Decisions… it's something we all deal with throughout the different seasons in life. There are the decisions to take a job that would uproot your family or the decision on which college to attend, sometimes decisions that are as trivial as what will be for dinner. Over the past nine years, I have found myself faced with some of the most difficult decisions I have made. Those nine years encompass the military years, not only for myself as a soldier, but also to those as an Army wife.
I think the biggest decision I ever made that has most greatly affected my life and it's course was joining the Army. If it hadn't been for that I probably wouldn't met my husband, I most likely would still be wearing glasses, I probably wouldn't deal with the pain and other frequent struggles, I probably never would have moved away from where I was originally from… There's a lot of 'probably nevers'.
Since that big decision, there's been a lot of others along the way. The decision to re-enlist. The decision to marry a fellow soldier. The decision to accept that the pain was getting worse and acknowledge that the Army deemed I no longer met medical standards to continue wearing the uniform.
The decision to start a family. The decision to try to be stationed close to family. The decision to be a start a home mom. The decision for my husband to re-enlist, and re-enlist again. The decision for him to pursue becoming a warrant officer. The decision for him to accept his selection.
I could go on and on. Some of these decisions were ones that were made that affected myself and myself alone, others were ones that we have made as a family. The most recent major decision we made was for my husband to accept his selection to flight school. This seemingly simple decision had so many short and long term affects on our family.
First, it meant a re-enlist that would take him to 14 years in the Army. We had both decided years ago that if that magic number of ten years in the Army was hit by either of us, that we would stay in until retirement at 20 years. So this single decision in itself committed our family to another 12 years of Army life.
Second, it meant a move… a move away from the first home we purchased, the home we brought both of our boys home to after they were born, a home that's close to my side of the family. In the long term, the move now is a chance for our kids to be closer to my husband's side of the family for a little while, for our boys and our nephews to see each other more often.
Third, it meant a form of stability, in a sense. Although, there will be moves along the way, new houses to decorate, new schools for the kids, probably more deployments, it also means that we are stable in the fact that the boys will never go without health care, they will always have a roof over their head, there will always be food on the table.
When we had sat down and looked over all the pros and cons, we decided for our family, although we know there will be some challenges ahead based on this decision, there would also be challenges if we decided to go the other route and him separate from the Army.
We have learned along the way that decisions aren't always easy. Even something so joyous as becoming a parent can be met with challenges we never imagined we would face (and I'm saying this as my oldest is only two, who knows what is yet to come). We do our best to look from the outside in and see what will be the most positive outcome for the future and we pray that God will light the path we are meant to take.
We are all humans and with that there is choices - the choices we make will lead us one direction over another. Sometimes the path we chose, wasn't the right one and we find ourselves back tracking to get to the last fork in the road. Other times, we are able to look forward to the next fork because our decision was the right one for us. Then there are going to be other times that no decision is right or wrong, it's simply a matter of choosing which path we are going to take.
Every decision becomes a part of who we are.
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