On Misawa, Moving and Attitude

Today, while picking out some books for a birthday gift, I overheard this conversation:
“How are you doing?”, a guy standing next to me asked a woman (obviously someone he knew) passing by.
“Terrible!”, she answered without skipping a beat.
“Oh…..I hope it gets better soon”, I am sure he regretted that he even asked. 
“It won’t…we live here”, she said quite depressingly.

This is no news to me—some people absolutely hate Misawa. They hate being in such a remote rural location, hate living on base in small houses, hate not being able to read the signs on the street, hate the fact that the commissary or our BX (store for everything else) doesn’t carry a great variety of food/clothes/toys/stuff, hate that it snows a ton and we have to shovel….I could keep going and going. Can I be blunt? I get tired of listening to those people.  We are all in the same boat—I go to the same stores, drive on the same roads, live on that same base…and I am enjoying my life here. I hear people say that they really like Japanese people and their culture but they really cannot stand this base. 

I cannot pin point what exactly that makes me have a different attitude about Misawa. Is it the fact that my husband has a good job with a schedule that allows him be home for dinner most nights?  Is it all the great friends that I found here?  Is it the fact that we are not afraid to just get out of our house and go places, that we research where to travel and take daytrips on weekends? Maybe it’s the acceptance that life IS different, simple and not always comfortable here.  Maybe it’s because we always only try to look at the positives when we discuss Misawa and are good examples to our kids when we talk about things we like about where we live (you cannot even imagine what our kids hear from other kids about how much their parents wish they were in the states)?

Okay, so our time in Misawa is almost up. Looking back at our first few months here I do remember me adjusting my mind to how our life would be different (especially in this three bedroom townhome with three kids:). And now….I am trying to prepare myself to something completely new…..
Another conversation with a British guy who works at the library on base: “Guess what! We are going to England!”, that’s me telling him excitedly that we’ll be moving to where he is from. “To where? Lakenheath? Mildenhall? (two big bases in the UK)”, his eyes light up. “No….Alconbury!”, I say with a smile. “Oh….”, he said, without hiding his disappointment, “There is nothing out there”, talk about being blunt, eh?  “Well, we are still very excited”, I said. End of conversation. Buzzkill. Seriously? Yes, I know, Alconbury will be similar to Misawa because we’ll be in the middle of farmlands and forests and not much excitement according to many.  And true, I have no idea how difficult our adjustment will be—living OFF base (amongst regular British people with no kids) might be a new life for us. All I know, our little family, is great at making any place a great place to live. Attitude….it’s all about our attitude.  After all, didn’t we LOVE Minnesota (people still cannot believe me when I tell them), and we LOVED panhandle of FL, and we LOVE Misawa. Therefore, I am prepared to at least like Alconbury (even if our paycheck will be smaller there-haha).

So we are six months away from our move. Another overseas move. Cannot say exactly that I am stressed yet—that will come in May and June, months when we are getting ready to have our house packed again and stuff shipped to the new place. Only those who have done it before can understand all the work that comes with moving overseas—dozens of lists of what to pack, ship, store, mail, throw away, give away. But that’s just the organizational part. The whole “inconvenience” of being up in the air and living out of suitcases for two-three months with three kids doesn’t really appeal to me. And then looking for a house, cars, school once you arrive—that gets really stressful. Not to mention dealing with your own sadness that you are leaving friends behind AND comforting your children who understand now that they might not see most of their friends ever again. Unless you have done a military overseas move like this, it is hard to grasp all the reality that comes with it…..together with excitement of course (and we do try to remind ourselves all the time that we are indeed excited and it’s our own choice to be staying in the military this time).

Ah….sorry…just lots of thinking today.  For now—life is still calm. Misawa is snowy and cold, probably six more weeks till we start going out on some daytrips again. Now time is starting to go faster and faster, and we are just trying to slow it down a bit to enjoy our last months here.
Still taking suggestions for our new blog name:) And taking “reservations” for when you would like to come visit us in England. I know many of you want to, so let’s plan early!