Merry Christmas/Happy New Year Part 2

Well here it is. . . 2012.

Last year was quite the year for us as 10 months of it was spent apart with very limited communications.

Needless to say it was a pretty rough year, but it certainly was not without some big positives as well:

• Making new friends here in Sacramento and building my new life here
• Mercedes was very happy/healthy all year
• My health problems were resolved and we were able to afford it thanks to great health coverage, limited dental coverage, and $$ we had saved
• We paid off lots of debt
• The salon I manage broke record sales for one week 3 different times
• I was able to experience being a full fledged adult and taking care of responsibilities by myself. Not that I enjoy "going it alone", but there's a self confidence you gain from having this opportunity and I am grateful for it.
• I was able to spend more time with my family in California, specifically my cousin Tony, and I REALLY enjoyed being able to do so. Also getting to see my Grandma more in one year than I have most of my entire life so far was extremely fabulous. My grandma is very unique and special and I love being in a much closer proximity to her!
• I enjoyed the best summer of my life (weather wise) and have truly fallen in love with Sacramento (but it only finds itself 3rd on the list in comparison to San Diego and Hawaii)
• Last but not least, welcoming Adam home in October- it was so amazing and uplifting! Such a happy time for us and it was definitely my favorite part of 2011!

That's the quick list I threw together- I'm sure there is so much more, but I can't think of everything right now.

2012 is going to be a very different year- we are losing the financial comfort of Adam having a steady full time job and depending mostly on my income. It's a very scary position for me to be in, having such a big role in providing for my family. I think it's an especially difficult role for a woman to become the "bread winner" since we are physically designed to be less capable of handling such stress. That being said, I am glad that I have gotten to a place where I can support an (extremely meager) lifestyle for a small family.

Adam is no longer in the Army National Guard, having full filled his 6 year contract. He served nearly half of that as active duty including his initial training, full time temp tech position, AGR (Active Guard/Reserve) job at JFHQ (Joint Force Headquarters for the National Guard at the Capital in St. Paul Minnesota), and his 12 month deployment with OMLT IV. We became romantically interested in each other around the time that he joined the U.S. Army (in 2006), and so this has been our lives together since day 1. It's extremely weird to think that there will be no more drill weekends, no PT tests to prepare for, not one minute of our time will belong to the military.

(For me) it's very scary to accept this change, it's all happened so fast. There's a certain comfort and security that the military provides and it's frightening to no longer have that- especially in this economy. But Adam is thrilled to be returned to civilian freedom, and so I am happy for him.

And so we start off this year with him in school- one of the great benefits he earned with his time in the military. He's getting his commercial/Class A drivers license which has been a desire of his for quite some time. In the meantime he's preparing for a long and tedious application/interview process to become a law enforcement or correctional officer for the State of California. He will be working for a trucking company in the meantime, once he finishes school.

There's a variety of things that could happen so it will be interesting (and also cause me a great deal of anxiety) to see what will come to pass this year.

So here's my hopes/dreams/goals for 2012

• Try not to worry so much about the unknown future!
• Make as much money as I possibly can!
• Really focus on completely removing all negative people/interactions from my life (not using Facebook has really helped me, but I need to finish eradicating my life from as much negativity as possible.) I need to stop wasting time/enduring any negative feelings with relationships/situations that provide me with nothing positive and do not help to further my goals and dreams. Moving to California and ditching facebook helped a lot, but I need to bite the bullet and finish the job and focus on enjoying life/being positive.
• Explore as much of California with Adam and Mercedes as we can
• Spend even more time with my family out here
• Get involved in a musical group or start my own
• Work out more consistently.
• Not take Adam for granted now that he's home!
• Do as much as I can to help Adam accomplish his goal and dreams, pursue a civilian career and recover from PTSD/other complications of being deployed to a war zone.

Here's a link for more information about PTSD if you would like to know more about it.

One thing I've definitely realized is that "surviving" a deployment doesn't happen just during the deployment, it's about surviving the stress beforehand and the aftermath as well. The effects of war will be echoing through the rest of our lives. That echo will become more and more faint, but it's a permanent scar that will never go away. It definitely puts things in a different perspective and makes me so much more grateful for everything and everyone in our lives helping us through it :)