This song has been stuck in my head (again)...so I'm writing about it.
Don Henley: Taking You Home
I didn't have a "real" wedding. I mean, I'm really/legally married, but we did not have an extravagant wedding for a variety of reasons--not the least of which is the fact that the good ol' USMC doesn't always make it easy to plan such events. So, we got married in the church where I grew up, with my minister, with our two best friends as witnesses. Then, we had a relatively informal "reception" with family and close friends. We dressed up--Buzz was in his blues and I wore a white dress. (It was actually a very plain white bride's maid dress--the big, fancy ones didn't look right on me.) Anyway, if we DID have that big, fancy wedding--this would have been the song I would have chosen for our first dance.
We had only one pre-marital counseling session with my minister. I remember him telling me that I would have to redefine home. Home was no longer my hometown (where I had been my ENTIRE life--same house other than dorm rooms and apartments at college). It was no longer a place. There were no walls and there was no geographic boundary. It was where my husband was--i.e. wherever the Marine Corps took us. That was such a tough concept for me to grasp at the time. It was hard to accept when it really happened. I've come a long way.
"Home" is now with my family--here, there, or anywhere else. I quickly learned what my minister was talking about--as we moved twice in the first 6 months we were married...and quite a few times since. And this "home" has become even more significant since K was born.
To me, the most important lyric in this song is "In this love, I found strength I never knew I had." Beginning with the marriage and the moves in my new life, I found a part of me I didn't know was there. Through having a daughter and going through deployments and more moves with her, I found that strength I never knew I had. When I get down and start go fret about the hardships that military life brings (or am just irritated with my husband in general :o) ), I always have to stop and remember that without falling in love with my husband and embarking on this journey, I may never have found the strength that was in there all along--just waiting to find its way out. It's still going to be rough. I'm already worried about moving next year and concerned about all that surrounds a new-PhD trying to find a job. It's not likely I will be able to get a job where my husband and I can live in the same house. And we don't want to keep moving K all over the place--and I need to get a job where I can HOPEFULLY start working toward tenure without having to move yet again. So I know the possibility exists that K and I will have to have a house that is separate from Buzz. I don't like that idea. But, I know that my home will still be the same. Buzz will likely be deploying on a regular basis once we leave this duty station--so it's not like he would physically be in the house that much anyway. And our home doesn't change--it's not bound by walls or filled with furniture. It's filled with "this love"...and I have faith that this love who brought Buzz and me together and Kaitlyn into this world will continue to fill us all with the strength we need to handle whatever our careers throw at us. In the meantime, I will still try not to waste time away, but will still look optimistically forward to Buzz's retirement from the Marine Corps--when we can be sure that our home fits in one house again. :)
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