Packers...again

The one thing that I HATE about being in the military is the physical act of moving.  I don't mind moving to a new place...but I seriously wish that I could click my heels and omit the packing stage of it.  It is with dread that I invite complete strangers into my home to touch EVERYTHING that we own.  That first overseas was memorable.

The hardest part about moving is the waiting stage.  When I mention "Waiting Stage," I mean the time between when we are told we are reporting somewhere, but we do not have Orders yet.  When it is an overseas tour and I know they are going to either fly our stuff or send it off on a slow boat, the fact that our "stuff" is just sitting there...WAITING...really galls me.  I am one of those people who does not wait very well.  If my engineer reads this, he would laugh and say, "Ya think?!?!" During the "Waiting" stage I tend to grow horns and a tail because I KNOW that, until Orders are in hand, anything can happen (and sometimes does.)  Until we can actually HOLD our Orders, my engineer could be sent to some God Forsaken place for a year...and that kind of suspense if NOT my thing.

The "Waiting" stage is filled with a whole lot of Hurry Up and Wait.  After a while, with PCS (Permanent Change of Station) Season, we discovered that HU&W is ALL our lives are made of.  There is always this huge Honey Do List from Big Blue that life will end if we didn't get it done yesterday.  That very first PCS was a something out of the book of Revelations.  The tools that I have now to make it work, I didn't have any of them back then.  But Boy, did I learn, and fast.

Every single move, theft and damage is the HUGE issue that you have to deal with concerning military moves.  It is completely pounded into your skull to have a complete inventory with pictures, costs, and written descriptions.  Luckily, when we made that first hop across the pond, we didn't own very much.  When we were preparing for the movers to come and haul everything away, we suddenly had even less.  It is AMAZING how much you decide that you don't really need when faced with shlepping it halfway around the world!  It was embarrassing how much ended up on the curb, at the airmen's attic, and dropped off at the Thrift Shop.  In the end, we moved to The Orient with just under 5 thousand pounds....nothing in storage.  That was all we had.

By the time our Orders FINALLY showed up, my head was almost spinning, wanting to get our belongings packed up and shipped.  Just as we arrived in the Great White North during the deep winter, we were leaving during that same time as well.  I felt that it would be better to live without on the outgoing and have it show up shortly after arriving.  Luckily, we received our orders in October and were able to schedule a pack out shortly thereafter.  With great anticipation, we continued to prepare for the movers up until the morning they arrived.

Pictures, inventory lists, small child, cat, Great White North Winter Weather....all of these things made for a very LONG 3 days.  The only thing that made it a bit better was the fact that we didn't own very much.  However, the flip side to that coin is that by not owning much, any loss would feel greater.  Intensely feeling this, my engineer and I watched the packers like hawks.  I will never forget how the senior packer marked EVERYTHING damaged and dirty.  Calling in TMO, they examined everything and had him rewrite the packing list.  I couldn't get that liar out of our house fast enough.  He was demeaning, rude, and just distasteful.  I was so close to losing my top with him that the final day really should have come sooner.  Now, I would just swing the video camera up and tell him to say it to the camera.  Back then?  I wasn't that ballsy yet.

It was with great relief that we drove to our dear friends' house for a couple nights.  We were headed out on one last "see the folks" trip before hopping the pond.  After dropping our precious Nutmeg off at her foster home, we loaded up the car to spend time with our military family.  They were the peace in the midst of the PCS Hurricane.  All I wanted, at that moment, was the no-demands companionship of a military sister who knew exactly how we felt...and provided precisely what we needed...

A Smile
Good Food
A comfortable bed....

and a serious dislike for movers!