Oddly enough, photos of a trip in 2004 showed up on facebook today, despite the friend having posted them about 8 years ago! I got a kick out of seeing some of them and sadly I'm not tagged in them currently because my name changed. While looking at those photos I'm reminded of what life was like back then. It's always been fascinating to think about where you'll be or what you'll be doing in 10 years and to be honest, I suppose I thought my life would be something like this, but never really thought I would have lived somewhere exotic, moved several times in one year, and bought a house that I will only live in for three. I did however figure if I was going to have kids I'd have them by now or at least have one by now and I knew having dogs was a must. I didn't expect to have three, nor did I expect them to be crazy, but I love them and they have their sweet calm moments every once in a while.
While on my glorious 4 week stint in Australia I met a lot of great people and still maintain friendships with them via the great social network of facebook, but there's really only been one person that I have kept in touch with that has become a dear friend and means a great deal to me. Oddly enough, it was my one week in Fiji that made out meeting possible. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd end up chatting with a bloke from England while on some far away tropical excursion and I certainly never thought I'd end up chatting with him via email and skype more than I talk to my parents or my husband when he's deployed or in training! While our encounter was brief, only a few days, there was something that was certainly there between us and kept us talking to each other for years. After going back to the states and reuniting with my future husband, then boyfriend, I never thought I'd one day consider what life would have been like with my English gentleman. I married my high school sweetheart and we joined the military (I say we because he joined it and I married into it, although not willingly). I suppose I thought we'd exchange a few emails and eventually would drift off into our own worlds across the pond from each other. I hoped we didn't, but I'm terrible about maintaining contact with friends unless it's messages on facebook, I really don't call people or email them much. So to my surprise, we've become close friends and on some level we'd probably wish we were more than that, but that is another story entirely and I'm not getting into that. Honestly, he is a wonderful man and as you sit here reading this and enjoying your ridiculously hot days back in Australia I have no problems telling you just how great you are and what a blessing it has been to know you. Despite the attraction between us, which I felt from the first few days we knew each other, be it singing Christina songs by the fire, or just chatting about life under the stars, we were never married and nothing has ever happened between us. He is a true gentleman as he had many opportunities to make a move had he wanted to, but never did. I only go off about all this, because as a married woman you'd think I'd be rambling off about my husband and my family, however here I sit, having only spoken to my husband twice in the past month and spoken to this Englishman nearly everyday. Not to mention I'm reading his book and laughing as some of his most embarrassing moments. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that you can never value a true friend enough, they can be a lifeline, a rock, someone to make you laugh when all you want to do is cry, someone to dream with, someone to dream about, and someone to help you when you're down despite how hard it might be for them when it's helping out with your marital problems when I'm sure they'd rather you dump the guy.
Those photos I mentioned in the beginning included one from my trip in Fiji and he was in it. And even though I look dreadful, it's a photo I'll always enjoy looking at because I know what being there was like. I've had many friends come and go and I was worried this man might have had too much to take when I told him I was engaged, then having a baby, then having another one, but he's stuck by my side and I thank him for that.
I know what it's like to have your heart ripped out and stomped on by your best friend because my best friend of 13 years did that to me in high school and it was heartbreaking to see her leave you behind to go off with her friends and become so involved in drugs that when you finally saw her after graduation she was a shell of the bubbly personality she was. I guess coke will do that to you. However, I have seen her again and once again facebook has allowed me to reconnect with her, but it was never the same and to this day I have only met with her twice since we reunited a couple years ago. I have moved away from my home, my family, my friends, to make a new life for myself, but in the end I always wish that I could go back to that inviting place called home where I have friends just a short drive away, my family is there if I want to see them, and I know where all the streets go because I grew up there and learned to drive there. Being a military spouse takes it's toll on you and there are good days and bad days, sometimes good weeks or months and bad ones as well. But the one thing I know I can always count on is my closest friends, to include my family. If you would have asked me twenty years ago who my best friends would be I would have had a completely different list and would have only dreamed of going to Australia, but today my list includes that man I met in Fiji, my mom, and a fellow military wife to name a few. I have learned that the one thing the truly matters in this world is the people you surround yourself with and not your worldly possessions, or the money in your bank account (granted those things make life a lot easier), if you can love yourself and surround yourself with people that love you, then you are rich no matter how much money is in the bank.
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