Home Sweet Home

No amount of time home with my family is ever long enough. I already miss my mom and my sister. I'm going to miss out on another three years of my niece's life. Seeing Terrence break down in tears as he said his goodbyes to our baby girl was absolutely heartbreaking. I started to question whether or not the decision to move to Guam is the right one since it's so far away from family...My mother is super stressed out and really wanted us to move back to Virginia. My sister could really use my help with raising Toniya. I could really use their help while Matty is underway. Terrence really wanted his baby girl to be closer. Catalina needs her dad in her life. I hate to second guess my decisions. It's unfortunate that my children will not be around their cousin and that my daughter will be even further away from her biological father but this move is the right move for MY family. 

Without too much detail, I want to share the scoop on my relationships with "my baby daddy daddies." I read all these blogs about other military spouses and how they married the love of their life or how they've been together many years before they made the decision to have their first child. Now I'm not sure if these ladies are truly madly in love and are lucky to live fairytale lives, or if they're trying to convince themselves that their lives are hunky-dory but that certainly isn't how my life has unfolded, though I don't hold many regrets. I had my daughter Catalina while I was in college. I was head over heels for her daddy Terrence, but things didn't work out. Let's just say that I was never very clear with him about what I expected of him once Catalina was conceived. I wanted to hear that his intentions were to marry me and we would be a family...please do not take this wrong...I am not one of those psycho broads that gets knocked up in hopes to keep a dude. In my mind, before Catalina was ever conceived, I had planned every detail of my life: I'd finish college and start my career. Terrence would propose in a couple of years. There'd be the huge engagement party but we would elope on an exotic island with a sunset ceremony on the beach followed by fireworks and send DVDs of it all to our friends and family who couldn't be there, and after buying our first home we'd start a family. 

Image Borrowed from DreamWeddingReceptions.com

Well, my fairytale didn't come true. And when Terrence wouldn't verbalize that he at least had intentions of us being a happily ever after family by marrying me someday...not right away but at ANY point in our future...our relationship tumbled downhill. We broke up when Catalina was ten months old and we fought constantly until Catalina and I moved away to California just over a year later. 

Catalina and I moved across the states to live with my dad. I got a job in property management and after a year or so of being in San Diego, I met my husband at a property I was helping out at: Coral Gardens...what a dive, don't ever live there! At this point in my life, I wasn't looking for love or anything more than a good time, but I couldn't shake this guy.  We dated for a couple months...mostly because I was too busy with work to be concerned with finding my "soulmate" and he made every effort to work around my schedule and enjoyed spending time with me and my daughter. One night dad and I got to arguing and he kicked me out of his house (I won't go into details about this...it doesn't really matter...I still love my daddy). This push out of the nest forced me into getting an apartment and accepting a position at a property I had previously worked at. Though I was hesitant to the idea, it made financial sense for Matty and I to live together...It's expensive to live in San Diego! Anyway, a month after we moved in together we found out we were pregnant! (Yes, things happened that quick! He knocked me up like two weeks before we moved in together.) So yet again, my life did not play out the way I had hoped...I guess that's what I get for having premarital sex. I was petrified to have a child with a man that I hardly knew. I come from a family where all three of us kids have the same mother and father and I didn't want to be one of those broads with multiple baby daddies, but I went with my gut. We got hitched at the courthouse in October when I was six months pregnant. I like to tell people that Matty pulled the "keep a bitch" and knocked me up on purpose with the intent of persuading my hand into marriage. I got married in black.

I have a beautiful ring, but I didn't get the elaborate proposal or have the wedding of my dreams. HOWEVER, I married a damn good man that I cannot stand most days and the only thing we have in common is the cutest lil creamy skin, blond hair boy ever!

We've been married almost two years now. We have not been through a deployment yet. This is our first PCS together (I say together because I am a Navy Brat and I'm accustomed to moving a lot with the Navy as a child) and I know that an overseas move sounds intimidating to most, but I view it a little differently. It's an opportunity for us as a family to see different parts of the world that most Americans will never experience. We plan on traveling to surrounding areas. We are looking forward to a slower pace of life so that we can enjoy time with our babies and with each other. And it gives our family and friends a unique place to vacation to should they decide to visit.

I've come to realize that home is not where you were raised or grew up as a kid. Virginia is not my home. Home is here and now with MY husband and kids and our dogs. It is where we unite each day after work, share a meal, relax, and lay our heads with peace and comfort because we are together.  I love my family and no matter how annoying it might be when I get home from work and have to use the bathroom and both kids, both dogs, and my husband feel the need to join me in the bathroom,  I would not trade them for the fairytale I had envisioned of my life. With them, no matter where we lay our heads, we are home.