Goodbye Again

My bags are packed and ready to go, but I still have a few more hours before I need to leave for the airport. I always hate leaving my home. As much as I would love to live by the motto "Home is where the Navy sends us", I really can't. In many ways, that is true. Where Mr. V goes, I follow and it will always be that way as long as he is in the Navy. We're a family and we will make a home together wherever we go. However, at the same time, I don't know if I can ever call any of these places "home". So far the Navy has put me in Texas, Florida and Washington, yet when people ask me where I'm from, I still say "New Jersey". This will always be my home, while those other places will be a temporary home.

I've never been a person who has dealt well with change, so marrying someone in the military probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world, but I guess we can't help who we fall in love with! It took me 3 years to get used to North Carolina when I was in college there. I spent many school breaks at home in NJ claiming that I wasn't going back to NC and that I hated it there. It wasn't until my senior year when something finally clicked, and suddenly, I loved it there! That's why, when I did move out of NJ permanently, NC is where I went. But it took 3 years! 3 years for me to fully adapt to a place and 3 years to fully love a place. Unfortunately, 3 years is the standard amount of time that we will live anywhere, so sometimes its really depressing to me because I feel like I'll never have time to settle down and really feel like I am home.

I feel like I'm kind of rambling here. This isn't to say that I hate the experiences the Navy has given me. If anything, I love these experiences. I have been to places I never would have been to. I've seen things I never thought I would see. I've gotten "vacations" on the Navy's dollar. I am not sure if I ever would have seen Washington state if it wasn't for the Navy. I have always wanted to visit all 50 states at some point, but Washington was never on the top of my list, so who knows if I would have ever made it there. So while I am thankful for these experiences, it still makes me sad that I don't quite feel at home anywhere but at my childhood home.

I realize that this is pointless whining. If I want to be married to Mr. V then I have to deal with this life, and I'm willing to do that. But sometimes I feel like I need to have a good cry about it all. Most of the time I feel like having that good cry when it comes to leaving a place I am familiar with.

I think the hardest thing about leaving NJ this time is my grandparents. I came out here to celebrate their 80th birthday. I am their only grandchild and I admit that I have always been spoiled rotten by them. They mean so much to me, and in the past few years, they have been very depressed (especially my grandpa). They miss me and they make that very clear. I used to go to their house all the time, but now at the end of their lives, I barely see them. I wish I could see them more because it upsets me to see them crying when I say goodbye to them. I know that they won't be around forever. My grandpa has been pretty sick recently so I know that his time here is limited. I can handle saying goodbye to my friends. I can handle saying goodbye to my other family that is still left here. But I can't handle saying goodbye to them. Its hard enough that I have a hard time dealing with change as it is!

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is. I'm just sitting here, waiting to leave, and thinking a lot about my time spent in this house. There is a large part of me that wishes that I could still be here and that this was still my house to live in. There is so much that I miss about this place in general, and so many good memories, yet in a few hours, I'll be gone for who knows how long.

I guess I need to just suck it up, but I've never been good at doing that. I do miss Mr. V. I miss the cats. I miss my friends in Washington, but life would be ideal if I could just combine everything and everyone that I miss and put them all in the exact same place! I've always wanted a life of stability, but I chose a life of anything but that. Maybe one day I'll be able to handle change better. Maybe one day I'll be able to say goodbye to people without hurting and without crying.

So I guess this is goodbye to New Jersey for a while again. I don't know when I'll be out here again, but I do know that I want and need to see my grandparents again soon. Hopefully I'll plan another trip in a few months, and then I'll just go through this whole sad process again! To end this on a somewhat happy note, the best thing about this life is the freedom its given me. I guess that sounds weird as I sit here complaining about wanting stability, yet being happy about my freedom, but it does make sense. Mr. V has a great job that provides for us and allows me not to work full time. At one point this was a huge downer for me. I always wanted a career and I was upset when I realized we would be living in places that simply wouldn't allow for me to have that career. So I have worked temp jobs and I've worked as a nanny. I work part time and pretty much chose my own hours. His job allows for me to travel and do the things I want to and need to do and for that I am thankful :-).

Well...I guess its time to go pack up the car and head on out of here. I'll be back soon....I promise! :-)

February

February is going to be a good month. I'm judging that by the fact that today is the first day of the month and its the first day in almost 2 months where I've had absolutely NOTHING to do! Its a fantastic feeling, especially since I have been so stressed and overwhelmed lately.

As for other good things during the shortest month of the year:

~In less than 2 weeks I'm on my way home to New Jersey. I'm excited because the last time I went home was in October, and that was for my Grandma's funeral, so it wasn't exactly a happy vacation. This time its to visit my other set of Grandparents who are turning 80 (Grandma in February and Grandpa in March). My grandparents have been pretty bummed for the past few years because I have been moving around and not living anywhere close to NJ and my mom moved to Georgia a few years ago. Couple that with the fact that my aunt lives in Vermont, and they have no family nearby anymore. Its sad to me because the few times that I have seen my grandparents, my grandfather always cries and tells me how much he misses me. I've always been really close to this set of grandparents so its so hard for me to see him like that. Anyway, my mom is planning a surprise 80th birthday party for them. They know that my mom will be coming into town and taking them out to dinner. They don't know that I'll also be in town and thats the surprise :-). My mom wants to keep it a secret that I am coming out there for a few days so I'm getting excited. I know they are going to be thrilled to see me and I'm thrilled that I am going to see them! The only downside is that Mr. V can't come with me so I'll miss Valentine's Day. I guess we can always celebrate earlier or later though.

