One Chapter Closing, Another Opening…

The past week has been hectic. My boyfriend is moving back to the US next week, and we have been busy tying loose ends here. Anyone in the military understands how complicated this process is. In addition to having to move your things, and paying last bills, shutting off utilities and phones, having the final inspection on your apartment and organizing your travel, you have the added joys of shipping your vehicle, and then something that is called “Final Out,” where you prove to the military that “yes” you have crossed your t’s and dotted the i’s. This entails paperwork upon paperwork, and with the final days approaching quickly, and the short operating hours of the individual offices “Travel”, “Vehicle Whatchmacallit”, “Transport”, “Housing”, etc., not to mention since the German units have now all shuffled around, and my boyfriend had to drive to 5 different bases to complete things, it can sometimes be difficult to get things done. Plus, you sometimes have situations similar to Catch 22, where it seems like you need Paper A, to accomplish Step 3, but won’t get Paper A, until you do Step 4. This isn’t the case, but sometimes it seems like that.

But it seems like we are finally there, and can enjoy these last few days together.

There are a whole bundle of emotions. My boyfriend’s landlord actually cried when the Housing Inspector came here. He wanted to go through the apartment with her to check off all the things that may have been broken or damaged, but she just kind of teared up and told the guy: “he has been a great tenant”. The Housing Inspector had to basically pull her with him through all the rooms where she didn’t even look and just said everything was alright. She then disappeared for a few minutes downstairs, and came back up a little more composed a few minutes later to sign the papers. This morning they actually brought us up breakfast…such sweethearts. They have been like second parents to my boyfriend.

We also went to the Hail and Farewell from his unit, and it was bittersweet. We will definitely miss quite a few people. But I guess that is the military life.

On the one hand, we are both excited to go back to the States, we play a game almost daily of listing the things we are most excited about: Shops open Sundays, Customer Service, Pancakes for Breakfast, 24 Hours Denny’s (i.e. pancakes at 2am in the morning, if one so desires)…for that matter, going to Home Depot at 2am, cos, yep, in Los Angeles there is a 24 hour Home Depot. Television programs coming out of our ears, TiVo, hot weather for longer than in Germany.

We are both excited about the individual steps we will both be making in our separate lives: me: starting to work, him: going to a new unit, and furthering his training, buying a house.

And we are excited about all the plans we have together, but there is also slight trepidation about how our relationship will progress. Since he has been back from Afghanistan we haven’t gone longer than a week without seeing each other, and after saying goodbye at the airport this week, we won’t see each other for probably another 2 months.

I have just under 2 weeks in Germany after he leaves, and then I too, will be closing the German chapter in my life. I am sad, but I am also ready to move forward. And I am looking forward to being a real CaliValleyGirl again. Like, totally!

(I haven’t been blogging much in the past few months, but I expect that when I get back to Los Angeles, I will get back in the groove.)