I took my 12 year old daughter to see Catching Fire over the holiday break. I wanted to see it right away, but since she is convinced that I lay awake at night devising ways to make her life absolutely miserable, I made her read the book before I took her. Honestly I don’t know how she could wait to read that book after reading the first one. Knowing there was a trilogy on my bookshelf was more than I could take. I think I read all three of them in a week. But alas, she decided that I was serious and started flipping pages. Turns out she loved the book. Not that she would ever admit that out loud or anything.
So we went to the theatre, spent way too much money, and settled in for the film. I thought it, just like the first movie, was really well done. I still think the books are better, but I really enjoyed the movies as well. Except for when the credits rolled at the end and I thought “Well, crap. Now I have to wait another 18 months to see the next one!” I hate waiting. Really hate it. A lot.
Waiting for the next movie in a trilogy to be released. Waiting for my daughter to read the book so we can see it. Waiting for The Walking Dead to come back on. Waiting for football season to start again. Waiting for Spring.
Patience is something I have to work on.
Good thing I am not married to a military man or anything.
This is the year that we might be PCSing. I say ‘might’ because we really don’t know what is going to happen right now. If we move, it will probably be this summer. I say ‘probably’ because, well you never know. We think we know where they would send us. I say ‘think’ because I have learned not to try and second guess the military.
Might. Probably. Think.
These are pretty common words in our world, aren’t they?
I don’t know about you, but I am a planner. I always say that I can deal with almost anything… as long as I know. Because then I can develop a plan. Not being able to be proactive about a problem or a situation drives me insane. I spend hours trying to put together different scenarios in my mind. Without fail… none of my scenarios ever seem to be right. But it doesn’t keep me from trying to exercise some kind of control.
Good thing my husband doesn’t have a career where our family has to give up control over certain aspects of our lives.
And I know I am not alone in this. Certainly other folks like me start to feel a physical anxiety when we are in that phase of military life where we are anticipating those three big words coming from the mouth of our spouse in uniform.
“We have orders!”
I wish I had some sage advice to offer about how to calm the jitters during this time. I would love to share with you how I am getting through this phase of our journey without a knot in my stomach. If only I had the solution to those sleepless nights of worry about what is coming next.
But I don’t.
Turns out though, I know there is an amazing community of military spouses who have probably all been in this “hurry up and wait” phase and that even if you don’t have words of wisdom to help me sleep and stop biting my finger nails… you can assure me that I am not nuts. This is normal. Others are going through it too.
So please, share with me… how do you cope with the unknown? How have you managed to stop worrying about things you have no control over? How have YOU done it?
I give you my heartfelt thanks in advance!