Tag: Lajes

Just Go… Even if you are not allowed to. Just Go… Even if you have never been there before. Just Go… Even if you are already settled in life. Just Go… even though there is a long list of things to get done before you leave. Just Go… when your mom and mother in law say so. (They always know best)

“Just Go” has been my go-to saying for the past two months.

My husband, Del, is in the United States Air Force. He has been in since December of 2014. We were married in June of 2014. We had our first baby June of 2015 and our second baby August of 2017. Being in the Air Force, we have been apart a lot. We have only celebrated 1 out of 5 wedding anniversaries together. He has missed birthdays, holidays, recitals, concerts, moments I needed to celebrate for my career. Simply put, we have been apart a lot. This comes with the commitment to military.

In November of 2018, Del was told that he would be leaving on a short tour. The words short tour is totally opposite of what it means. It is not short, and it is not a wonderful “tour” of somewhere you have never been. It is a yearlong assignment of working full time in a foreign land.

In this case, the foreign land Lajes Air Base. In the Azores. In Portugal.

Where the hell is Lajes. What are the Azores? And how do you even pronounce “Lajes”?

(It took me a week to get the word out fluently)

When he received this assignment, I kept it to myself for about a month. Being in the Air Force, you learn that nothing is real until it happens. Not to get your hopes up or hopes down. He was excited (of course- men don’t understand a woman’s emotions). Everyone told him this place was a once in a lifetime place to live. I was dying inside though.

It finally became “orders”. Official orders. We were really going to go through with this job assignment. His follow on, where we will meet up after the short tour, was also attached to the orders. We would be meeting up in Kaiserslautern, Germany after the year being apart.

The official orders broke me down to tears. HUGE CHANGE is coming.

I haven’t mentioned that I am a teacher. No matter what, I show up to work with a smile and excited to turn on lightbulbs with 5-6 year old kindergarteners. I was energetic, happy, reading books with so much character, making the kids laugh and giving them as much love as I could… But deep down I was depressed. I would put my face in front of my air vents in my car to dry my wet eyes before walking into work about 3 out of 5 days a week.

How am I supposed to live a year without my best friend, my lover, my protector. How was I supposed to work full time, get the kids to two separate daycares every morning, pick them up after a long days work, get them fed, bathed, asleep WHILE taking care of my self. How was I supposed to stay home and keep to my introverted self when I have fall of my in-laws 5 minutes away and I desperately needed loving interaction. I was depressed thinking about it and it hadn’t even started yet. I didn’t want the day of him leaving to come so I ignored everything about the Short Tour. I refused to google Lajes. I refused to google the island. I refused to bring it up on my own to anyone asking how I was.

But the week of him coming eventually came.

I was depressed and panicked about “when am I going to see him again”. People would ask me that question, which is not easy to answer being a Military Wife. The answer was I DON’T KNOW WHEN. Which people would look at me like… How do you not know…

So being panicked, I booked a flight to see him a few days before he left. It was my first moment of Just Go. I booked it for the end of July. A month before I had to go back to work. I would be there for a week while my amazing In-Laws would be watching out 2 kids. I am more than lucky to have them 5 minutes from me. No one had to travel to me to help me out. I literally dropped the kids off at their house the night before my flight. Which made my decision of “Just Go” more simple.

But there is more to this blog post than “Just Going” for a week.

Like I said, I was depressed. I love Del more than myself. I love him unconditionally. I love him in my dreams and when I am awake. I cannot say it enough. I love him. I was depressed that I would be going 52 weeks without him.

He left for Lajes when I was in my last week of teaching for the school year.

That week went very smooth being alone. My mom came the day school was out for the summer. Long story short with my mom- She was battling a blood infection when she came to visit me and the kids. We didn’t want to go out a lot because she needed to stay healthy and let the antibiotics work their magic. So I stayed home all day with her. The kids loved having Gaga there, I loved having my momma there, but it wasn’t my husband. She saw that I was depressed.

There was one particular night that I was trying to cry myself to sleep but I couldn’t gather myself. I went to our spare bedroom where my mother was. She saw how BIG OF A MESS I was, and it was only week two. I laid it all on her. I laid all of my pros being alone and all of my cons being alone. She sat and listened. She’s honestly one of the only people I know who sits backs and listens. Awkward silence doesn’t exist with her. She lets me talk. She knows when I am done and them speaks up. This night, when she spoke up she said….

Just go.

Move to Lajes. Who cares if it is unaccompanied orders. If you can move there, Just go. Pay for it. Leave your job to be with him. Just go and be happy. Just go and be with your family of 4.

That was the beginning of this story.

I CHOSE TO GO. I CHOSE TO UPROOT MY LIFE AND MOVE TO PORTUGAL. WHY NOT?!!

I put the house up for sale with a realtor on a Friday morning. By Friday night, my house was under contract. HOLY MOLY- What a sign from God. We agreed to close in a month. Houses usually close around 60-90 days. Mine was 30 days. Perfect. What did I need to deal with next?

When I found out the house was under contract that Friday night, I had a garage sale that Saturday and Sunday. JUST GO for it. I didn’t hold back. I thought about shipping everything to Germany when the time came. I thought about possibly having damaged goods, broken goods, stolen/lost goods, and I realized I didn’t want to have to deal with filing claims and not getting the money we deserved back. So, I sold everything up front. I made enough money to buy 3 international one-way flights to the Azores. I made enough money to even pay off a little bit of debt.

