One of the best parts of Ryan being in the academy is that he gets home around 5:30 every night! That's 2 hours before he use to get home! That means he is home to eat dinner with me and E (at a decent time) and help with bath and bedtime routine! YAY! YAY! YAY! After doing all those things alone for the past 16 months I am thrilled to have help! Also he will have every Friday off; now he will have to spend a lot of his time "off" studying (especially once EMT school starts- next week-hopefully) but he will be around!
However the BEST part of Ry joining the Academy is he is finally happy. When Ry left the Corps he felt very lost. He didn't really want to leave the Marines, but with the election of President Obama and the subsequent cuts to the military his job was eliminated. He debated for a long time about changing his MOS (job) within the Marines or even transferring to the Warrant Officer program in the Army but in the end he felt that with the atmosphere of the federal government being what it was/is staying in wasn't a choice for him. His first 6 months out were kind of a blur; he half-heartedly search for a job within the Metroplex and I searched across the state for a public school teaching job. I finally found one in Pasadena so we moved to Houston. This was a HARD adjustment for us. Leaving Fort Worth (a town which we loved) to come live in my hometown was challenging. Ryan wasn't sure what it would be like living this close to my parents and siblings, he was worried they would be too involved, or that I would become too involved in their lives. It took us several years to navigate those tricky waters, but now it works well for us. Ry pursued several different careers once we moved; he did a prerequisite semester for nursing (thinking that he liked to help people so nursing would be a good field), then he switched to Instrumentation and Electronics (so he could work at one of the MANY chemical plants here in town) and then ended up with a job in maintenance at M.D. Anderson. Going from a Sargent in the Marine Corps to a maintenance man was a shot to the ego, but he knew he had to provide for me and our growing family. So he took that job with a humble spirit and a thankful heart. He was never truly fulfilled there and that broke my heart. Several people talked to him about joining the police/fire department and he just brushed it off, until one day a good friend of ours sat him down and really talked to him. Ever since then he had a fire in his eyes again. He had a goal, a career CHOICE, and he did everything he could to prepare to be his best.
So as we start this new adventure please keep us in your prayers. It is another season of adjustment for us, but I am learning to just take it one day at a time. If there is one thing being a Marine Wife (for even my brief 2 years) taught me it was that the unofficial slogan of the Corps is Simper Gumby... always flexible.
No comments:
Post a Comment