“Settling in” 7 Months After Moving

I know some of you are so tired of me writing about moving you could puke. Sorry, guys. It is such a big deal. The impact of moving cannot be stated generously enough. All these back-to-back moves have brought so much stress that I feel like if I could simply harness the stress, it could be a mighty power source. We could light up New York City with the stress of all the military wives, I am quite sure of it.

But I am not here to whine about moving today. Instead I want to talk about “settling in”, mainly because, for me, it is truly beginning to happen.

This morning I asked our boys if they felt settled in here yet, and 2/4 of them said, “No.” They do not feel settled. One boy said, “Yes,” and the other one said, “Yes and also no.” That made perfect sense to me. It has been seven months. I think it takes 1-2 years to truly settle in. Judging by the boys’ responses, they agree that it takes a while.

Settling in is not just unpacking boxes and organizing shelves. It is also knowing where you put everything, and yes, as a mom, by the time I leave a place, I do basically know where everything is. We still don’t have a clue at this house. When you are truly settled, life in general comes more naturally. Simple things are less of a struggle. Kids knock on your door. Your phone is full of local phone numbers. The drive-through people at Burger King recognize your face. Haha! Well, that last one probably should not be true, but it already is true for me.

It is hard to sustain relationships when moving every two years, as our family has been doing ever since 2002. I found this very discouraging report:

We know that children who move frequently are more likely to perform poorly in school and have more behavioral problems,” said the study’s lead author, Shigehiro Oishi, PhD, of the University of Virginia. “However, the long-term effects of moving on well-being in adulthood have been overlooked by researchers.”

American Psychological Association

Changing Schools Again and Again

Every single time our kids change schools, the new school underestimates our children because they do not do well on tests those first few weeks. They do not know how to accommodate the adjustment phase. When we first move, our children perform less efficiently than usual because they are using their brain space to remember how to work their school computer, remember their student ID #, remember what city we live in, what bus they ride, where to get off the bus, and all sorts of new information that students who have gone to the same school for years do not have to concentrate on at all.

Basically, in a new place, the kids are too busy figuring out the social atmosphere to remember the equation for area of a rectangle. New kids are wondering whether that boy with the freckles is a friend possibility and which kid it is that you have to steer clear of because they make fun of pretty much everybody. Plus, every single school has completely different procedures and expectations.

As an adult, I see a change with my social media.

I sort of cling to the old friends even though I have moved because they are still real to me. Everyone I know is in the past for a while, and then the cycle repeats itself. People from two duty stations ago are never forgotten, nor do I want to forget them. Sometimes they are all I have, but I do notice that most friends and acquaintances stop “liking” my Facebook posts once I have been gone a year. I am out of sight, out of mind. They figure they will never see me again anyway, or maybe I am annoying with how frequently I post. See, the funny thing about that is that if I had settled in and had real life friends I would probably go searching for friends online less too, and then I wouldn’t come off as so needy maybe.

Then there is the crazy side of me that (and I am ashamed to admit this is true) thinks things like, “Maybe they all had a lunch together and decided they don’t like me anymore after I moved away.”

With military wife friends, it is different.

With military wife friends, we don’t have to act less needy and pathetic because we already know that actually we ARE all in need, and we are happy to jump in and be like, “Me too!!!” Complain about the way the Army sent you only two moving men, or how they will not give you orders, and you are living in limbo. We get it!!! This stuff is hard. We will always support each other on social media no matter how many times we move. All of us know that our online friends are our ONLY friends for far too much of the time. We need each other!

Yes, moving repeatedly can be a serious problem, but I do have good news too. You know we always look for hope.

We have now been in this newest house for seven months. This past weekend we had our Sunday school class over for dinner on Saturday and had a large turnout. Hurray! We played games, ate, and talked. If everyone had as much fun as I did, then it was a success. I felt so uplifted.

Then on Sunday, our two youngest sons were baptized, right here at our new church by our new pastor.

I cried tears of the purest joy. My heart war near to bursting. THIS is what makes it all worth it.

Daniel led the way on the baptism thing. Daniel told Alan as they were leaving a church function a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to talk to the pastor about getting baptized. JD chimed in, “Me too!” The pastor dropped everything he was doing, handed off his baby he was holding to one of his family members, and talked to our boys to make sure they understood salvation and baptism. He agreed the boys are solid in their faith and ready to be baptized.

As soon as we arrived at church, I realized I had left my phone at home which meant I could not take pictures. The horror! But it was not the end of the world. Thankfully, I knew that I had a few different friends there that I could ask to borrow their phone to take the pictures with. I ended up not having to ask anyone, as Alan Hix, our adult Sunday school class teacher (who has a talent for making people feel welcome) freely offered up his phone to me. That was such a relief. You know how important photos are to me.

A Table to Sit at

Two Sundays ago, when I walked into the ladies’ fellowship after church for the cookie contest, I had a table of friends to sit with. I knew about six different ladies out of the thirty or so who were in attendance, and most of us sat at a table together in the back. This is exactly why we always join a Sunday school class at each new church we move to. It is such a helpful way to get connected.

Basically, I am beginning to feel like we belong, and I cannot stress enough to you what a relief that is.

Alan took Daniel to baseball tryouts Saturday too, and they also saw several familiar, friendly faces, a total change from the fall when we literally did not know a soul. They came back from try-outs in a happy mood. Daniel was able to perform much better because he was more comfortable there than he was back in the fall.

Overall, we are all doing better than we were, while some of us are still walking uphill in unsupportive flip-flops, if you know what I mean. So much of it is circumstance and age, in addition to personality, but I will not go into all of that here.

Saturday, my friend Shereen showed up half an hour before the party to help me set up, and I cannot tell you how very not-alone that made me feel.

Commitment!

I am pleased as punch to announce that I have my very first real commitment here. I am now co-teaching the high school girls’ Sunday school class at our church, and I am quite excited about it.

It is not us against the world or us trying to break into Maryland. This is just a regular old family trying to gradually settle in to yet another new town, our 11th time in a new town in eighteen years, to be exact. We are slower at it than we used to be because we are worn down and weary, but we will get there.

In two years, Alan will hit his twenty-year-mark. He is not currently planning to retire. I have no idea what will happen, really. However, I DO know, and am firmly resolved, that we cannot move these children between 11th and 12th grade. I would rather not move them before their 11th grade year either. With that said, we may be in Maryland for a long time, with our oldest boys being so close in age and our oldest about to enter high school. It may be that we stay here until the oldest graduates and then leave with Caleb between 10th and 11th. Who knows?

For now, just know that Maryland is becoming home. At least two or three of us are beginning to feel settled in, and things are looking up. Life isn’t supposed to be easy, right? It is supposed to be full of purpose, and that it is. We have more than our share to be grateful for.