Where Do We Go from Here?

Last week I was fine. A regular Army housewife debating when our husbands would come home, and why everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) in Schweinfurt has to get a Volvo XC90. This week, my mind is alternately rattled with an unexpected - Ok, the word unexpected is a bit of an overstatement - car buying process, and a reignited since of confusion over where I'm going in life. I won't dwell on the car thing here - Woodstock and I have already come to a decision. Which means, I presented several options to him (since he obviously can't pick the car) weighed the pros and cons, come to a conclusion, and now I spend almost every waking moment deciding if we made the right choice. But that's just me.

The other part is a bit more complicated. With one phone call Woodstock has shaken the very core of the super Army wife persona I've somehow adopted. Meaning, he wants to stay in the Army a little longer. Now, don't get me wrong, for various reasons I probably shouldn't disclose in a blog for OPSEC reasons (haha), I'd actually encouraged him to stay in for a while longer. He resisted. So I made other plans, based on the timeframe of him getting out of the Army, um sooner rather than later. I'm on the Spouses Club board (for you non-military folks, it's a club for Army spouses. For you military folks - it is NOT lame); I volunteered to be secretary for the community Girl Scouts committee, and I hinted very strongly that I'd like to be considered for a full time position in the job I'll be starting in a couple weeks. Now, things might change. And I'm not happy or unhappy about it - just confused. As the most indecisive person I know (I'm the person who orders a cheeseburger and fries, and when it comes, wish I'd gotten a chicken sandwich instead), it's hard for me to help give Woodstock advice about it. And the reason it's so hard, is because I think that my deliberation process is skewed by, gulp, selfishness.

Before I start in on the choices, which are Ft. Benning, GA and Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, by the way, I have to say that I admire military wives. And as much as I currently look like them, I feel that I'm a fraud. These women have - and will - sacrifice everything. Careers, plans, goals, and dreams. Past employers, jobs, master's degrees, jobs in aerospace engineering (seriously). I'm not willing to do that. I want a career. Perhaps if I'd gotten into the job market instead of wasting one year working at a beauty salon and going to school, I'd have built up a solid freelance career. But I didn't. And I don't think I should have to wait until my husband's career has finished before I try. Imagine me, a 45-year-old reporter, working nights, listening to the police scanner, while some 25-year-old doles out my assignments. I admire the courage of these women who CAN do that. And at times, I am ashamed, I feel bad, that I can't do that.

Which brings me back to the subject at hand. Of the two choices, it doesn't take a genius or a military guru to figure out that I'd prefer Ft. Benning. I can get a job, in or around the Atlanta area, in my field. If he PCS's, he'd probably have less than a year left, and we could survive a commute while we both work at our respective jobs, and then finally move to the area. At Ft. Sill ... um, I could take the entire slate of courses offered at ACS (resume writing, typing and Army Family Team Building - yeah, I don't know what that is). BUT is Ft. Benning the best choice as a whole, or just the best choice for me? That, I don't know. And I know that Woodstock will be putting me into the equation and won't just make a decision based on what's best for him because we went into this knowing that the military thing wouldn't be forever.

I guess all my ramblings boil down to: Am I being selfish by wanting to go Georgia? Or am I just looking for the best interests of our family for the future?