Well, it’s my first night in my new house alone. There is a good chance that I will cry by the time I am finished writing this. I actually haven’t turned into a blubbering mess yet, but I sorta feel like I could fall apart at any moment.
I am writing this in Word and I’ll post it after I get internet on Monday (It’s Saturday night right now). If I let myself think much past this very moment, I get really overwhelmed.
Last night Dad stayed here in the extra room and just having him here made me feel at home, safe. Maybe I was stupid for doing this. Maybe I liked the whole idea of a military life because I never really lived it as an adult. I just remember happy childhood things. I never knew I was missing out on family far away. I never knew how hard it really was. (I guess thanks is due to my parents for making it so that I wouldn’t know I was missing anything.)
I don’t want to write only about my emotions because my parents and I made a lot of fun memories this weekend too. I want to be able to read this next year and know what I actually did, not just how I cried.
Yesterday (Friday):
I was up at 5:45 because I still had a LOT to pack (procrastinator extraordinaire). I packed and Dad loaded until 8:15. I think I put off my packing so I would be forced to do it at the last minute and wouldn’t be able to think about my entire life going into a U-Haul. Oh and it rained the entire time. We shoved off at 8:30ish. It rained on and off pretty much the entire drive. That slowed us down and Dad couldn’t put the truck on cruise because of the U-Haul so, needless to say, we weren’t going 75 the whole way. We hit the worst rain right around the Texas/Louisiana border. Brian happened to call at this time which probably wasn’t much fun for him since I was quite distracted. The roads in LA are terrible. I-20 in Shreveport was FLOODED at certain points. The INTERSTATE! Mom said after that it was some of the worst stuff she’s had to drive through. Poor Mom. Things were relatively calm down 171. Mom and I took this same route a year ago for Thanksgiving before Brian left and 171 was under major construction to widen it the majority of the way. I figured they would have made significant progress over the last YEAR, but they haven’t. If I’m honest with myself, I’m not really surprised. We hit some rain in spots, but it wasn’t bad. The most annoying thing about driving down 171 is that if that road were in TX, it would take an hour. In LA, it takes close to 2. They’ll randomly drop the speed limit to 45 for no apparent reason. There’s this beautiful, recently repaved 4 lane highway, and they want us to go 45. I don’t get it.
We finally get to Leesville around 5 and swing into Arby’s for some dinner since we never stopped for lunch. If you do the math, that’s over 8 hours of driving in rain and holiday traffic. We weren’t in the best mood, Dad hadn’t slept in like 40 hours, it was dark, and we still had to unload the U-Haul. We left Arby’s headed for the hotel so Mom could check in. Leesville apparently doesn’t believe in street lights. It was dark and raining and we could hardly see the lane markers. Since this is such a freakin wet place, maybe they should invest in some decent street paint and a few street lights. Maybe? Please? Mom went in to check in (and had to yell “hello” to get some service) and I let Tiny out for some air. We sat on a bench under the covered drive through while the rain picked up around us. I think Tiny was out of sorts because he just leaned on me with all his might. Poor Tine.
Then it was off to Post. We weren’t sure if Mom would need a vehicle pass because her car doesn’t have DoD stickers anymore (AF did away with them years ago) so we checked to make sure she had her insurance card and registration in case a pass was needed. She didn’t have an up to date insurance card in there. She got mad at Dad for not putting one in there and he swore he had put one in there. Either way, there wasn’t one so if Mom did indeed need a pass, she couldn’t get one. We decided to try out luck and play dumb with the gate guards. It’s still raining steadily and dark without street lights mind you. The guard didn’t even look twice at Mom’s lack of stickers or at us and we went on through. It’s a mighty long drive from the main gate to my house. We finally arrived to find my neighbors extra car in my carport. Lovely. I had to jump out and run to his door to ask him to move it. It required two knocks on the glass door followed by a door bell ring (which required me to open the glass door because the doorbells are located on the actual door) to get a response. He moved it and Dad could begin the task of backing the big U-Haul into my carport…in the dark and rain. He did it on the first try. He rocks.
And so we unloaded. All three of us could never be unloading because Tiny always needed a chaperone inside so he wouldn’t run out into the street. Mom and Dad did the bulk of the moving and I tried to direct the traffic. It only took us a couple hours and my house was suddenly a little less empty. Definitely not full yet, but less empty. Mom and Dad swung through the shoppette near my house to get a few things for here and batteries for Dad’s air mattress and then Mom went on her way to her hotel. I know she was worried about finding her way there, but she did it without a single phone call to me for directions. Dad and I worked on getting a few things where they needed to be and hooking up the TV. Dad couldn’t believe I couldn’t pick up a single channel even though I don’t have cable yet. It was just a bunch of static. He popped in Indiana Jones (the new one) and popped open a big Bud Light. Guess after 40 hours of not stopping you have to unwind. I tried to pick up a wireless network unsuccessfully. Sometime around 10 we finally retired upstairs. I put my bed together complete with my new comforter from Land’s End (I love it btw.). It is so much easier to make a bed with full access to both sides. It’s been years since I’ve had my bed situated like that. Brian will be very happy. I read a chapter in my book and hit the hay around 10:30. I didn’t sleep all that well. It’ll take me awhile to get used to this room. It didn’t help that a storm rolled through around 2 and the sun started coming up around 6.
Later/Tomorrow: Moving Day 2 and Pictures.
S.
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