So the good news is we won’t be moving this year. The bad news is we won’t be moving this year because E didn’t get selected for Limited Duty Officer by the Navy. Being passed up for LDO sucks, but it sucks extra hard because I know he feels like it’s a direct judgment of his worth as a person. Which I think it RIDICULOUS because he’s amazingly good at his job, including all the itty bitty meaningless hoops the military loves to make people jump through – like always saying numbers a certain way or rechecking a valve you checked literally 30 seconds ago just because it’s a step in the procedure manual. He knows that shit inside and out. His boss got a call from another captain this week just to let him know how awesome E is and how lucky the office is to have him. And yet some guys he’s never met down in Washington DC decided he wasn’t ready to be an LDO based on a few pieces of paper and one interview. I’m so pissed on his behalf I want to punch someone and scream profanity in their stupid faces.

Last year when he didn’t get selected, I wrote a blog post for Military Spouse magazine (which seems to have disappeared into the dark void of the internets Found it) about how even though I was sad for him I was super relieved not to be uprooting our life right then. I was 8 months pregnant, the housing market had just tanked, we were kind of broke, and I was totally unprepared to start over in a new city in a new state. I got a few positive comments about how hard being a military wife can be sometimes, but one asshole wrote a jerk-off post about how I was a terrible person for even THINKING there was an upside to not getting selected, let alone writing about it on the internet. He said my selfish attitude was probably to blame and called me everything besides a traitor to our armed services. Charming and helpful all around.

This time, my disappointment on E’s behalf is greater than my desire not to upset our lives. Even though his selection would mean an even more difficult move, leaving so many more friends, losing all my real-life support, and still be a pain in the ass financially, I know how much he wanted it. How much he DESERVED it. And I am genuinely disappointed that the Navy doesn’t appreciate all his hard work. I guess I’ll just have to make sure he knows I do…until we go through this whole damn mess again next February.