Home
There are times I wish Daniel and I could just pack it all up and head home. But, I have to make myself let that wish go. We've chosen a different path for our life; one path I certainly didn't see myself taking. Growing up I never really gave any thought to moving from home. Yet at this point, the prospect of ever settling back into a life lived in that town is very slim. While I am happy in our deliberately chosen way, at times I deeply long for home and the comfort it affords me.

We were home-ish this weekend, staying with my grandparents who live about two hours from my hometown. I spent the early part of my life in those small towns around my grandparents house, and when combined with the time from the many visits we made, it is as familiar to me as my hometown. Huge amounts of memories washed over me as we drove the hills and roads that I lived my life around for twenty years. My heart ached as I remembered burying my twin brothers. I was just a tiny girl but I remember kneeling on the grass in the front yard looking at the tiny wooden boxes their remains rested in.
It was amazing to me what I could remember just from looking at a house, or driving past a certain road. There is so much of my life built into those little towns tucked in the hills of New York.
I wonder if my children will ever wish they had that type of life, the kind that is fully steeped in memories of a life lived in one place, rather than the nomadic type we are living in the military.

But here we are, promised to the Air Force for four more years with the intention of staying in as long as they will let us, because this life we are living is good with so much to offer. We have great, amazing benefits, our life will never be dull by any means, and we can take part in opportunities that we could never afford for our family should we not be a part of the Air Force.
Yet, even in knowing all this, my heart longs for the friends I have known for all of my life, the church I grew up in, a house where we can live out our days as a family, driving the roads I know like the back of my hand, having established relationships that I won't have to say good-bye to.

Will we ever wish that we had chosen a different way - the stable, live in one house forever way? The kind where we can have our kids grow up with their grandparents close by, and have friends we call Aunt and Uncle because our families are that close? Will we ever regret this life lived first for our country, second for our family?

How I wish I had all the answers sometimes.
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