Getting Over The City That I Never Thought I'd Be Able To Leave

Its funny how over the years, plans and ideas change. When Christopher signed up with and joined the Air Force back in 2006, we were sure that we'd be stationed in Washington. Our lack of knowledge and experience had left us with a false impression of our future, implying that we'd always live in the Northwest. To us, the Northwest was all that existed, and surely everybody else must have known that, the military included.

The reality of our situation is, we'll never live in Portland ever again. Not only will we never be stationed there, there isn't an Air Force base, but we don't even want to live there anymore. That might come as a shock to anyone that knew us way back when, but when I try to imagine taking the life that we live now, and making it work in the treasure chest of our past, it makes me cringe.

There are things that I miss about the city, absolutely. Favorite shopping places, the rainy smell that always seems to be in the air, even on the rare occasion that the sun comes out, my best friend and all of the countless adventures that I know I'm missing out on by being so far away- I'm not completely over it yet. But even though there are things we're missing out on there, we have an amazing new life here.

We're a military family now. Not just, "my husband is in the military", but, we're a millitary family. I know we originally said we were going to get out after his first enlistment, but, this is it for us. This is how we want to raise our children. My husband loves what he does, and I support that. Hes set goals for himself, his career, and our family, and I have no doubt that he'll achieve them all. We've had pretty much smooth sailing since stepping on board, and we know we won't always be so lucky. The deeper into his career waters he gets, the more deployments and TDY's (temporary duty station, where he goes on a little family-free all work no play vacation to a base in the middle of nowhere) will float to the surface. We're ready for it. If he were to deploy today, I'd be ready for it. It would be hard, I'd lose my mind ever so slightly (I'd have vacuum's set up around the house to suck up the giant wolf spiders that will make their return this spring), but I could hold down the fort.

Wait, what was I writing about again?

Oh yes. Life before the now. Portland and Stumptown...

The other day I got a surprise package in the mail, and nuzzled deep inside the packing paper, were 2 mugs from Stumptown coffee. From the second that I unwrapped them, I was taken back to the scent that hovered outside our apartment door every Saturday morning. Christopher and I used to live on SE Morrison. For any Portlander, you know that means we were cool, right? The Cricket cafe a few steps to the left, and Stumptown coffee a few steps to the right. Its weird how I can't remember the actual taste of Stumptown, as much as I remember the aroma, and its existance.

The best part about getting over the city that I never thought I'd be able to leave, is when little parts of the city come to me.