I'd forgotten something!1
When I was 16, Blind Betsy and I moved to a new town.
And located in this new town was something completely foreign to me...a military base. I'd never been around a high concentration of military families. I don't even remember having met anyone who was in the military prior to the move. Certainly no one in my immediate family was ever in the military. In this new town though, I couldn't walk 10 feet without running into someone associated with some aspect of the military. And, as I began to make friends, some invariably had parents in the military.
It was during this time, I discovered something SO COOL.
Do you know what sometimes happens when a person is in the military? Some of them have jobs that require them to GO AWAY to a place called "the field"2...often for several days at a time. For instance, my ex's dad would be in the field 4 days, home for 4, field for a week, home for a week.
Now, I remember how his mom would get all verklemptious whenever he'd leave. She wouldn't do anything while he was gone unless she absolutely had to...which wasn't often.
But I never understood why. In my mind, I thought this was GREAT! Personally, if I'd been able to fathom dating someone in the military, I would have been all over it.
Because really? Ideally, I love having just enough time together to satisfy the longing before spending a few days apart doing other things and then coming together again just as the longing reaches another peak.
The most successful relationships I've been in have been exactly like that. Relationships where we see each other once or twice a week and the rest of the time we're off choosing our own adventures.
Space = Awesome.
Even at 16, I inherently knew the suburban life was not for me.
1: See previous post and then offer up a ginormous "No duh."
2: I would occasionally imagine this as an actual field of prairie grass.
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