The very beautiful song ‘Move On‘ by Abba encapsulates everything I feel about life as a military wife.
In 19 years of marriage I’ve lived in 8 locations in 3 different countries, and I have fallen in love with each and every one.
Every time we move, we squeeze the things we love into whatever empty shell we are given, and it becomes a home. Sometimes it’s big, sometimes small, sometimes it has cracks and leaks and mould. If you’re lucky, you look out of the window at a view that makes you feel whole, despite what the shell is like. You might live there, you might have children there, you wave goodbye to your partner as they leave for foreign climes, and you have friends there to support you; friends who you can’t imagine ever living without.
In the back of your mind is the undeniable fact that sometime, in the not too distant future the call will come, and it will be time to move again.
The day arrives, and you mentally prepare yourself, looking to the future. This is your chance to build another new home, explore unknown places, and meet a whole new bunch of people you are yet to depend on. You do this with as much positivity as you can even if you’re crumbling inside because this house really did feel like home.
It might be the case that you’re moving together as a formed unit and you’ll keep your support network by your side; people who move alone may call that lucky, but with each move your unit makes, your neighbours change, the dynamics shift and you might find yourself wishing you could just make a clean break and start afresh.
As time goes by, every move becomes second nature, like clockwork. You go through the familiar motions of preparing for your new adventure; the paperwork, the packing, the picking a new home from a list of houses you’ve never seen (that’s one for a blog of its own)! You treasure the memories, and you look to the future for the new ones. You may find yourself mentally moving on, distancing yourself from friends to make the separation easier.
You throw yourself into the chaos of planning and seek peace in places you love to go, knowing they won’t be your places for much longer. Every morning, you wake surrounded by boxes and the organised piles of your things, and you think, “I can’t wait to get this done.”
You go through the motions of your life until it settles again, with the urge to move on.
Like a roller in the ocean, life is motion Move on Like a wind that’s always blowing, life is flowing Move on Like the sunrise in the morning, life is dawning Move on How I treasure every minute, being part of, being in it With the urge to move on
Abba The Album – 1977
Meena & Sausage holding on to each-other as they move on again
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