The one that's not so funny today...

Well, I'm not sure how witty or amusing today will be. I know I made big promises about not complaining... but today... today I need to vent a bit.

I'm feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed (and hormonal... HI HORMONES... glad you're still around!).

On a good day, I hate change. Ask my parents, they'll tell you how much I would enjoy the slightest mix up in my daily schedule (in elementary school I always watched Scooby Doo before school. So help anyone in that house if there was something wrong with the cable/we had to leave early/someone else was watching something you know, important). Now, I think I've gotten a bit better with change since meeting and marrying Tim, since at some point you just have to roll with the punches the Army throws at you. Mind you, this coming from the girl who chose to stay in Indianapolis and start my own career for the first year of marriage... so... yeah. Change = Bad.

Now throw in a baby in the mix. I think the only reason I haven't felt overwhelmed yet is because it wasn't quite real yet. It was still a novel thing, not much based in reality, and too many months down the road to worry about the big picture. That, and the fact that I was secure in the fact that Tim is non-deployable as a recruiter, and his recruiting tour is not up until 2015. But then he told me last night that he wants to become a Warrant Officer, basically the middle ground between enlisted and an officer, and become a pilot.

I was on board with this (and to be honest, he throws out ideas on what he wants to do next all the time--half the time he's staying in the Army, the other half he's getting out, joining US Marshalls or a local police dept, etc) as it is his career, and we wouldn't have to make any decisions for a few years yet and we'll decide then. But then he adds that a friend of his that was in his recruiting class in March/April had submitted a packet (you have to be picked for it) and was selected last month, and goes to Fort Rucker, AL to start the year + training in January. And that... is a 9 month time-frame. Not a 2 1/2-3 year time frame. And... I panicked.

Now, I know the hormones made the situation seem worse then it was, but at that moment I think I felt the need to cry, throw up and yell all at once. I understand the realities of the Army. I understand that when Tim comes down on orders, it is his duty to accept the orders and go where the Army needs him. I do NOT understand volunteering and leaving me alone with a newborn. In Tim's defense, that was not how he saw it but the sudden blinding reality that I will have a BABY, a living, breathing, survival-rests-on-me BABY in 6 months came crashing down on me... along with the thought that Oh My God I Can't Do This Alone!

Tim's answer, of course, was that I would come with him to Fort Rucker if/when he was selected. But... Tim has always been the single soldier when he's on orders to PCS or headed to a school. He didn't think through the fact that we now have a mortgage, a house that we can't just "get out of." We have 2 dogs that can't just stay with me in Indianapolis, they would have to come with us, which would require a new home to accommodate them. We would have a BABY, that would require a support network that we have in Indianapolis, that we would not have anywhere in Alabama. I have a job, that's in a very specific field that can't just be transferred. All these thoughts were rolling through my head, and he had just barely mentioned the idea of this.

Now, realistically I know that all these issues will have to be dealt with when and if he decides to stay in the Army and go back to Infantry after recruiting is done. As he reminded me, if he were deployed I would be doing it all alone as well... but that's 2015 and beyond and I still have TIME to filter through all of those pieces. We would have a toddler, not an infant, and the economy would have a few years to rebound so we might have a chance at selling our house. And most importantly, it would be the needs of the Army, not a volunteer packet submitted.

I think Tim was a bit overwhelmed himself at the emotion I threw at him (its not me! Its the Prune! The Prune is clearly my child and hates change as much as me!) and he just simply said, "Ok, I'll drop it." But the fact is that the reality has finally hit that I will have the responsibility of another life in 6 months. And 6 months... is not  very long... at all. I feel like we just closed on our house, and that was 4 months ago. And in the 6 months, all the holidays will happen. I guess all these feelings are normal, that it has to hit everyone at some point. I think I would just prefer a point that it hit when my first reaction ISN'T to immediately start crying and stressed.

Because crying and stress just makes the little Prune upset. And when the Prune is upset... I get the pregnancy symptoms doubled. So... today I am going to try to work on calming myself down, on not panicking, and on putting some perspective on that thing called change.

And tomorrow I will try to be a little less whiny, a little more entertaining, and hope you stick around for the rest of the journey, with lots of changes I'm sure.