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| Eric and I received official word yesterday that I will not be allowed to accompany him to Japan. Eric asked me if I wanted to go with him, into the office, but I opted to sit out in the waiting room. When he emerged I couldn't tell from the expression on his face if it was bad news or good news but then he looked me right in the eyes with a tired expression and said 'Unfortunately, it's what we figured it would be.' He grabbed my hand and asked me if I was okay but I had no more tears to cry at that point.
Eric has now begun the process to have his orders changed and I am in the process of enrolling in the appropriate medical programs I'm required to be in now. I will be staying in Beaufort while Eric is in Japan. My doctors are here, the resources provided to me by the Marine Corps are here, the support groups are here and we have thankfully been able to keep our exact same apartment so it will save us the hassle of moving. While Eric is gone I will be going back to school and, Lord willing, working.
We are trying our best to move forward and roll with the punches but the word to best sum up both of us right now is: tired. We are just tired. Last night was very hard for both of us and we spent the later part of the evening just lying together on the couch sobbing and trying to make sense of everything. Hearing my husband weep and blame himself for not being able to be here with me is heartbreaking. Our hands are tied though and despite Eric's best efforts there is nothing he can do, he has to go and I have to stay.
We will still be taking our scheduled vacation to Georgia, New Mexico and California before Eric leaves. As it still stands Eric checks out of the base here on the 24th, we will be spending a night in Macon, traveling up to Atlanta and staying with my family until June 4th. June 4th we will be flying out to New Mexico to see Eric's family there and staying until about the 11th, after which we will be driving to Napa, California.
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| Well I suppose I ought to do a quick update and let people know what's been going on. The crap has hit the fan.
I have been struggling for the past several years with something and in the past weeks, it escalated, so Eric and I went to my doctor to talk to her about it. I was prescribed some medication and my doctor referred me out in town to a specialist, and Eric and I left the office feeling optimistic. The specialist I met with too was very wonderful and the meeting went well, she sent my results to my primary care physician and Eric and I continued on with our plans to move to Japan.
A day or so later Eric and I received a phone call from the people in charge of my overseas medical screening saying I needed to resubmit it in light on my recent diagnosis. Eric and I did not think anything of it so we went down to the office so I could resubmit but when we arrived they did not give me any paperwork. To be honest I didn't notice nor did it concern me, I figured I'd get it when I was called into the office. The petty officer in charge called me in, looked at my paperwork and said 'I can tell you right now that they will deny you.' To break it down into layman's terms: I am not allowed to move to Japan with Eric. The base in Japan does not have the specialist neccasary to work with someone in my condition. Eric and I were, of course, stunned. I had already submitted medical paperwork before and had been approved, everything was already set and ready to go, and now with only 3 weeks left until check out our plans have been totally changed.
As it stands right now Eric will have to move to Japan without me, they will be changing his orders to unaccompanied and I will not be able to rejoin him at a later date. Eric and I are trying everything within our powers to change this so I may accompany him but we have a very slim chance of making this work. The decision to let me go with him is in the hands of the officials on base in Japan. Eric and I are preparing for me to stay in Beaufort in the highly likely chance that I will not be able to go with him, it is a very sad, disappointing and stressful time for both of us.
I just got him back and now he has to leave again. We were looking forward to finally being able to spend time together as a family and grow together through this move. Please pray for us in these confusing times, we want whatever God's will is whether it coincides with ours or not.
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| Things continue to move along slowly in regards to our move. Eric starts the checking out process next week. So soon! He mentioned that to me a few days ago and it really caught me off guard. I keep thinking we have more time than we really do! Haha. We still need to purchase the plane tickets to get to New Mexico and sign off on some paperwork with our apartment complex but other than that we just have a lot of sitting around and waiting to do. Well, I have a lot of sitting around and waiting to do, Eric has a lot of running around on base to do I imagine. I just don't know where the time has gone though, in just a little over a month we will be leaving Beaufort! I am hoping that time does not keep slipping away from us like this, we only have a little over a week with each of our respective families and that is not much time at all when you think about it. We will manage it somehow though! We most certainly want to see all of our friends and family when we are home. Please continue to pray for us as we continue on, there have been a few bumps in the road, but nothing that can't be overcome. Not too much longer now!
On another note: I have officially started my side piece! On the 14th I had my first session! I had hoped to get it finished all in one day but once we started nearing the 7th hour of tattooing I knew my tattoo artist wouldn't be doing much more. It was waaaay less painful than I thought it would be, hence why I could sit through 7 hours of it. I felt bad for my artist after a while though, he stood for 90% of the tattooing process all bent over funny to get the right angles, that 7th hour I could tell he was getting really uncomfortable so he decided to call it a day. The artist, Ryan Willingham, is awesome though. He took my vision and just ran with it! The sketch he did was so much better than I had pictured it in my head, I can't wait to see it all done!! I go back for my second, and hopefully last, session with him on May 2nd. Wish me luck!!
 the end of day one! please excuse my pasty paleness. lol
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| Things have unofficially come together now. I say unofficially because we still have to wait for the 'official' okay from some people, but other than a few little things like that, we are nearly done with this moving process. Our plane tickets to Japan are reserved for us and once our paperwork is sent over from this other office, they will be purchased. We fly out on June 21st! Yay! Well, kind of yay and kind of sad as well.
