Word

I pass this church on the way out to the barn, which is in Mansfield, and it has a marquee outside that has churchy-kind of inspiring sayings or things to make you think Christian-like thoughts, like "Is your life Christ-centered?" and whatnot.

On Saturday I noticed they had something to the effect of "Hope and faith are a choice. So are fear and depression." Now, I totally get what they're saying--you can choose to look at things in a dismal way, or work to make them better. Fine with that. But irked by their (speaking of choices) use of the word "depression."

Today on the way back from the barn I was feeling awesome about myself--Topper and I took a few turns over a little jump, and we both survived!--and I saw the sign. I pulled over, got the phone number off the sign, called and left a message asking them to change the word to "despair" since "depression" is a chemical imbalance in the brain and cannot be wished or prayed or chosen away, even if you're a Scientologist. I left my phone number, too, in case they want to call back and debate medical terminology with me. I'm no nurse, I'm not doctor, but I'm a journalist and it's my job to be picky about words.

I joked to Dan that someone had to defend the depressed because they were too depressed to do it themselves. I dunno if he thought it was funny.

Fin

Tonight is my last night in North Virginia (Nova, as some say), as tomorrow morning I fly back to Fort Worth and by the end of the month my parents will have also moved to North Texas. This whole trip was about seeing things and people again, and perhaps for the last time, and it's the first time in a while I've felt the sort of full sadness that has always been a part of my military brat upbringing.

When I was a kid, moving was fairly traumatic in the short term. I'd have to say good-byes to friends, and we'd pack up in the car and drive away, and sometimes I'd be sobbing in the back seat as we left behind what had been home for a year, two years, three years. The last move I did with my parents was after my freshman year of college, when they moved from Alabama to Virginia for my dad's assignment at the Pentagon. (This was probably the only move where I never felt sad about leaving, too.)

My sister attended high school here in Virginia for three years, and I came back here for my summers during college and all the holidays and breaks. I worked at the steak house down the street, blew Christmas money on shoes at the Potomac Mills mall, rode Topper at the barn where he lived before moving to Texas. After I graduated from TCU, I stayed in Fort Worth for the summer before grad school, and that summer my parents moved from Virginia to Tampa. I never got to say good-bye to everything I knew in Virginia, which made me sad, but it was OK; my sister and my horse were in Texas. I saw my parents twice in Tampa, one for each Christmas they were there, and then my dad was offered another job in the D.C. area, working in the acquisitions office for the Secretary of the Air Force.

I was excited when my parents moved back to Nova, which they did shortly after I moved back to Fort Worth from Boston, after grad school. Now, two years later, my father has retired, and he's accepted a job for a large company north of Dallas, and he and my mother will be moving to North Texas, a place they've never lived before. Coming here was my last chance to go to the grocery store we used for years, drive through the woods and hills, eat whole steamed Maryland blue crab in a giant mess of shell fragments and butter stains and orange goo from the guts.

The retirement marked the first time we saw a lot of military family friends in many years, too. The primary core of my dad's helicopter group was formed at Woodbridge Royal Air Force Base, in England, where I lived when I was young. My dad was one of about 18 pilots or so under a commander who was one of the pioneers of the 53 helicopter during the Vietnam war, and most of those pilots formed a tight, close bond that survived because it was such a small group and there were so few places these men could be stationed that you'd run into them again on other assignments down the road. I'm the oldest kid of all these pilots; my parents had us when they were fairly young, in their mid- and late-20s, and so these people have known me the longest of anybody besides family.

My dad's extended family also came for the retirement too, which made for this strange juxtaposition in my mind. Here was my traditional family, those who were together with my father, and here was this military family that I saw more than the relatives and with whom I often felt closer. These were the people who ate dinner at our house, and whose houses we stayed at when Mom and Dad took a weekend trip, and people who gave us stuffed animals and books for birthdays and Christmases in person, as opposed to the packages from relatives. These are men and women who were like second parents, or extremely close aunts and uncles, and it was a relief to see them again. They were excited to be together again as well, and the event was a mini reunion, more about the group than my father. The helicopter has since been retired, and the Pavelows are no more; the V-22 Osprey is the replacement now (as I wrote about here), and the men are all retiring from their high-ranking desk jobs now. My dad was one of the last.

