We bought a house.
Sometimes, I’m still in shock that we did such a crazy thing.
It’s funny, owning a home while we're in the military. We got puzzled looks from strangers when we told them we were house shopping. When we told one acquaintance we were buying, we got the immediate, “So, your time is up in the Navy then?”
I guess it seems funny for military families, whose only constant is change, to set down roots.
But we did.
Financially, it was the smarter choice for our family, and in my husband’s career, we will likely come back here for another tour, possibly several times. The town is full of military families who are renting a home like we once were. But now, we’ll live in our home for the next few years – the rest of our time here – and then we’ll move on and consider it an investment property.
Still, it’s kind of terrifying, owning something in a town I’d never have so much as passed through if it weren’t for the Navy.
Luckily, it’s given me more appreciation for our military benefits. PCS-ing may be horrific, but I would have killed for a military-contracted mover to pack us out and schlep our stuff 10 minutes down the road to the house we bought.
Moving alone, with a toddler and a baby, was an even crazier idea than buying the house.
But we did it, anyway.
We have been wading through a host of firsts, learning what it means to be first-time homeowners: ripping up carpet, painting walls, hanging shelving in the linen closet, erecting a fence, installing a garage door opener, figuring out how to pay our mortgage.
All of it is so new, and so strange, and I am filled with timidity as we face things we’ve never done before.
But that’s not all.
Because now, I’m also unpacking, like we’ve done before, and hanging photos, like we’ve done before, and urging along little repairs and things to make sure it’s all taken care of before he deploys again, just like we’ve done before.
But this time, it’s all ours. Our choice. Our move. Our home.
Maybe not forever, because we are, and will be, a Navy family for a good long time. But it still feels nice to settle into this rite of passage – a little bit of normalcy in our constant world of change.
