she may experience once again the joy
she found there. I can’t fault her for that. I wish I was there right now, too. But I work with her (and with myself) to embrace new, more local things.
For me, my childhood friends have started to pop into my
nocturnal life. While my dreams usually never make sense, in recent years, I
have reoccurring lyrical imagery of friends who were dear to me. They visit me
in my sleep in great detail. I can see them so clearly.
This is a tough one to explain during the light of day. But
I believe the shapes and images that float through our consciousness and how we
process them, have to do with trying to grasp permanence in a life that just isn’t…
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