When You Think You Have It Bad.

Monday a classmate and I were talking in class, going over what our other classes were like compared to the one that we were in. A little backstory on this guy. I felt like I knew him or had at least seen him around the base a few times. I couldn't place him, so in my general nice self {I am nice, sometimes} I would say 'hey' to him in passing. Well, after a few class meetings, he mentioned something about his wife and the unit she was in and I literally said, "Shit! You played softball this past spring with my husband!" I had seen this guy for months. And let's say he stood out on the softball team because he was the only guy there with groomed facial hair and all the other guys hated on him for that reason. He laughed and said, "Yeah, I was wondering why you said 'hey' to me." Ha ha.  Fast forward to us talking about classes and he's telling me about a class he has to write a paper for every week. I start telling him how my english class is actually a political science class in disguise and all we talk about is the Constitution.

He remarks to me, "Man, sometimes when you think you have it bad you hear something that someone else is going through and it doesn't seem so bad," in reference to my awesome english/poli sci class.

This leads to something I talked about on Twitter.

I hate my microbiology class. The only way to take the class is online. There's no face-to-face lecture {which I really prefer with science classes!} and he's so broad on the material, you really don't know WHAT to study. I kid not when I say that my syllabus states, "Read chapters 1-6; test on September 16th." That was it. I get that this is a higher level class, but the man could have given us an outline or SOME perimeters for what type of information he was wanting us to retain about this subject. Let's just say it's going to be a long 16 weeks with many, many hours spent reading and basically copying everything into notes. Fuck. Also one of the main reasons I've been so MIA.

And then I realized that it was Friday ... {please excuse my obviously double 'today' - I blame cold meds!}

And I realized that my neighbor was flying back to awesome, shitastic Lousyana today after saying goodbye to her kids. She took this past week off from work to take her kids "home" for the duration of her upcoming deployment. I remembered last week when I was saying goodbye to them, her eldest remarked about not wanting to leave and hugged me extra tight. As a mom, it broke my heart. As a mom, I cannot even begin to fathom the emotions that she's feeling. Having to saying goodbye to her kids and missing out on their lives for an entire year. It is something that I honestly don't think I could ever do. I hate dropping my son off each day to go to class, but there is a reassurance in watching the clock tick away and knowing that I'm about to go get him and watch his face light up at the sight of me. My heart might get through that emotional pain of saying goodbye for a year, but let me tell you - there would be a scar on it forever from the ache that I know I would feel down in my soul.

It really amazes me that we didn't speak to these neighbors for the first 11 months that we lived here. Then one day her husband came over and introduced himself. In the last 6-7 months, there has been many conversations shared in our joint yard, beers yakked over and me making comments in reference to his mowing attire. In those few short months, I have realized that I have become emotionally attached to people that I see on a regular basis. I may not know every single detail about them or every major detail in their life for that matter BUT I do know that they are good people who I enjoy seeing and talking to. Good neighbors are hard to come by and I've been really, really fortunate that these last two places we have lived that we've had uh-mazing neighbors {aside from the lawnmower people}.  Both of them deploy in a matter of weeks and someone {hopefully just as awesome as them} moves in.

I guess this brings me back to the point of thinking you got it bad and realizing/finding out that someone is going through something worse which makes you put your struggles/hardships into perspective.