Guam.
For three years we’ll be living on a remote Pacific Island, starting this summer.
Crash.
Ok, I knew this was coming. For months we’ve known he was penciled in. But I was in denial. The Navy wouldn’t send a family with 6 kids there! We’ve always been told that big families don’t get sent overseas.
The salt in the wound is that another family we know with 5 kids is going to Naples, Italy. The injustice. My husband speaks Italian! He knows Rome after spending a year there in college. But he didn’t want that job, and he keeps reassuring me that his bosses wouldn’t have sent him there, even if he asked for it.
After hiding in my room and moping for a couple hours, and shooting painful, barbed glares at my husband for an evening, I have started to come to terms with our
My second response to finding out about Guam was to decide to spend a lot of money before we go. Right after dinner Friday night, I announced we were all going to see the high school play, so everyone jumped in the car, and we made it just after the curtain rose.
On Saturday we had a birthday party for my now 11 year old son. I shopped on ebay for a saxophone for my almost 13 year old. Then I looked into booking a trip to Seattle with my sister. I shopped online for a hotel in Rome for the pope’s beatification. And then on Sunday we went to ATT, signed up for cell service, and came home with an iphone and another phone.
But I lost 4 different bids on saxophones. My sister and I haven’t committed to dates for a trip. I never booked a hotel in Rome. And on Monday I returned the second phone to ATT and cancelled the second line. (The iphone was actually a gift from my in-laws. I have been sort of proud of the fact that I have not had a cell phone contract up to this point, only pay as you go service. But it turns out I am an inconvenience to society because everyone wants to send texts these days.) So I didn’t really spend hundreds of dollars.
Then I got online to do some research on Guam. It is pretty. And I’m sure there are nice people there, like on other remote Pacific islands. Maybe the kids and I should start to learn Chamorran.
10 comments:
I never read blogs at work but today I read this one. For some reason when I read about you going to Guam I just about started to cry.
I have moved 18 times in 28 years of marriage. This May we will be in our current place the longest, 6 years. Moving has often been a painful thing for me, feelings repressed way down deep until the year I had a nervous breakdown after finding out about another move that was out of our control.
On the positive side I love house plans and have been able to dream about my ideal house after many not so ideal ones and several keepers we left behind.
I think I would react much the same way, although I probably would have actually spent all the money. I bet though that it will be interesting and exciting and full of nifty experiences.
Dear Emily,
I can only imagine the reaction. But I think you'll find Guam wonderful--what makes it wonderful is not the place itself, but what you will bring to it--a loving family and a sense of adventure.
All that said, I will be praying that your transition to Guam be filled with light, joy, and hope and that you can convey to your family the wonderful opportunity this will represent.
So much is dependent upon how we choose to receive the gifts we have been given.
shalom,
Steven
Thank you for your kind words, dear friends. They bring real consolation.
Hope, I'll remember what you mention about repression. It's easier to smile and say, "We've heard great things about it!" when people ask about moving - which they are already doing because the kids, who are very excited about the adventure, are already spreading the word and asking for a kayak - than to admit that detaching is difficult and that really I'd like to put down roots someday.
And so far, I've found it to be the case that pretending to like a place causes my affections to shift to really liking it. I'll take to heart your words, Steven.
Wow! Guam! I can understand your feelings. I am not a person who takes change well. Especially if it's sudden and it's someone else's idea. Even when it's something I'd usually love to do if I came to the idea on my own, when it's someone else's proposal, I'll often balk just because it's not my idea.
I remember once when I was a teenager my dad came home from work on a Friday afternoon and told us to pack our bags because he was taking us to the beach for a week. I decided not to go not because I don't like going to the beach but just because I hadn't had time to think about it an process it. I didn't have any great plans to do anything else; but the thing was I hadn't planned to go to the beach and couldn't quite wrap my mind around it. So I stayed home with my mom and though I'm sure I'd have had fun if I'd got over myself and gone with them, I wasn't kicking myself about not going.
Anyway, prayers that God will bring you peace and that your move will be smooth and that your time in Guam will bring you many rich treasures.
+JMJ+
Emily, this reminds me of an analogy Pentimento sometimes brings up on her blog. It's the one about spending your whole life planning a trip to France, only to end up in Holland. Nobody is denying that it's a huge disappointment, but the good part is that there are many great things about Holland just waiting to be discovered, too!
But my uncharacteristic cheerful tone probably isn't helping. =P Just let me know if you'd like a griping partner instead.
I agree completely that detaching is difficult. A relative who knows of my dream to emigrate to a certain country advised me to move to a whole other country first (because it's easier to get a visa for the latter) and try to get permanent residency there, which will then help me enter my first choice of new home. He estimated that it would take me about five years to do all that, and I knew it wouldn't be worth it. Why put down roots for five years if you're only going to pull them up again? So I opted to stay where I am--although I'm not any happier about being rooted here than I was before.
* * *
Melanie, I can relate to your reaction! I ask my mother for at least twenty-four hours notice if she expects me to go anywhere that requires packing an overnight bag!
Hey, on the bright side, at least you'll get away from the neighbor kids who are always eating all your food.
Whoa. Guam. Just... whoa. The pix are pretty, though?
I was fortunate in that we did not move to the place that I did not want to go, which everyone told me was gorgeous (an odd construction, but I'm sure you'll understand it). But that was a different situation because we had a choice about it, and so the choice itself was becoming a wedge between us. But I like to think that if we'd had no choice but to go to the gorgeous place I hated, I would have accepted it (mostly) gracefully. I hope.
We'll be praying for you. Wow. Guam.
Emily, I am an intermittent reader of your blog, but this post grabbed my attention because my brother-in-law with his family have been posted in Guam since 2006. He retired last summer and they will be moving back to the states this spring, but they have actually enjoyed their time in many ways. I told my sister-in-law about you and she writes:
"...I'd really like to connect with her. Would you pass her my email address? I'm guessing by one of her photos (construimus batuimus) that her navy husband is somehow associated with the navfac command. That's Matt's command. Anyhow, I'd love to tell her the scoop I've learned after living 5yrs here. I have many positive things to say about this delightful little island & all it has to offer. And I'll introduce her to several homeschool families & 6+ kids families." (I had told her you were "sometime" homeschoolers, as are they :^)
Would you mind emailing me at hgmcpherson@yahoo.com, and I will give you her email address? I'm not sure if she wants it posted publicly.
Harmony - I'm so excited! Thanks for the message. I'm going to email you right away. If it doesn't go through, I'm dcook1000 at hotmail.
Enbrethiliel - Hmm, five years sounds like a long time... but if there's no guarantee of future emigration, it probably wouldn't be worth the temporary move. And the grass may not be greener. Moving around is fun for awhile, but I worry that my kids will never come home to see us when we're old and finally settled somewhere because no place will feel like home to them.
Entropy - You made me laugh! I actually just bought this huge plastic tub of cheap animal cookies to share with the neighbors, but they haven't been over lately since it has been colder the last couple weeks. So instead my kids are plowing through them.
MrsD - I think I would've voted the way you did given your choice.
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