Definitely maybes; or, Dang, I'm forty seven?

So I just turned forty-seven years old this week.

Crazy how time just creeps up on you, and next thing you know, you are looking towards 50. Seriously, how did it go by so fast?

And sometimes I try to remember something significant from every single year of my life---and the scary fact is, sometimes I can't come up with anything. Does this just happen to me?

I am blessed with an amazing memory and I have vivid memories from very, very early in my life. My sister and cousins always marvel at what I can remember from when I was a toddler. I can describe my grandparents' house in Crystal Springs that they moved from when I was three. I probably only visited it a handful of times, but I have specific memories. (And there are no pictures from the interior, so it's all from somewhere in my brain).

I know the perfume my preschool teacher wore (Yves San Laurent's Vie Gauche). I remember the first time I saw a cow (and someone---maybe my Granny---was holding me). I remember snippets of my early years in Mississippi---how my first grade classroom smelled (like that sawdust stuff they put on vomit) and the series of boxes Mrs. Fortenberry kept which held objects for every letter of the alphabet. N was for Nest, and there were tiny robin's eggs in the nest. Were they real? I don't know.

I remember my kid's first words (G---"daddy", H---"brother"), but I don't remember when they sat up or started walking. I wasn't great at keeping records, either, so hopefully it's not a developmental thing they'll ever be asked again. I remember lots of lots of faces, but I don't remember the names of several former students. I've taught well over a thousand kids, after all. But if one friends me on facebook, I can tell you at least 2-3 things about them---what sort of music they liked, if they liked poetry, if they were artists, if they were kind to the kids most kids aren't kind to, or if they were awkward looking but I knew they would end up being beautiful and handsome and all their former classmates would wish they had paid them more attention in high school (all teachers can tell you which kids have "peaked" in h school and which ones are going to blossom when they become young adults).

So why can't I remember where I put my purse or my keys? Or remember to pick things up at the grocery store, even when I have a list in front of me? I guess the mundane goes into another part of my memory, and it's something I struggle with every day.

I do remember this: the fear, apprehension, and excitement of moving here alone. I'll never forget seeing the runway and thinking, "this place looks like a desert." Or the absolutely ugly, hideous, rusted out and termite eaten buildings you pass right when you leave Ferry landing and start your way up Sherman to the housing area. It's really not a great way to start life on base; the ugliest and most worn-down part of the base is also the very first impression you get when you arrive. I remember the shock of finding out the prisoners were only a few miles from my house---I thought they'd be on a remote area of the base. I looked at the barren yard and thought, I can do something with this.  And in the 11 days between the time I arrived and my children got here,  I worried about what I had done to them. Is this the best place for them? My oldest gave up a lot of opportunities and experiences of living in a metropolitan area and attending a 5A school. I still have some guilt over that, even though I think some of the good---and bad---of living here has prepared him for the real world.

my first week in GTMO---this view still makes me pause and love life here

To put it bluntly, disappointment is something you deal with when you live here. This is especially true if you are coming from the civilian world and have not had to deal with the maddening life of bureaucratic hell. You go through 10 levels to get one answer, and there is a chain of command that has to be followed. People get back to you when it's convenient to them, not when you necessarily need an answer. It's taught me patience (and how to bite my tongue). Isolation is something else you deal with here. Sometimes this is a good thing; I love the safety as a female of being able to run alone at night, or for my child to be able to wander around the neighborhood with the relative safety I had as a kid growing up in small town Mississippi in the 1970s. But when you have a hurricane headed your way and can't evacuate, that isolation is terrifying. As a teacher, you deal with very small classes. I've had classes as small as four students. This is wonderful because all kids learn at his or her own pace, and you can truly individualize instruction. It's also horrible when half the kids don't do their homework and you are stuck in limbo, deciding if you want to drive on and leave half the class behind, or punish those who did their work by letting the slackers catch up. This is one of my biggest disappointments as a teacher---you can't instill a sense of responsibility in students, no matter if they know they are holding the rest of the class back. It's frustrating and selfish on their part, but it's also part of working with teens.

But then. . . isn't this life every where? Maybe your disappointments and frustrations are different, but at 47, if you haven't really encountered any of them, you just aren't living life.

Forty seven is my year of definite-maybes. I may be able to transfer. I may find ways to let the bureaucracy not drive me crazy. I may find more things and people to love here. I definitely will miss my oldest as he goes to college, and maybe (hopefully definitely) he will thrive. I am looking at the possibility of six years here, something I definitely never dreamt possible, but I am maybe looking at new adventures and a new location starting next summer.