~Less than a week after getting back from New Jersey I'm off to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I figured that since I live closer to Canada than to Seattle, then I might as well try to get tickets to the winter games. I've loved watching figure skating in the Olympics since I was a little kid, so I hunted out some tickets for ice dancing and will be headed that way on the 19th. Mr. V is less than thrilled about going to see figure skating, but since he wasn't nearly as excited as I was about the Olympics being so close, he just went along with it. He's not sure if he'll be able to get off of work to go with me (and he won't know until the night before...grrr), but thankfully I have a friend who will be my "backup" if he can't make it. I doubt he'll be too upset if he misses figure skating though :-).

~And finally, about a week ago Mr. V passed his PPC board (Patrol Plane Commander). For P3's this is the farthest he can advance job wise in the actual plane (its not a rank promotion). This means that I will hopefully be able to see a little more of him this month. Each advancement requires hours upon hours of studying so I feel like I actually talked to him more when he was in Iraq, than I have since he's been home. So thankfully, while I'm sure he'll still be overworked, at least he won't have to hide away in a room on base to study anymore. Maybe I'll really have my husband back now :-).

And that's February for me! Hopefully it will continue to be a happy month!

Random Tidbits About Canada

We've been back from Canada for a week now, and I have to admit that being back in the real world isn't much fun. Deployment is coming up fast, which upsets me. I guess I had been ignoring that fact for a while, but reality set in when we got back from Canada.

BUT...on a happy note, I decided to write about some random fun things in Canada that have nothing to do with almost losing my life.

First....I grew up in New Jersey (as you probably know by now). New Jersey is known as the "Diner Capital of the World". You can find a real, true diner in just about every single town. Many towns have diners on every street corner, and some have more than one on the same street. Diner food is hard to describe if you've never eaten it before. Its not quite home cooking, but its also not a meal that you would get at a restaurant like Applebee's. One thing I miss about Jersey is my favorite diner, the Crystal Diner in Toms River. The Crystal Diner serves something called disco fries. They are also served in many other diners around the state too. Disco fries are a plate of french fries, with brown gravy and American cheese on them. Before you say that it sounds gross, I dare you try to them if you ever have the chance and I bet you will be changing your mind quickly. Since leaving the state, I haven't come across disco fries anywhere. In fact, I really haven't come across a real diner anywhere else. The closest thing I have found to a real diner, is a typical Carolina Barbeque place (only in North Carolina though). Carolina Barbeque isn't diner food, but a lot of other things they offer is similar (i.e. grilled cheese). So needless to say that I was beyond excited that a very popular meal/snack in Canada is something called Poutine. Poutine is...you guessed it...french fries, with brown gravy and cheese!! The cheese was something similar to blue cheese (I forget what it actually was), so that part was different, but the first time we came across a restaurant with Poutine, I was able to get them to switch their cheese to 2 slices of American cheese. Then I happily ate my disco fries, at the top of Suplher Mountain, in Canada :-). Mr. V always thought disco fries sounded gross, until he tried mine in Canada. He changed his mind. We ended up finding that almost every restaurant that served fries, also served Poutine (The KFC there served fries and gravy in place of the mashed potatos that we are used to here.) Some places served french fries with a regular meal, and you can get a side of brown gravy to pour over them. Needless to say, I ate my beloved disco fries at every place that served them. I think its going to be a while before I will be able to eat them again. So yay for Canada and their own version of a favorite Jersey diner food!

Second....Another weird food/snack that I love is marzipan. Marzipan is an almond paste that is used a lot in cake decorating. At Christmas time marzipan comes in small fruit shaped pieces, usually in a nice gift box. There is nothing special about marzipan, other than the fact that I like the taste of it. However, its another thing that I like to eat, that I have a hard time finding outside of New Jersey. I worked at a candy store for 5 years, and we sold regular marzipan, along with chocolate covered marzipan. Mr. V happens to find marzipan absolutely disgusting, as do many other people who have tried it. Apparently, disliking it must be pretty common because its not an easy thing to find (although here in Oak Harbor, Safeway sells it in their baking isle). So score another point for Canada! We went into several small candy shops while we were there. If you know me, you know I get sweet cravings pretty often, so if there's a candy store around, and I have no candy in my car, then we are going inside.) I was quite happy to discover that chocolate covered marzipan is a pretty common thing sold in Canadian candy stores.

So while, I'm sure people are still going to think that I enjoy eating things that seem gross to them, I am happy to report that Canada clearly understands my taste buds. And since Poutine and marzipan is sold just about everywhere, then I'm happy to say that I can't possibly be the only person in the world who likes to eat this stuff.