Moving On, Starting Over

Lets talk about fears. What truly scares you? For me, losing my husband or my daughter. Right below that is losing another member of my family, my parents or siblings. But that's not what I want to talk about today. Today I'm going to tell you something that we're going through right now. And it's scary. But I think it's a good kind of scary.

Aaron is leaving the military. A few weeks ago he had a PT (physical training) test. These tests are mandatory for every military member but they vary between branches of what's required to pass them. The Air Force is the only branch that measures your waist line and has a max limit of how "big" you're allowed to be. Aaron passed the push-ups, sit-ups, and run portions of the test with flying colors. He is in great shape. Recently he was asked to give a blood sample to be an example of what a perfectly healthy 27 year old male should be. I'm not exaggerating when I say he's in good health. But he's 1/2 an inch over their max waist limit. And because of that extra 1/2 inch he failed his test. And because he failed the test he's being separated from the military. He's being given an honorable discharge, but it's still the equivalent of losing his job. And that's scary.

When Aaron called me after his PT test and told me he'd failed it I felt so sad for him. He worked so hard to pass and he was SO CLOSE. I'll be honest here. I was expecting to be angry and terrified if he didn't pass. But I wasn't. I felt very calm and accepted the news easily. Aaron and I have always talked about "one day" when he's not in the military what we'd want to do. So when he asked me the BIG question of what do we do I said "everything we planned!" I got excited. Excited over my husband losing his job? I know. I was surprised too. But I was excited. We decided we're moving back to Utah (!!!) and Aaron is going back to school. He's getting his degree in Art and Computer Science (he's incredibly talented in both areas) and he's going to design art for video games. It's his dream job and now he's going to chase his dreams.

It's scary, the idea of moving on and starting over. We have a 2 month old daughter to worry about. Aaron is getting a new job. We're moving across the world (but thankfully, back home). For the first time in 9 years my husband is moving somewhere because he wants to and not because someone gave him an order. We have no idea how long we'll be in Utah. We're taking things one step at a time. Life is going to be very different, but we're both excited. We're going somewhere new and wonderful and we're doing it as a family. Together we're facing our fears and coming out fighting.

Because we'll never have another spring in Japan, I went out today and took some pictures of the cherry blossoms. I have plans to do it again later this week because I definitely didn't get enough. Aren't they beautiful? I'll definitely miss them.

xo Sue