And I’m not even the one leaving!

My good friend (both on the interwebs AND in real life, which in itself is pretty amazing) Amanda is moving to Virginia in two weeks and I am sad. Her stupid husband is making her go. Ok, the Navy is making them go but it’s hard to be mad at a giant government institution rather than one guy. Even if he is a giant dork super nice.

Amanda is the kind of friend who says stuff like “One of these days we should go check out that museum” or “This summer, let’s go to the lake” or “There’s an apple festival in Salem this weekend that looks fun” and then ACTUALLY DOES IT. I am baffled by that kind of motivation. 99% of all my “Oh, we should totally go…” end with me sitting on the couch stuffing my face with Goldfish and watching a Law & Order marathon (yet another reason canceling cable might be good for me). They have made us let us tag along on so many fun weekend outings that last week when we WEREN’T with them, Madison, Amanda’s daughter (age almost 4),  turned to her mom and asked “Where’s Miss Suz?” unable to understand how it was possible to do stuff without us.

Besides inviting us to parties and barbecues and parks and beaches, Amanda is my magical porch fairy/hand me down baby toy provider. For the whole past year at least once a week we find presents/baked goods on our porch, always from Amanda & family, always delicious & useful. ALL of Baby Evan’s favorite stuff came from them, including a super duper awesome playhouse we’ll be taking ownership of after their going away party next weekend, where I plan to throw a giant fit and beg them to stay. But not before stuff that awesome house into the back of our minivan. It keep the kid entertained for FOUR HOURS last nigt.

OH. AND. WHO IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE A CAKE FOR BABY EVAN’S SECOND BIRTHDAY? I couldn’t even attempt something like the one Amanda made for his first birthday unless I am 100% prepared to cut off a finger/get very drunk/end up lying on the floor in tears after three hours.

Amanda introduced me to Twitter, to blog giveaways, to Gardener’s Lake, to the church we (sporadically) attend, and to a zillion other things. They play marbles with us and don’t even mind that E yells and I call people names. Madison loves Baby Evan (she’s started requesting her own baby brother) and does an amazing job of playing and sharing with him when they’re together. Their friendship has meant so much to us during the past year, especially in the transition from DINKs (dual income no kids) to Dad works, Mom stays home with a baby all alone and desperate for someone to talk to who doesn’t want to chew on her nipples.

I jokingly threatened to slash some tires to prevent their leaving, but I think Amanda’s a little afraid I wasn’t joking. But of course I was. Slashed tires would barely slow them down at all! Pulling some random bits out of the engine, now THAT would take a few weeks to straighten out.

Still kidding. Mostly. We’ll miss you guys!

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p.s. Today is the LAST DAY to vote in the BlogLuxe awards (bebehblog is nominated in the funniest category!) so if you wouldn’t mind clicking right over there on that little black button I would love you forever and ever too —–>

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.

Last week, a friend lost a pregnancy less than 48 hours after announcing it to her friends in a public manner. I don’t know how she’s doing now, because she posted a request not to talk about it and I’m trying to respect her wishes. I sent a text, figuring it was better than a Facebook message and less intrusive than a phone call, but it feels cheap and impersonal. In the past when someone I know had a miscarriage (it’s reported that between 20-50% of pregnancies result in miscarriage,  but even those statistics seem low…or my friends and family have just suffered more than their share) I’ve sent cards, sometimes called, but more often than not I’ve ignored it in favor of silence. I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth and make things worse when I’m trying to make them better and my anecdote about how I once had a cat that died so I know how they feel is TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.  Because I don’t know how they feel. The pain someone feels after a loss is not about me. I am sad FOR a friend but in no way am I suffering the way they are.

There are people who take every opportunity to bring themselves closer to a tragedy, make it more personal, make it all about them. They love the attention grief brings. They feed off the sympathetic looks and comments. They gather around tragedies the way some people gather around celebrities.

I hate grief groupies. In fourth or fifth grade, one of the men who attended my church was killed in a plane crash. I knew his daughters through Sunday School and his wife a little bit, but I didn’t know the man well enough to remember his name now, a decade later. I saw how devastated his family was and how they wished more than anything that they were further from the tragedy, that it wasn’t in their life, that it had happened to someone they didn’t know. I saw the church community offer love and support and shelter from the well-meaning but pushy grief groupies who lived just down the street or went to the same grocery store or who once flew on a plane that took off from that same airport. And I punched a kid in my homeroom who spent the whole morning following the accident going around telling everyone HE went to the same church TOO and was SO SAD and maybe it could have been HIS dad on that plane, except for, you know, IT WASN’T. And now that I’m an adult with adult friends who have adult problems and adult tragedies, I worry my attempts at sympathy will be seen the way I saw that kid’s actions.

I think the hardest part of supporting someone through a miscarriage is not knowing how they want to be supported. Maybe they’re done grieving and my phone call will rip the bandage off a healing wound. Maybe they’ve already used up their monthly allowance of “I’m doing ok”. Maybe they aren’t as sad as they feel they’re “supposed to” be and hearing condolences over and over just makes it worse. I’m sure dealing with the reactions and responses from friends and family can be almost as painful as the actual miscarriage. I just don’t know what to say. Do you have any advice?