The Long Way Around

My friends from high school
Married their high school boyfriends
Moved into houses in the same zip codes
Where their parents live
But I, I could never follow.
~
Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found
Taking the long way.

We have a driveway! We went to see it for the first time on Thursday and I was surprised at how much our driveway fits us--it takes a while to get there, but when it does, there's something perfect at the end. (Of course, I'm just jumping ahead into the future a bit here, because all that's there now is a dirt pad, but work with me here, okay?)

I've never seemed to do things the simple way--often not to just make things more difficult, but I just couldn't figure out any other way to do them. (Math comes immediately to mind here.) I switched colleges after a semester. We took six years to get married and another four to have a child. We thought we'd have another baby when Jack was about three; this baby is coming within days of his fifth birthday.

And then, of course, there's the whole military experience. It seems like you meet a lot of people in the military who are really interested in traveling and seeing the world. Not us. Our goal since the beginning has been to get back home as soon as we could, and as soon as the end was in sight, I got pregnant, which delayed our exit by another three months.

The irony of it all is that we are really some of the most settled people you will ever meet. As we sat in the lobby of the credit union for an hour Friday*, I mentioned to Jay that we could have just gotten married when we were 18 and we would have done just fine, and he agreed. I think in the end, though, that I'm glad we've taken the long way. I got the chance to live on my own, even if it was just for six months. We know we can survive long separations. We really appreciate getting to spend time with our family. The only thing I'm still a little hung up on is that my child was born in Nebraska instead of Oklahoma, but one out of two isn't bad.

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination." ~ Don Williams, Jr.

*In keeping with the whole "long way around" theme, we had an adventure on Friday. We were all set to close the loan Friday morning (after almost a month of various hang-ups), but when we arrived at the bank, we found out they still did not have one last piece of paper. Rather than coming back and trying again next week, Jay and I drove all over town to find someone who would give us the piece of paper. We ended up having to sit in the lobby of the last place we went for an hour, but we finally got our paper and were able to close late Friday afternoon. And then we got to take a long drive home in the dark and the rain so we would be able to take Jack to zoo class this morning. The zoo class that ended up being canceled. Some day I will find a short cut!