For the
past (nearly) three years, I’ve lived in Germany, working with and for
Americans yet alongside Germans. The extremely limited amount of German I
learned in high school prior to being stationed in Germany helped in the
beginning, but didn’t have much chance to expand a whole lot during my stay, as
I was surrounded almost constantly by Americans, many of whom couldn’t care
less about learning the native language and conversing with the local nationals.
This
past Saturday, 28 June 2014, I flew from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seattle,
Washington. I extremely underestimated the kind of culture shock I would
experience in returning to America. Everything is so spaced out, so vast, in
this country, compared to Europe—and yet, Europe is by far a prettier country
than the United States. Where I would see brown, dead grass—where it has
clearly been landscaped and the grass should be green—in the US, I know that if
I saw such a thing in Europe, that grass would be green. It’s true that the
grass is greener in Europe than the USA.
I live
currently with my grandparents…again. I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to
serve a full career with the U.S. Air Force, a whole 20 years, and then retire
and do something else. I had big plans and big dreams. My time in Germany
served to crush every plan and dream I had—not because of the country or the
area; as a matter of fact, it was wonderful to be in Europe—but rather because
of the kind of people with whom I had to work. I didn’t want to separate from
the military…but I found out I’m pregnant.
My
grandma asked me just the other night why it was that I separated early rather
than sticking it out to the end of my enlistment. At the time that I discovered
I was pregnant, I thought my husband would be placed before the Medical
Evaluation Board for medical retirement from the military. It was coming up on
the time that we would be PCSing—moving to a new base—and an MEB could take up
to a year to complete. I was afraid that if I didn’t separate, or at least
transfer out of active duty into the guard or reserve, that I would PCS without my husband and end up in a new place
with a brand-new baby. If that happened, I would have had to find childcare for
my new baby while I went to work, and this was absolutely not something I wanted to do! I don’t trust people and I sure as
hell wouldn’t trust the Child Development Center on base to take care of her!
So, I made the decision to separate. I figured I should have enough time then
that if Randy goes before the MEB, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I
would become his dependent and all would be well.
Randy’s
MEB was turned down. Suddenly, he was going to have an administrative discharge
instead of a medical retirement. It was still honorable, but it didn’t provide
benefits post-separation. His separation date ended up being effective the day
before we were to fly out of Germany—the 27th of June, when our
flights were supposedly scheduled for the 28th.
My
flight had no issues. I flew with both of our cats, arrived safely, met up with
my dad and grandma (and baby brother), and proceeded to my grandparents’ house—only
to find out that Randy had been stuck at Frankfurt overnight because SATO, the
place on base that schedules the flights, completely fucked him over! They had
scheduled his flight for the 27th, like a bunch of idiots, when we
had specifically asked for the 28th multiple times!
He made
it safely in Indiana…luckily. His mother insisted on keeping him for two
goddamned weeks, while I’m in Washington having to hurry up and figure a whole
bunch of stuff out. My husband gets to meet up with his friends and have a good
old time while I’m trying to get shit done in Washington. I can’t really
complain about his mother—she’s doing wonderful things for us, buying us things
we’ll need for the baby. It’s just that I want him here sooner than July 11th
and I don’t see why she couldn’t have had him for one week and been happy with
it. The only friend I’ve managed to spend time with since I’ve been here is
Mary, my best friend. I feel like I have other people who want to see me, whom
I haven’t been able to see yet.
Some
good news is, today, I managed to finish my first list of reviews for porn
websites. It might not be the most honorable job—at least, it isn’t if you’re
some kind of stuck-up prick who’s too good to look at porn—but it will
ultimately pay me $245.00. The list I finished today will get me $50 of that
and then I’ll have a new list of sites to review. I haven’t gotten back to work
with my other client, yet, but I did message him to say that I want to begin
work on the company review he wants, come this Friday.
My cats
were traumatized for the first couple of days after getting to the house. I
have them in my little brother’s old room—it used to be mine, before I left and
my grandma switched all the furniture. The beds are gone, now, and I put in a
couple of litter boxes with food, water, a couple toys, and a scratcher. The
cats mostly hide in the closet, but they’ve reached the point that when I go
into the room to visit them, they come out and give me love. It fills me with a
warm and fuzzy kind of joy when they come out for me and start purring, rubbing
their adorable faces against my legs and hands and chasing the laser I point
around for them. I’ve discovered that Ajani, my male cat, is a catnip addict. I
bought a little thing of catnip spray and I use it on the scratcher when I
visit the cats, so that they know that’s a good thing to scratch. Ajani goes
nuts and smashes his face against the thing, scratches the hell out of it, and
even licks it, getting himself high as a kite! Liliana is a little less
affected, but she enjoys it as well. I can’t wait to have my own place with
Randy, our cats, and our baby—as I don’t expect to move out from my
grandparents’ house until after the baby is born.
It’s
weird, extremely surreal, being in the United States again.
No comments:
Post a Comment