I don't know what I'm hoping to accomplish by writing this down, but I'm writing it anyway. Maybe the two people who subscribe to this blog will enjoy reading it, or maybe it will sit lost in cyber space for a few years. Either way, here it is.
There is this strange underlying idea in our culture that once you reach *insert milestone* things will be different. Better. Problems will be solved. Now, logical thinking can tell you otherwise, and if you ask anyone who has passed *insert milestone* they can tell you, that nothing changes. Life is what it has always been, which is hard. Not miserable, I'm not about to go preaching the miseries of life, because I do believe that, fundamentally, life is good. But it's still hard. Things can be painful while still being good and hard while still being good. Running a marathon is the first thing that pops into my head. Anyone who has successfully competed in one could tell you that it is one of the greatest accomplishments and how good they felt about it afterward. However, if you ask how it actually felt during the race, no one is going to say "Great! I just kept an even pace and it was smooth sailing throughout the race!" Because it's not. It's hard. It's painful. You feel like you want to die. Or at least, I know that when I eventually make my marathon goal, I will. But it's still good. Pain can be divine.
But this idea persists, that once you achieve X then things will smooth out. We know this isn't true, but we keep hoping for it anyway. Maybe it's just to keep ourselves going, orienting on the next goal. "Soon," we think. "Soon all of this trouble will be over and my life can begin."
I'm moving this weekend. The series of events that led up to this is somewhat complicated and not something I want to really go into, as it just makes me mad and want to cry. But the fact remains. We have to be out of our current residence by Sunday.
Overall, not a terrible thing. We've been wanting to move, and were hoping to in the near future. Our current house is just too expensive for a number of reasons. It's bigger than we need and was poorly constructed originally when it was built as off-base housing for air force personnel. This makes it awful to heat during the winter, which is a major concern up here. The heat is all propane, which is horridly expensive, and we go through it at an unbelievable rate between heating the house, cooking, and hot water. The cost of gas for our cars is also killing us. I have a 30 mile commute daily, and with gas pushing towards four dollars a gallon, that means that it costs me almost an hour of work just to get there. Not a lot in and of itself, but over time it adds up. And having to put $50 in my tank every 4 days, well... it's not really the ideal situation for a couple trying to conserve funds. Matt ends up spending about the same, though he has a shorter drive, his jeep drinks quite a bit more gasoline than my little Subaru.
Then there's the opportunity cost and affect on our relationship of living out here. I think half of our fights stem from my frustration in how boring our life seems to be. We don't go out and do anything because the town we live in is literally 6 streets wide, population 467. There isn't anything here but a bar, a gas station, a cafe (which I never seem to be able to figure out when it's open) a school, and a post office. And a taxidermy shop that my dog is afraid of. Now, I'm a small town girl, I'm all about finding adventure in unlikely places, but with nothing but wheat fields for miles around, even I'm having trouble. Going into town to do something costs exponentially for us. Going to a movie might be $8.75 a piece, $11.75 if it's in 3D, plus $5 for snacks, comes out to around $25 for the movie alone. Throw in the price of gas, and we're looking at $40 just to go to a movie. Which we can do once in a while, but not often. It's maybe a once every other month treat, the month that we don't have to pay the gas bill. Even things that don't cost anything in town, like going to the park, we never get around to. By the time both of us get home from work, getting back in the car to drive down to Minot again... not really what we're looking for. That would put me in the car for over two hours a day. No thank you.
So we sit around at home, watch movies, I bake, Matt plays video games, and that's not the life that either of us want.
So, moving in general was desired. The circumstances are just a little less than desirable.
You see, we have no where to move to.
With the recent flooding in Minot, hundreds of people have been displaced from their homes. We were hoping to get into base housing, but the recent influx of flood victims has their capacities bursting at the seams. The same goes for any rental we might find closer to town. Not only is there nothing available, but in accordance with the law of supply and demand, the price on everything has skyrocketed. There was an ad in the paper the other day for a one bedroom apartment for $2500 a month. Now, you might expect to pay that if you're living in New York City, but this is Minot, North Dakota. Our allowance for housing that we receive from the military is considerably under a grand. But people are desperate and just trying to find somewhere to put their families. Not much to do about it.
So as of Sunday, we're homeless. Well, not completely. One of my coworkers and friends has been incredibly generous and offered us the spare bedroom in her house. She said that she doesn't want us there for the next 5 years, but we're welcome to stay as long as we need to until we can find something else. I'm incredibly grateful for this, but moving in with another family is not really what you look forward to following your wedding. Or having to pack up all of your things and put them into storage, organizing them in such a way that, should we be stuck in this situation when the temperatures start dropping, we can still get to all of our cold-weather gear. The honeymoon is most definitely over.
And that brings me back to what I was saying at the beginning. Despite everything that we know (because we are both relatively intelligent and educated people) we both had this idea in our head that after we got married, everything would be easier. I'd have access to base, be able to shop at the Commissary (which would save us some money), we'd move into base housing (which would save us a LOT of money) get on his healthcare, and overall we'd be able to stop fretting about every little thing. But that's not the case.
I'm still thrilled to be married. I love my husband more every day, even on the days when he frustrates me. Our wedding was a blast and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. This current situation just sucks.
Oh, and to top it all off? Matt has weekend duty this weekend. So he can't be here during the day to help me pack and load the trailer. We'll have to do all of the moving into storage after he gets off.... sometime. It's an easy weekend, so if everyone gets their act together, he should be out early. But there's a possibility that he could be stuck there for a 12 hour shift. And no one would trade with him which makes me incredibly angry. He's taken shifts for other guys countless times for no more reason than "hey, I've got plans this weekend, can you take my shift for me?" Sure dude, no problem. I've got your back. We thought it might be reciprocated. Guess we were wrong. Asshats.
But, despite all of this, I still think that life is good. We have somewhere to go now (our first plan was a tent... not really what we were hoping for!) and a new storage unit facility just opened up, so we were able to snag some space for our larger items. We're probably still going to have to get rid of a lot of things, but streamlining isn't always a bad thing. We do have an awful lot of crap.
We're still crossing our fingers for orders. That would solve all of these problems in one fell swoop, although it would create a few more. I'm pretty sure I can roll with those though. We're just not looking forward to another winter spent here. I want to be somewhere closer to the coast. I'm done with the midwest. There are things that I love about Minot, but it doesn't overshadow how much I dislike living in North Dakota. Only a matter of time though, we'll be out of here eventually.
I guess that's how I can make it through all of this. Life is ever changing, so even though our circumstances right now are considerably less than ideal, they won't be the same for long. For better or for worse, something will change. That's just life.
