We have entered what will likely be our last year in recruiting! I can’t believe that two years have already gone by so quickly since our last move. I think time has gone by so much faster since we have lived closer to our family. The closer we get to this next PCS, the questions start to come up.

So many questions…….

Where will we go? Will we find a house we like? Will we live on a base? What are the schools like? Will it be easy to get doctors set up, and therapies needed for the children? Will we like the place we are going to, and have we been there before?

These are questions I have as both a spouse and parent.

But for my children, I know their questions are going to be quite different. My kids are now entering an age group where they are starting to be more aware of the world around them, and especially more aware of big changes in their lives.

Part of the reason I waited until I was much older to have children is because of the knowledge that we would be frequently moving.

What things are on my children’s minds?

My oldest child has been quite fixated on our upcoming move recently. I haven’t mentioned it to him much, especially since it’s still close to a year away. I can see his anxiety and worry creeping in and taking over his thought processes.

He has moved twice already in his short 7 years of life, but he was young enough that he didn’t remember either occasion. Now he is in first grade, and has a routine and friends. He worries he will forget his friends, and that moving is scary.

He worries that we will leave something behind, or that our things will get lost. He asks me if we are bringing our cat. He doesn’t know that though moving can be scary, there is an adventure that awaits us.

As a parent, moving and change for our children is already a difficult situation.

Adding the government into the mix creates a layer of complication. There is certainly a lot of fear of the unknown, and hope that things will go well and work out for the best.

One thing that I have found to be the same in my years as a military spouse is that while the scenery changes, the people change and the circumstances may change, the routine is the same. Finding out where you’re going, packing up and saying goodbye, moving, learning your way around, finding your bliss, and getting used to it all before everything changes again.

As we await the future, the unknowns, the one thing we can count on is that we will be there together, going through the changes together.

It will be a difficult transition, but with some time things will be easier, and hopefully there won’t be many more moves as my husband nears the end of his career in the army.

*For more posts from Mary, visit her at our Band of Bloggers page.