Choices

Today is a wonderful day. For starters, and yes, I am "that" girl, today is Evan and I's 9 month anniversary. It is an exciting day for me (and us), because I love every day I spend with Evan in my life. 9 months is a huge and important milestone to me, just like the next month and the next and the next (you get the picture). I don't want to take a single day/month for granted. So, I'm not!

I feel happily in love. Let me tell you why.

I feel more grateful and happy today as opposed to some other days because I am choosing to be happy. My boyfriend is gone for 1 month, I will see him for 6 or so days, and then he leaves for Japan for 3 months. Staying focused on that thought for too long could cause anyone to become discouraged or sad. And honestly, I chose that for a while.

[Not anymore]

My (very) wise Aunt Meleah reminded me the other day that sometimes we have to CHOOSE to think a certain way. Sometimes even the thought that we have to choose that way of thinking is not something we would like to do. We may even wish we didn't have to think that way. But we have free will. And we have to choose how we want to think. Think about good things? Or think about bad things? Any person in their right mind would look at this and say they want to think about good things, naturally. But it isn't always easy. And that's when we choose to think about good things.

Since my decision to think about good things, I have almost been too overwhelmed about how excited I am with everything in my life. Yes, my boyfriend is gone. Sad face. Yes, I miss him. A lot. But I am so HAPPY about him in my life. I am so happy he loves me and I love him and his family loves me and I love them and my family loves him and he loves them. Lots of love. Lots to be thankful for.

Lesson for today at 24: choose joy. choose happiness. it's worth it.

Flexibilties

Here recently, I have had several friends say, "you should go look at so-and-so's blog," and "I bet you would LOVE this blog," etc. And I have been. Shamelessly. Wedding blogs, military blogs, food blogs, you name it. I'm sold. But the more I've been looking at them, the more my intense desire to get back into blogging has begun.

There have been some pretty significant changes in this stage of life, most of which I would like to share. So, here I am. Sharing.

Any one person can look back at my past blogs and notice that they were all about lessons learned at age 22. Well, now I'm 24. Grad school does that to you...the whole skipping an entire year of blogging thing. The whole point of my original posts were to document the lessons learned at different ages. Let me fill you in on age 23 since I decided to omit that one. 23 was great. I was single for 5 or 6 months of it (several lessons learned there), rushing through grad school and falling in love with my current boyfriend. Yeah, that basically sums it up.

Let me preface by saying that the rest of my blogs from here on out will probably be about the lessons I am learning adapting to military life. This has been the hardest lesson learned in my life. Seriously.

Dating/marrying someone in the military is the hardest thing. I'm just in the dating phase for right now, though. The marrying piece will come soon enough. You know how on job resumes, or in interviews for a job it is usually wise to say something along the lines of "flexible, can adjust to change well"? Um. I think that should be a dating requirement when considering to date someone in the military. Are there dating resumes? There should be.

I've always considered myself to be extremely flexible. This has been the biggest challenge to my flexibility. I'm considering changing my resume to "kinda flexible." How many times have I said flexible in the last paragraph? 4 now. Need a new word. Adjustable. My "adjusting" skills are being refined. MAJORLY.

My first test: our first huge separation. We have done long distance from the get-go. 3 hour drive. Not too bad. We see each other every weekend. No biggie. Introduce Japan. JAPAN. Yes, Evan (is this the first time I mentioned his name? Everyone meet Evan, yay!)is moving to Japan. We said our legit goodbyes tonight. I will see him in one month once he comes home from SERE, his survival training, and we will spend 6 days together. Then he leaves for Japan. He's moving there for 3 years. Oh, and so am I. I won't head over there until mid to late October, though. That's when we are planning to get married. Isn't it funny how in the military we have to discuss wedding dates before we are actually engaged?

While I know there are brighter things ahead, and TRUST ME I am holding on to those brighter things for dear life, it is still hard to wait. It's hard knowing my sweet boyfriend will be on the other side of the world. It's hard knowing he won't be a drive away. It's hard knowing I can't kiss and hug on him after a week of missing him. All of those things are hard. But he is so worth it.

Introduce my new lifestyle. A soon-to-be military spouse. A current military girlfriend. A life ahead of me with flexibility as the main requirement.

Lesson learned at age 24: take it one day at a time.