When we heard we were going to be moving here to Washington state, my friend who has lived here for years warned me about S.A.D. I was never sure I would be affected because I have always been a fan of the rain and the darkness it brings.

As it turns out, the rain and the overcast days are actually the least of the problems. The real problem has started to emerge within the last few weeks as fall settles in for the long haul. Now underlined and bold-faced as we switch over to standard time from daylight savings.

The number of daylight hours is restricted even more when it is overcast and rainy. We have lived here for just about 3 months now, and I can tell you that on an average week, we get maybe 2 days of full sunshine – if we are lucky. Now that the days are shorter, it’s dark by 4pm or thereabouts. And I see it getting worse as we near the silly season.

And while I don’t know that I will suffer from S.A.D., I can see how the light (or lack, thereof) is going to play havoc with my internal clock. It already does. I find myself panicking at 4:30 because it looks and feels like much later. And I am finding that I am not a fan of the dark at all. I might like the rain and the overcast and the opportunity to build a fire and wrap up blankets … but I do not like the dark.

Yep – I am still adjusting to life out here. I never dreamed it would be this different, but nevertheless, I am liking it – a lot! I don’t know that I can live anywhere else after this. Dreary, rainy days or not!

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I’ve thought long and hard about writing this post-mortem – for my own edification and maybe for those around me who are curious as to my experiences and how I see them after all is said and done.

To clarify – events of the last 3 years include:

• getting married
• migrating to the United States
• immediately transforming into a stay-at-home/work-at-home military spouse from a hardcore support tech at a major telecommunications company in Jamaica
• 2 household moves
• 1 military deployment

Yes – that’s a lot to pack into 3 years; I know – believe me, I know. I looked at the summary I just typed and had to take a breath myself.

The Timeline

Getting married was tricky. It required an almost year-long wait for the American authorities to decide it was ok to grant me permission to marry and move in with the man of my dreams. You all know the angst I went through with that whole process and the subsequent fallouts. When the day finally arrived, I was a bit drippy-eyed because for some reason I thought having gotten this far – Dad on my arm in Kentucky, prospective in-laws also visiting Kentucky and gearing up for a happy HAPPY occasion – that somehow it was a nightmare and I would find myself waking up in my own bed back in Kingston with no wedding, no hubby, no family and no “joy”. My father said his usual “don’t be silly” and my maid of honour (bless her heart!) told me to not worry and I tried REALLY hard to stop stressing.

Less than a year later, we prepared to move from Kentucky to Texas. Not only was this move guaranteed to introduce a deployment (you don’t get summoned to Fort Hood, Texas and NOT get deployed), but it was also to a state that we both despised. There remained a far greater capacity for our loathing than we were aware. There was very little about the Fort Hood/Texas experience that I even want to remember, much less reminisce about.

The year deployment was bad – I was alone in an alien place, with no one I knew (and, as it turned out, very few that I WANTED to know) and no one nearby whom I could call on in a pinch. For the first time in my life, I faced abject lonesomeness and felt crippled. I wasn’t lonely, but I was alone. I always want to know there’s someone I can call on in a pinch – if it’s even the local taxi service.

I survived the year – handsomely, if I do say so myself.

Nay – WE survived the year.

We’re still together, the Texas/Fort Hood experience helped to bring us closer together rather than drive us apart. And we survived the move from Texas to Washington – together – and this is where we are now.. It’s a new beginning in many ways for us and so far, nothing but positive vibes. I look forward to the next 3 years and beyond.

Difficulties?

Upon marrying, I was told many times and in many ways that the transition to military spouse was going to be difficult in lots of ways – not the least of which was that my civilian friends would no longer be able to relate to me – or me to them. This is true in a sense. I lost a couple of friends, distanced a few others and gained a few too.

Frankly, not being able to relate to my civilian friends -or them to me- is not something I can say has really happened. It has taken an extra few words and seconds for me to explain certain aspects of my life when military subjects come up, but it’s not a real big deal. They still get me – and that’s what is most important in friendships.

I think the biggest thing I’ve had to deal with in this transition, is that most people now think that watching the news and relating to me all that’s happening military-wise (according to the news) is something they need to do. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to tell my friends and family that it doesn’t matter what they read, hear or see on the news – reality is far different.

I’ve had to tell Mom that I’m not really interested in hearing what she heard CNN is saying about what Pres. Obama said about the war and the military – I am more interesting in what she heard on TVJ or CVM about what Prime Minister Bruce is doing and saying in Jamaica. I want to hear about Caribbean things. All things US and military is within easy reach for me – if I want it.

That, I think, has been the most difficult part of this transition.

Explaining what a ‘PCS’ is or a ‘PTDY’ or a ‘DITY’ or an ‘NCOIC’ is not the difficult part at all, and maybe having worked in the corporate world for a long time has helped me draw parallels that most of my friends and family can relate to – which pretty much makes explaining why my husband’s platoon sergeant can tell him what to do, when and how.

Conclusions?

