Читать книгу HOPE BEYOND TRAUMA - Cynthia Smith - Страница 5

All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

–Helen Keller

April 1988

Our family moved to Fort Bliss, located in El Paso, Texas after a three-year assignment in Stuttgart, West Germany, where my husband Richard was stationed as a Criminal Investigator with the United States Army. After our tour overseas, it was good to be back home in the good ol’ USA once again!

We had mostly lived in government quarters during our various assignments. Now, Richard was about to be promoted to Master Sergeant. We knew that his advancement was going to bring us some financial respite, so we decided to buy our first house and live off the military installation. As a military family, we had moved every two or three years since our marriage fifteen years earlier. The idea of finally settling down was quite appealing.

This desert land of West Texas, with its ever-blue sky and its dust storms, felt like a good place to settle for our family of five with a dog and cat. We saw ourselves staying for a while. Richard could retire from the service here and we could finally put down our roots. The children were growing up fast; the boys, Terry and Tim, were now attending 6th and 8th grade, and our daughter Tanya, now 14, was entering her freshman year in high school. The kids would no longer need to change schools and would be able to keep their friends.

Tanya and Tim, who are only 16 months apart, were very close. Often people thought they were twins, both with blond hair and blue eyes. Tanya was more boisterous and dominant, Tim was pretty much laid back and quiet. He was content tagging along in a small group of people or playing alone in his room. They were both academically sharp and very active.

Terry, our youngest, was two years younger than Tim, with thick brown hair and brown eyes, and very much his own person. As a young boy, he was the most temperamental of the three. He disliked school with a purple passion and loved playing outdoors.

So here we were in El Paso—a place we could finally call home!

El Paso was sprawling with new construction at that time. Rows of neatly positioned freshly built houses punctuated the desert like little houses on a sandy Monopoly™ board. After so many games of Monopoly™, our family’s favorite game, we could finally pick and choose the real thing! We spent several weeks looking at different developments and finally decided on a floor plan from a model home. We chose a lot in a new subdivision not far from Fort Bliss.

Becoming homeowners was exciting and frightening at the same time. During the summer, the kids and I went to the construction site every day and watched the workers dig the foundations, pour the concrete, frame and roof our house, then complete the interiors. Every day was a new adventure, and we were full of anticipation.

In fall of 1988 we finally moved into our home that still smelled of fresh paint. We had no neighbors yet, as we were among the first families to take possession in our area. As night fell, it was just us and the Texas desert. Our closest neighbors were a quarter mile away. I loved the sense of space and isolation.

We loved our new home. Finally, our dream had come true. Our high-ceilinged living room featured an open loft area and we had a spacious master bedroom, upstairs bedrooms and a balcony for the kids. Our living room featured a fireplace, something we had always wanted.

I spent some of my time with our Brittany spaniel, Darlyn, sitting on the back patio enjoying the serenity of the desert sky and watching the tumbleweeds blow across the desert, knowing that soon Oreo, our cat, would be back from one of his night explorations. Tumbleweeds fascinated me for some odd reason; they looked like thorn balls bowling invisible distant pins. There would always be a pile of them pushing against our rock wall fence. Being from the Midwest, they were unlike anything I had ever been around before.

Days and weeks went by, but things were not happening according to our plans. My husband’s promotion was delayed, and substitute teaching jobs were hard to come by. I took a job as a server at a local Dunkin’ Donuts to make sure we could make ends meet.

Living in a new home was great, but I was becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the many changes and challenges this new life had brought to us. Germany felt very far away. My life was focused on my family, helping with homework, work, running errands, taking care of the house, being involved with the monthly CID wives get-togethers, playing games with the family and getting to know the new neighbors.

Richard and I would have loved to have a night out together. However, due to the financial constraints, we could no longer afford it. There was a dollar movie theater in the area, and it was always a special treat to go there as a family. Popcorn and soda were expensive, so everyone understood they had to settle for a “movie only” night. We didn’t seem to mind. Even though money was tight, our spirits were high!

Once the excitement of the move wore off, I came to realize that I was not really accustomed to living off-post in the “civilian world,” after all these years of wandering from one military installation to another. I had been a military wife for 15 years. Making new friends was not as easy as I had anticipated. I was used to being involved as a Youth Activities Director and teaching school in various capacities in West Germany and on other stateside assignments. There I had my place in the community and I felt great about my contribution.

An introvert by nature, it felt rather daunting to venture out among a much larger community of people who had developed bonds over the years. I felt somewhat lost and afraid that I could never belong.

On military posts people come and go every two or three years. Each base is a crossroads where welcome and farewell parties are the norm. Newcomers are always welcome, as everyone knows all too well the feeling of being the “new kid on the block.”

In the local, established community, often people have known each other for a lifetime. When people grow up together, newcomers seem to have a harder time integrating into their tight-knit social tapestry. As a kid growing up in a small farming community, I remembered that new families moving into our tiny town were seen as “the newcomers” forever. In El Paso I began feeling like the “real” newbie on the block, and “breaking in,” from my perspective, was proving very daunting.