Crash and Burn Holiday Plans

We're all a little "down in the mouth" around here today because J's leave request was denied for the Thanksgiving holiday. We were planning on being able to visit our families back home since Thanksgiving is my mother's favorite holiday and the day after is a family birthday.

I suppose it was a little naive of me to think we would have no trouble getting off but with the "real world" stuff going on there just not going to be able to spare him. That and all the guys that are on a deployment right now have already requested their leave for when they return and... you guessed it they'll be back for the holiday.

That is one of the things that's really rough about this job. For all the amazing benefits sometimes it's really hard not knowing what comes next and never being able to make any really concrete plans.

You wont find me complaining about military life very often. The truth is I feel very fortunate. Three years ago when we were first engaged and J was laid off for the winter for the fourth year in a row and we didn't know how we were going to make ends meet and he was fighting tooth and nail to enlist despite medical conditions we learned the definition of struggling to survive. We had to pick and choose which bills to pay and pay for groceries and gas with pennies. I was working full time and going to school full time and digging us even further in debt with student loans. It was brutal. Like we-can't-afford-dog-food-feed-them-rice brutal.

Living in England, not having to survive paycheck to paycheck, having reliable medical insurance, and a steady paycheck is a dream come true. We don't worry that J will be laid off for the winter or that his paycheck wont be enough to buy groceries. Being able to afford to have a baby was a amazing and the experience has been wonderful. We would never be where we are today or have what we have today if it weren't for the military.

Most days that is how I feel. Thankful. And fortunate.

Most days J's job is just a job. He gets up in the morning and gets dressed for work, he kisses me on the forehead and says goodbye to our son, he drives to base and puts in his 8 or 9 hours, and then he comes home.

Most days.

Some days it's harder than that. Some days when there is "real world" stuff going on we ask ourselves if it's worth it. Some days when we are feeling homesick and lonely we ask ourselves if it's worth it. We invariably come to the conclusion that it is eventually.

In the mean time, it's hard.

It's hard feeling like a single parent when I prepare for a deployment or feeling so completely alone and isolated because we literally can't visit our family.

It's hard to watch him put on that uniform and know that someday he might die in it.

It's hard to know that there are so many others just like us. Who feel just like we do.

It's hard today.

Does this piss anyone else off, or is it just me?

It's that time of year again.

The temperature has dropped. The snow has started to fall. Christmas Carols can be heard twenty four hours a day on 94.3 The Bridge. And my neighbors have started putting up their Christmas lights.

Now, before I start this nice little rant let me say this, I like Christmas. I like Santa. I'm even cool with Jesus (regardless of the fact that he is NOT the reason for the season). I like hot apple cider, and Christmas cookies. I swear I'm not about to start a Jihad against Christmas.

However, I'm not okay with the sickness that seems to overcome people in this country around the holidays which allows them to blatantly disregard the energy crisis we are currently facing.

The United States of America makes up for 20% of the energy consumed in the entire world. That would be okay if we supported 20% of the world population or even if we were consuming energy mainly from a renewable source, but neither condition is accurate. We only support 5% of the world population, and our main energy resources continue to be refined fossil fuels.

I swear I must be the only one who throws up a little in my mouth when I see the Smith's over there setting up three six ft tall blow-up characters, a light up nativity set, Santa and all the reindeer on their roof, and about 912,670 lights.

Not only are these displays grotesque, but these people actually make money off their gluttony! There are bus tours for citizens who want to view their houses and make donations to their energy bills!

I know most of the people in this country are mindless wasting machines who have been systematically conditioned to not give a shit about how much they consume (this goes for food and manufactured goods as well), but it really comes out full force around the holidays.

Countless Christmas parties where we are invited to stuff ourselves so full we have to unbutton our pants a little under the table. Christmas morning arrives and where little boys and girls used to receive one or two presents from Santa, they now carelessly unwrap one toy and throw it aside to unwrap the next, not even taking the time to fully appreciate what the first toy was before discarding it. And lets not forget those lights, doesn't this bother anyone else?

Just so we're clear, I'm talking about this:

This is bad, if your house looks like this: seek help. 

Not this:

This is okay, it looks very nice. Good work. 

So, one more time. This:

No good

Not this:

Very good, tasteful.

Some lights are fine, they look nice, they are very Christmas spirit-y. I have three strands myself, and when I have my own house I'm sure I'll have more. I'm talking about the ones that are outrageous, the houses where you know they are spending hundreds of dollars on electricity for their Christmas decorations alone. It's wrong, it's selfish, it's wasteful, most of the time it's downright ugly, but mainly it's completely unnecessary. I promise your neighbors aren't going to think less of you if you don't plaster your house with the usual 300 ugly, light-up, blow-up, confetti filled decorations this year. In fact they'll probably thank you if you don't, since now they can fall asleep at night without drawing the black out curtains.