Frankly – considering how much of a creature of habit I actually am, how I have never taken change on very well and how I usually end up stressing over the changes – I think I have weathered all these changes in my life very well. I gained a few grey hairs during the deployment – but those don’t bother me as much as the weight I’ve gained in the last 2 years just eating normally. (I swear American food has something in it that makes you grow outwards!)

Thankfully, having a caring husband and a very supportive set of in-laws has helped immensely.

But I think the constancy of my very VERY close friends has possibly been THE single-most significant factor in me still being here – sane and healthy. You all know who you are – all THREE of you – and I hope you know how much I appreciate you – ALL of you.

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I have been bitten by the cloud bug.

And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with Apple’s announcement of the upcoming iCloud.

Starting out in the cloud

Working in the cloud started fairly innocuously with ‘trying’ out the new toys on the shelf – apps such as Dropbox and Evernote and Google docs – and at the time, my need for them was minimal. Gradually, I learned that each of these tools presented the perfect opportunity to store (and share) information that I could access elsewhere.

It started with small things like eBooks and photos that I’d either want to share with friends or that I thought I might like to access from elsewhere.

I remember being extremely thankful to myself for putting my resume in the cloud via Dropbox because once when I was offered an on-the-spot job opportunity, I could get into my Dropbox account on a public computer and print it off in a mad minute.

The day the cloud saved my ass

Last year June (2010), the hard drive in my iMac crashed – most unceremoniously. I was in the middle of working at the time and I was devastated because I lost almost all of my email and quite a few documents.

Lost is relative, because I knew I could get it from the Time Capsule backup once I had my hard drive reinstated. The issue was more immediate than recovering data long term. The issue was that I was working and all I had been working on was lost – the rest of my day (and maybe week) was lost because all my stuff was sitting on that bad hard drive.

Luckily, I had a laptop with which I had planned ahead to using as my mobile working platform and with the help of Dropbox and a very supportive boss, I was able to be up and working again in a matter of minutes.

Possibilities in the cloud

It hit me there and then that being able to jump onto any machine and start working was a benefit greatly to be desired. And that Dropbox seemed to be the perfect way to get that benefit.

And so I started investigating being able to sync certain things into my Dropbox folder – mail, application preferences, data files, data stores, etc. There are quite a few applications that natively support the sync’ing to Dropbox – applications such as 1Password – and then there are those that you find forum posts about it being possible to sync them via Dropbox but not supported by the developers.

Let’s just say that I’ve been sync’ing Adium and a few other unsupported apps and their preferences to Dropbox ever since. I just have to remember to logout of them on one machine before I log in on another machine.

The Cloud’s infinitesimal applications

Much, much earlier than the epic hard drive failure of 2010, my husband and I shared calendars via Google Calendar. At work, he would input his schedule into his calendar, and at home I’d see the new schedule popup on my screen.

At the time, I was also working a crazy schedule and I could then put in my hours and schedule and he’d be able to pull that up on his phone or computer and see when I’d be coming home at midnight and when it’d be more like 4pm.

I suggested this idea to one of the organizations I worked with when I managed Site-Reference.com – and they now manage their calendars and schedules in much the same way.

In 2011, I started writing articles for a colleague and found that the best way to share my pieces was through Google Docs. I’d see when she went through them and the changes she made and she could share stuff she wanted me to take a look at or work on.

Now Apple has talked about this iCloud thing … as usual giving the impression that they were the first EVER to introduce this heady concept. While I acknowledge that .Mac (aka iTools and MobileMe) was quite possibly one of the first individual consumer based cloud computing service, I can’t say that Apple can lay claim to inventing the concept. ^[1]

The future of me in the cloud

I’ve always been a fan of Google Mail – from the day it came out, I benched all my other mail solutions in favor of Google Mail and I haven’t looked back. Most of you know me as using fyrfli at gmail dot com for years.

Well, I’ve made the leap to Google Apps having discovered that it is free to small organizations of less than 10 persons. And since my little domain name and budding company is still only me, it is very worth it. And so, I shifted my ‘business’ into the cloud.

As for what business fyrfli.net will be getting into …. you’ll just have stay tuned to find out.

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I have been going to Fort Hood Open Circle meetings lately. Decided to get out and do some of this meeting people thing … I chose the coven (yes – it’s a coven but an open one – one that welcomes all faiths, even Christian) because they were likely to be the people with whom I could most identify with … at least I think so. All of us quirky and not afraid to BE our quirky selves.

Well … I am a little afraid to be my quirky self, but I am learning that quirky is sometimes good – even if it gets you unwanted attention; which I loathe, by the way – the LAST thing this Leo likes is the spotlight – can’t get much more quirky than that!

So anyway, I have been going to meetings and starting yesterday, we are going to be examining ourselves with the help of a poem our Leader found call “The Invitation“. To recreate the poem here would be pointless… I shall just leave a link to the original I found online as is and refer to each stanza as we go through them (assuming I’ll have something to write about each week – and assuming I am around long enough to see the whole exercise through).

