My Life's Cycle

In today’s society, there are many military families stationed around the world; from California, to Mississippi, to Japan and even Hawaii. Today in the life of a military family, each and every member of the family has to learn how to adjust and cope with “picking up” and moving to a completely new place every two or three years. I personally know the feeling, being the daughter of a hard working senior chief in the Navy, who is soon to retire, I’ve lived my fair share of moves. In the seventeen years I’ve been alive, I’ve lived in about 8 places; Virginia, California, Spain, Sigonella, Mississippi, Naples, Brunswick, Litchfield, Spain, and Litchfield.

Now you might wonder why I purposely mentioned Spain and Litchfield twice, and yes I meant on purpose. Well when I was born, my mother was living with her aunt and uncle because my dad was deployed out of the country and my mom was alone. The closets hospital to my aunt and uncles house was the military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, which is where I was born on May 21, 1995. Two months later, my father finally got the chance to meet his first and only daughter. Both Spain and Litchfield get mentioned twice because we as a family had been moved from Naples, Italy to Litchfield in 2006. Then in 2010, my father got stationed in Spain for the second time, so we moved there. Which brings us back to him retiring January of 2013, forcing us to move back to Litchfield for me to be able to complete my senior year in one school.

Six years ago my family and I, of only 12 years old, moved into a nice big lake house in the middle of “nowhere”. Now where was “nowhere”, well “nowhere” was a small rural town stuck in between the city of Monmouth/Gardener and Wales. This wonderful small town is the town of Litchfield, Maine. As a seventh grader I moved to Litchfield, Maine and was enrolled into Carrie Ricker Middle School by my parents. Now being so used to having to pack up and move every three years,  it was my second year in Maine so I thought to myself out of experience, “Don’t get too attached to this school and these people, because you’re going to have to leave them soon”.

Today in the life of a military family, each and every member of the family has to learn how to adjust and cope with “picking up” and moving to a completely new place every two or three years.

Now, I don’t know about you but when a twelve year old girl is taught to tell her self that she can’t make friends because she’s going to have to leave them soon, that’s really sad to think about. Unfortunately, that nightmare came true for me, two years later. One November afternoon in 2009 my father came home with some unexpected news that he had gotten orders to be stationed in Rota, Spain. Now my mom is originally from Rota, Spain so this was like her moment in life where everything “circled around” and she got to finally go back home and be with family. However the hardest part for me was having to leave loved ones and my closest friends I had met, which I warned myself I’d have to leave two years prior.

Moving to Spain was a challenge, because It was a “new” place, “new” because I’ve visited and lived there for a little while before hand, but never had to adjust to a new high school, new friends, and new community at such an old age. I had always been used to moving, but for some reason moving during my high school years was one of the harder moves compared to moving from Mississippi in second grade. In Spain I started my sophomore year and continued onto my junior year shortly afterwards.

However, after two years enjoyably spent on the beautiful beaches of Rota, Spain, my dad was given orders to retire. Apparently after so many years in the Navy if you don’t qualify or rake a certain rank, they ask you to retire and get out of the Navy. Well in our case, my father completed his Senior Chief duties as an E8, however because he didn’t make master-chief after 26 years, he realized it was finally time for him to get out and continue life as a civilian retiree. With my dad retiring out of the Navy, we have to once again move to another “home”. Now this move was completely different than any other move I’ve done before, because first off it was going to be the last “PCS” (Permanent change of station) move that my family and I were to go through, secondly I was actually moving back to a place I’ve lived before.

On the 17th of August 2012, my family and I got on what might be our last ever military flight to come back “home” to Litchfield, ME. Technically we flew into Norfolk, VA however, after spending a couple days in Sterling, VA, after driving up from the airport, we headed towards Maine to go live in our old house on the lake. When we got here in Maine, I imagined a small group of my friends welcoming me home with open arms all excited to see that I was back home and that I would soon be graduating with them. However, what seems like the complete opposite actually happened. I arrived home around the 23rd of August and yes I had two friends come visit me however the ones I was really anxious to see never even acknowledged that I was even home. Now for that 15 year old girl that had to leave these friends two years ago, now 17 wishes that she had never even stop here as an 8th grader-freshmen because it felt as if she were a brand new student all over again. Most people in my grade still remember me from freshmen year, so  coming back for senior year isn’t all that bad, it’s just different.

It truly is hard when you leave what you thought was your “home” to go to a foreign country where you don’t know anyone then after two years of somewhat getting used to the people and culture and community, to pick right back up as if you mearly fell of the bike and keep ridding, once again having to move to a another place. I hoped that going back to what I thought was home would be easy, because I still know friends from this place, however when those “friends” decided to completely blow you off and ignore the fact that you’ve been gone for two years its hard.