I got rid of everything. Everything but our items that we are emotionally attached to. Our storage unit only has 2 mattresses, 2 bed frames, and some memorabilia that I won’t ever hand off. I legitimately sold everything and then took a couple car full of items to the storage unit.

I went into my school district office and turned in my badge and computer and then went into my school and said an emotional goodbye to my amazing principal and my amazing teacher’s aide who became my best friend over the years.

As far as selling the house, it was not easy and was not completely smooth. I had to sign everything with a Power of Attorney since Del was not present. Furthermore, the buyers wanted to fix dumb little things. I don’t have time for little things. I don’t have time for contractors to work on the house we aren’t going to be living in anymore. So, I used the excuse “Alone with two kids” and “Time crunched to move to Portugal” and the buyers agreed to by as is. I even sold the house without front door keys. Who knew where they went? Not me. We never locked our door. All I turned over was the one garage door opener!

I got last appointments scheduled and taken care of for myself and the kids. Shots were all up to date. Medications were picked up for the year. And any important medical paperwork was in my hand.

I went to the local library and got passports for myself and the two kids. I expedited the process, paid extra to receive them faster, and prayed they would get here in time for our flights.

The worst part of this story. Our dogs. Our two black labs that we have had for 8 and 6 years. Our two dogs that we bought with they were 8 weeks old. Our two dogs that my kids love so much. My kids lay on them, pull their ears and tails, kiss them, play with them. What was I going to do with my dogs?

This is a part of this story I have failed to mention to anyone because I still cry over what I have gone through. I feel like less than a person but hey, now that I know it worked out I’m opening up about it. I asked everyone in my family to take them. No one would. Everyone already has dogs. My two dogs would be too much for anyone to take on at a spur of the moment.

We could take the dogs to Germany after the year short tour but finding a house to rent in Germany was near impossible with two big dogs. Also, we are travelers. We are planning to travel every weekend while we are overseas. Who is going to dog sit? Would the dogs be okay on a 10-hour flight? What about being in confinement in Germany- the German vet withholds them to make sure they aren’t bringing any diseases into their country. What about the cost of having the dogs fly? Is this a little too much for a dog to be put through? I made this decision with Del over the phone. They simply had to be adopted by someone who will love them in the US. I was going to have to do this alone.

So, I bawled my eyes out filling out Lab Rescue forms to surrender them to new owners. I COULD NOT drop them off at the pound. I had to have them in good hands. I had to choose who took them. I had to give the people their dog food bowls, their balls and beanie babies, their kennels, their leases and collars. I had to find someone fast to help me out.

The Lab Rescue of Greater Richmond contacted me through the forms I filled out and set up an in-home visit. A lady came to see our puppies at home and how they were behaved. She said she never has seen Labs be more impeccably behaved. They sat, they kissed, they high-fived and shook, they layed down, they showed the lady that they go outside to go potty. Made me cry because the pups didn’t know why the lady was there. I felt so guilty. When she left, I laid on the floor hugging them.

They were put up on the lab adoption pages on social media and emails. There were over 100 likes on social media of strangers loving my dogs, and over 40 comments of mostly women begging their significant other to let them get the dogs. No one came through, however.

We were down to my last week of being home. I had an empty house, I had my passports, I was about to close the house at the lawyer’s office to hand over our 1 garage door opener, our suitcases were packed, yet I still had the dogs. What was I going to do?!

God came through for me. A girl named Haley was so very kind enough to Foster my dogs when I left. When I met her, I had such a good vibe with her that I 100% trusted her. She took the dogs to her home a few days before our flights. A few days after our flights, the dogs were adopted into a forever home.

I keep telling myself, people who adopt old dogs have the biggest hearts. People who want someone else’s dogs rather than puppies truly are special people in this world. Our dogs went to a Navy couple who were expecting their first baby and wanted trustworthy dogs. My dogs couldn’t have been a more perfect puzzle piece. I PRAY that the new baby loves on them like my babies did.

I feel less of a human being after that situation. I never in a million years thought I would be able to do this to my dogs. I am in contact with the new family and they send me pictures. I cry. I dry my tears. I will always think of them as MY dogs and get choked up. They are my fur-babies, but my husband and my own kids mean more. The dogs will be okay. As long as I keep getting pictures of them laying in these people’s beds and on their couches! They definitely are well taken care of.

So I sold the house, paid off twenty thousand dollars in debt, resigned from teaching, surrendered the dogs, booked international flights, and now here we are…

A family of 4 in Azores, Portugal. I have never been so happy in my heart with this huge decision.

I texted my mom and mother in law a few days after I got here:

 “I truly am proud of myself for doing this all by myself. I have been though a lot the past month, and I feel like I deserve this piece of paradise. I have felt myself transform as a woman. Other than my wedding day, my two children’s births, this has been one of the happiest moments of my life. I am so in love with Del and I am so happy to be back with him, with the kids, in a once of a lifetime location.”

We will be here until June 2020, and in Germany July 2020.

Just Go… Even if you are not allowed to. Just Go… Even if you have never been there before. Just Go… Even if you are already settled in life. Just Go… even though there is a long list of things to get done before you leave. Just Go… when your mom and mother in law say so.

Keep an eye on our travels! Now that we are in Europe, our goal is to save save save and travel travel travel. I will teach you my ins and outs of making it to new countries within budget- EH- A little bit over budget!

Ciao,

The Rocking Bryces