This week, we talked about the first lines of the poem:

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”

Michele (our leader) asked us to go around the room saying what we wanted – what we ached for, what we ached hungered for  - from off the top of our heads.

It’s a lively, jovial group … and we got things ranging from:

• I want to be the mother and let someone else be the maid
• Family

To:

• Cold beer and pizza

Like I said – a jovial group.

At first, all I could come up with is “family” because of all the things I WANT right now, it is that. I’d like to get my family started. I really would – and it hasn’t happened for us yet. It was the first thing off the top of my mind … because I thought about it and I realized that I really “hunger” for nothing. I have just about all I need – either right here, right now … or on the way.

With that thought, I floated through the discussion and onto the conclusion that for myself I would like family … yes. But first, I’d like to share the light in my life with other people – the light that has shown me that I CAN be content – despite the everyday stresses and the waiting for the husband to be by my side again safe and sound …  despite all the problems, the issues, the drama, the illnesses, the trials and tribulations … I AM CONTENT!

Then this morning, I found this link from a twitter friend. It’s an article from the NY Times which debates the pluses gained by allowing constant communication between solider and spouse during a deployment to a war zone.

It made me think some more on that light I talked about … a light that made this deployment so much easier for both myself and hubby … easier than I am seeing other people have it.

The article talked about how communication can make it difficult for soldiers to focus on their mission due to the availability of the facilities. It also touched on the anxiety that can be caused because of spouses settling into a routine of communication with their soldiers that inevitably gets interrupted for one reason or another … the panic and worry that can set in and how that can snowball into more distractions for the soldiers in the form of arguments,etc.

I have neglected to say it because I know some people don’t speak to their husbands as often as I do – but I pretty much talk to him daily. He keeps saying he should stop because he doesn’t want me to get used to it so much so that when it doesn’t happen I panic or get mad. But … it has happened before. A day or more will pass and I realize I haven’t spoken to him. I say realize because really and truly, I’ve made a HUGE effort to occupy myself as MUCH as possible this year.

Even on my worst days, there is something to keep my occupied – if even just brainless TV shows on Hulu+.

On the good days, I write, I take photos, I work like a fiend, I sleep, I do crosswords and read … and these last couple of weeks, I’ve secured and installed a server class machine here at home with the help and enthusiasm of a friend (DJ) back in Jamaica.

The key, though, is that I have made the effort to occupy myself. So when I miss a call or an IM or a text message or whatever, it’s way past the hours within which I would have been notified if something had happened to him.

“It’s been 24 hours … if something had happened, I would already know. Ok – patience, breathe, relax … he’s fine. He’ll get to you as soon as he can.”

The article goes on to talk about how the constant communication mediums leave relationships wide open to disagreement and discord and how couples inevitably find it difficult to put relationship issues on hold so that the soldiers can focus on their mission, get it done and get home. How spouses end up sharing their at-home problems with the soldier and how they can find themselves carrying the burden of war zone stresses as well as at-home-and-i-am-not-there stresses.

I realized that any problems I have that I can’t solve, have no solution in the works or feel impotent to try to solve, I don’t need to mention to him at all. I feel it doesn’t do either of us any good to have him shouldering his stresses as well as mine.

So I am sick, and he feels like he should be here to take care of me and I stress to him that he needs to focus on coming home to me so he can. That I am fine, that I am taking care of myself as best as I can and when I can’t I reach out and ask for help. That while I miss his ministrations, I am compelled to manage until he gets back. (e.g. It wasn’t until I had been to the doctor and gotten my second dose of antibiotics for the strep I couldn’t get rid of that I told him how sick I was.)

It’s important to me that he has little or nothing to think about except what he’s doing over there. It’s important to me that he be able to focus. Having lived with him for almost 2 years also taught me what it is he needs in order to get in the zone where he goes to focus and stay there comfortably. And I do as much as I can from this distance to recreate that condition for him.

All I care about is that he come home safe and sound. Nothing else matters right now. Everything that needs fixing and needs his input can wait until he IS home safe and sound. I will get by until then … and then is the only goal that matters.

I was talking about quirky earlier in the post … I am beginning to realize just how quirky I am. My quirky (and his) has helped us survive this deployment and maybe even come out of it better off than we were before he left.

The only problem I have now … is how to get back out of independent mode once he gets home. And that’s no big deal really … since he lends himself so easily to being surrendered to.

I have to say … I am blessed.

I must have a guardian angel that loves me unconditionally – because no matter what I throw in her way, she always finds a way to show me the light once again.

I’d like to share the secret of that light … with all of you… I also know you all have to be ready and open to see it … otherwise, any effort I make will be pointless. Until then, I do what I can to talk about me and hope that some of my light spills out and over onto you. If you do catch some of it, I am happy … if you want to catch more of it, let me know … we’ll see how we can work up some light of your own for you.

And even if it’s only just one of “you” who gain … then it’s all been worthwhile.

Namasté

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