Yesterday my lover walked through the door with his official PCS orders in hand. This means that I can finally share with everyone where the Army is sending us next. We found out a year ago, almost to the day, but within the past year our assignment has been changed twice by a man who shall remain nameless, creating a great deal of stress, excessive shedding of tears, and extra leg work for my lover. Fortunately, persistence pays off and our assignment was restored to its original location, and now that we have orders in hand we feel comfortable sharing with everyone the destination of our next stop on our journey with the Army.
Goodness...have I dragged this out long enough? I think so.
We are moving to...
Image via Google Images.
Yep. Back to Italy! The land of amore & vino!
We went back and forth about whether we would try to go back to Italy, or if we would try to stay in Hawaii longer. Either way we knew the decision had to be made early because we knew that branch's first picks for us would be neither Italy or Hawaii, and as most of you know, you have to put the wheels into motion before branch gets a chance to make the decision for you.
It's felt like a dream for the last year...or maybe a roller coaster of emotions would be more appropriate. I remember the day my lover called me from down range to tell me the news. I was sitting in the LAX airport at o'dark thirty stunned...our dream had come true. Thank goodness I called my bestie right away, otherwise I might have burst. The months that followed were filled with ups and downs as our assignment changed a few times. Thereafter, we only shared the news with our immediate family and a few very close friends. Due to our assignment changing a few times, we decided to keep the details of our assignment private as my lover jumped through hoops to undo the switcheroo the nameless man put into action. So I apologize to anyone who feels like they have been left out of the loop.
Now that we have our orders, we are both going through a plethora of emotions. We're excited to have the opportunity to travel and experience the Italian culture once again, but certainly not ready to leave the Land of Aloha, our home. We'll move back upon my lover's retirement though...if not sooner. We also feel very selfish in our decision to pursue another overseas assignment. The assignment is fantastic for my lover's career and great for us as a couple in regards to our desire to travel more. On the other hand, it's taking us even further away from our loved ones by choice. This was not an easy decision...we still waver on it to this day, but there's no going back now. There will always be pros and cons to every duty station for us, a topic I will expand upon in a future post, but regardless one chapter in our life is about to close while another opens.
We are now within our 90 day window of leaving the island, and our To Do list has expanded to ridiculous proportions. It's exciting, but incredibly overwhelming and scary. There's been so much I wanted to discuss on my blog, but it all had to be sidelined until we received our official orders. Now that it's all out in the open, I hope to document the various aspects of our PCS in the next few weeks and months on here. I'm pretty sure my emotions will be all over the place, but it's my intention to be as honest as possible about this PCS...good and bad.
This is an amazing opportunity. I hope you all join me as my lover and I embark on this next chapter in our life.