Eric forwarded me two emails he received from TMO saying that our shipment date requests were approved and when we can expect the packers to show up and throw everything in boxes, that is what I'm most nervous about ironically. One of the benefits of moving on military orders is that we don't have to pack anything, we don't put anything in boxes, we don't wrap anything, if we want all of our stuff to be insured by them, they have to pack it. I am definitely okay with that! I have packed and unpacked my life so many times since 2009 that I am not going to complain. We have two things we do have to do though and one more that I added based on the recommendations of others: first we have to unplug everything, second we have to take everything down off the walls and third, which is the one I added, we have to organize and separate our two shipments and what we we don't want put into the shipments. Obviously I am not worried about unplugging things and taking pictures down off the walls, it's the organizing and staging that's got me, I want to make sure I do it correctly so things can go as smoothly as possible.
Our overseas shipment happens in two parts, the first shipment is the big things like furniture and anything else we wont need right away, the second shipment will be things like clothes, pots and pans, anything else we'd like to have as soon as possible and then there is the stuff that we want to put in our own suitcases. All of this needs to be separated and clearly marked, TMO will pack an entire house in one day, if it's not clear what they should do with something, it will get packed. Actually, as I am typing this I am wondering why in the world I am worried about this, all I have to do is separate everything and I already know what we want to go on each shipment... Haha. Well, either way, I will start going through the house again today and take things down! This task feels more monumental than it really is I think, that and I know I'm making it more complicated by insisting on organizing everything. When it comes down to it though, it will save us a lot of time when unpacking and will make the packing go much smoother in the long run.
Eric and I are very excited about our move and while he is not entirely thrilled at the work that is awaiting him there, I myself am thrilled about arriving soon! I've had a couple people ask me if I am scared and I've also had a couple people just assume that I am not looking forward to it, but that's not it at all. Am I a little apprehensive? Yes. It is not because I will be living in Japan though, I've lived in Asia before and fell in love, I am beside myself with happiness that I will be living there again. I am simply apprehensive about making this transition as smooth and painless as possible. We are so excited about exploring this new chapter in our lives and taking advantage of the situation handed to us. I mean, really, this is a once in a life time opportunity for us! We are sad about leaving family members and friends behind but I know once we are over there and taking everything in, 3 years will probably fly by and we'll be back before we know it.
Well I should probably get off the computer now, there is a lot to be done and less and less time to do it in!
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| Well I should have updated this a little while ago but... Eric is home now!! Yay!! He arrived home safely at 2:15am on Saint Patty's Day. The day before he came home I was an absolute mess, I didn't know what to do with myself! I cleaned the apartment several more times, washed the sheets and towels again, changed my clothes about 20 times and countless other things until my friend and I decided to go out in town and try to distract ourselves. It worked fairly well and at 6pm we met up with another friend for dinner before returning to our respective homes to get all fancied up and ready. I thought about sleeping but that definitely wasn't happening so at 1am I headed over to my friends house where we wrote welcome home messages on our cars with window crayons and then, with much giggling and excitement, we climbed in our cars and headed to base.
When we arrived the embarkation hangar was already filled with families and spouses, all talking excitedly. On the way there I'd had half an energy drink to help fight off fatigue since i hadn't slept at all but once I arrived at the hangar I was so amped up from adrenaline that I had to throw it away. We'd been sitting in the hangar maybe 10 minutes before people started filtering outside next to the flight line, where the plane would be landing. I grabbed my sign and headed outside alongside my friends whose men were also coming home. I remember finally seeing the blinking lights of a plane off in the distance, watching it circle around and realizing it was getting closer, that was the plane Eric was on; I thought my heart had stopped. When the plane finally landed, I was still having a hard time wrapping my mind around it, my husband was actually here, he was going to get off that plane, he was going to come home.
One by one the guys started filtering off the plane. My friend and I joked that our Marines would probably be the last ones off the plane and they'd probably come off holding hands. Before Eric's return I'd made a homecoming sign, I figured I could hold it above the crowd and it would help Eric find me. Yeah, it didn't. Sure enough Eric and my friends boyfriend were some of the last Marines to get off the plane, and sure enough they were together (though not holding hands.) I saw Eric before he saw me. I think I said something silly like 'Hey we are over here!' and then next thing I new I was in Eric's arms. I have no idea where my sign was, I think I'd just chucked it and ran. Like I said, it didn't do me any good. Haha.
Hugging Eric again was one of the most surreal feelings in the world. For a good minute or so all I did was cling on to him, my head buried in his shoulder, just breathing and trying not to burst into tears. He was real, he was here, I was finally back together with him. Eric was laughing and repeating 'I love you, I love you' while trying to get me to lift my face towards him. I was just so afraid to move, to let go, in case this was some horrible cruel dream. Finally I lifted my face to look at him and there he was, smiling down at me looking very tired but very happy too. He kissed me, gave me another hug and I said the first thing that came into my mind 'You are taller than I remember.'
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Our Story
We came about by the very strong wills of two family members in March of 2010. Really what that means is neither of us wanted to be that creeper who added the random stranger on Facebook with only one mutual friend, so Sarah's sister and Eric's cousin by marriage, forced us to talk to one another and, well... the rest is history. We began dating in May of that year. on February 19th of 2011 we became engaged and on July 9th of 2011 we met at the altar and said "I do."
About Him
Eric is currently serving his country in the United States Marine Corps, but that is definitely not all there is to him. Originally from California, he likes his sun, board shorts, relaxing and tattoos. Anyone who knows Eric knows he is a family man and would do just about anything for his friends. He say's the most adventurous thing in life he's ever done is join the Marines and drive 500 miles to go meet a girl.
About Her
Sarah is an eclectic personality with a penchant for the quirky. She loves to travel and spent several years growing up in Thailand and traveling back and forth across the world and the United States. She is a creative person and is currently pursuing a degree in graphic design. Spontaneous road trips are something she frequently enjoys and that is what lead her to California where she would be introduced to her sister's neighbor's cousin by marriage.
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