As great as it was to see them, I know there's no guarantee of seeing them all like this again, just like there's no guarantee I'll ever live here in Virginia again, as much as I'd love to. (It's pretty much guaranteed that as a pair of journalists, Dan and I would never be able to afford it. The high living costs up here is part of the reason why my parents are moving.) My parents got married on the Fourth of July (my dad was able to get a day off from his Air Force training), and so to celebrate their anniversay we (my parents, my sister and I and my dad's parents) went to a baseball game down the street of the minor-league team that holds a giant fireworks display afterward. When they shut off all the lights and started sending off fireworks and playing Tom Petty, I had to keep myself from crying. It was a good last night, but it just filled me with that sadness again.

It's the same way I felt when I was hugging people good-bye on Thursday night, after the ceremony that morning at the Air Force Memorial and the reception outside D.C. and the grill-and-beer party at the house that night. I hugged people in the cul-de-sac where they parked, in the dark, grateful because they couldn't see me tearing up a bit. I'm sort of proud I didn't cry at all this trip, but I came very close, and tomorrow is the plane ride home. I've been known to sob in the stalls of airport bathrooms before.

The Late Pony

In case you didn't know, my father retired from the Air Force (27 and a half years, whew) this week, so I'm at the homestead in Virginia for five days, reveling in food, friends, family, television, and weather that's in the 80s. I'll write another post, maybe tomorrow, explaining all of that, but I just wanted to try to quickly sum up tonight, since I haven't seen a situation this absurd in a while.

My parents saw this artist about a year ago who makes life-sized pony statues out of horse shoes, welding them together, marvelous stuff. They really wanted one and saw retirement coming, and a house with a yard someplace, so they had the artist make one for them and paid it off over the year, so it could be delivered this summer before they move. Now we know the statue will end up in Texas, but the big problem was getting it delivered here.

The artist arranged to have a private shipping company--a guy and his 18-wheeler--pick it up from Florida, the artist's home base, and have it dropped here in Virginia, just south of D.C. Projected delivery was last weekend, the last weekend in June, and it never came . . . the delivery guy's voicemail was full and he never picked up the phone . . . it never showed . . . my mom was so excited and so anxious . . . it was tense. She was convinced the delivery guys had stolen it, like everyone wants a giant metal horse.

Yesterday we got a call that it would be delivered around two this afternoon, this afternoon being Friday, July 3. Then around 11 a.m. we get a call saying, no, wait, probably around five. Around seven we get a call saying, "Can we deliver it at 1 a.m.?" Of course my parents say yes, since they just want the damn thing over with, and so the guy said he'd call when he's an hour away.

I guess I should explain my parents and their normal schedule. They're usually in bed (and asleep) by 9:30 p.m. and up by 4:30 a.m. Midnight came, and we expected a call any minute, and then around 12:20 a.m. there was a call from the delivery guy saying he was in Richmond, which is about 90 miles south of us. We sit, we wait, my mom and I watch TV shows and keep ourselves up, my dad snoozes with the cat. I'm ticked as hell, because I just can't understand who the hell delivers something at 1 a.m., much less any later than that. What kind of fucking business is this? This is not a crate of Uzis and Columbia's finest.

Finally 3 a.m. rolls around--it should have been plenty of time for the guy to drive from Richmond--and my mother calls them to say, You know what, leave it in the front lawn, we're going to bed. He says, But we're exiting the highway now.

So we wait, the delivery guy arrives with his giant rumbling truck in our cul-de-sac, and my dad and mom and I go out to meet them. (A side note: This may be the only time my sister has ever gone to bed before the three of us.) They're super nice, never give an explanation, but unload the thing, unwrap it in our garage, and we give them some sandwiches and sodas and tell them to have a good night.

It's not much of a story, I'll admit, it's just so freaking strange. A horse statue dropped at our house in the middle of the night, a mere hour or so before my parents (and other working people in this area) get up? It's a Friday night/Saturday wee morning, so it's not like we have anything to do, but seriously? Like I said, I don't know what kind of business that is.

Now I'm freaking exhausted, since it's going on 3 a.m. Central time (10 more minutes and it's 4 a.m. here), and that's pretty late for me. I'm a grown-up now, I guess, and I like to be asleep by about 2 a.m. on weekends. Geez.

At least the statue is pretty cute.