Moving On, Without the Baggage of Regret
By Rebecca Noah Poynter
Special to The Washington Post
Monday November 12, 2007
 In the last few hours before our departure from Dallas to our new military assignment at Fort Meade, my husband and I visited my grandmother.
I thought it would be a tearful goodbye, but my 92-year-old grandmother struck a lighter note, challenging my Army husband with a question: How many times have you moved?
Listing the names of all the places they'd lived on paper, they tallied their moves.
My grandmother easily trumped him with 16 moves to his eight.
Instead of tears, there were smiles, and we parted with her words, "Be good to each other."
She had thoroughly outflanked us both.
The wife of a West Texas oil-field supply salesman, my grandmother Ruth Noah lived in boomtowns with names like Ranger, Sweetwater nd Monahans during the first half of the past century. In the years her husband was on the road, she never owned a house, she worked full time and she managed daily life with three sons on a modest budget. As a matter of personal pride, she always dressed well and wore great-looking shoes.
In those days, their household goods were moved by train, she said, recounting one relocation when all of their possessions were loaded into two train cars. One arrived at their destination and was unloaded; the other passed on through, its contents never recovered.
This anecdote was a window into the life I was now beginning, a nomadic existence, much like my grandmother's, that is a condition of my marriage. The military life I chose is also one of constant moves and of waiting on new platforms, watching to see what arrives and what passes on through.
As an Army spouse, I know the modern versions of my grandmother's story. Military life means broken china, scratched furniture and missing boxes. Sometimes the losses are greater and more personal: a child's self- esteem misplaced during a deployment, or a marriage's intimacy that never makes it to the next station.
After a recent move, I was spending my time tearfully counting my losses: a well-paying job, nearby family and a house we owned and really loved.
My husband offered me these words in a letter: "I know the Army lifestyle has not been what you imagined or hoped for, but I will do everything I can to make it as good as I can."
I recalled my grandmother's "Be good to each other" and realized I could no longer blame my husband for what had been left behind. Ours is the life I, too, willingly chose.
In military life, the truth is we never know exactly what pieces of our identity will or will not arrive at the next station. With each move or deployment, we stand on the platform, hoping all the good things will arrive intact but knowing some are gone forever.
If important pieces of our lives are left behind, we replace them with new ones: new friends, a new job, new experiences. I learned that by having my own career or dream or interest, I no longer mourn the contents of that missing boxcar. On my last move, I didn't try to replace my job with a similar one but began my own business. This time, I could hand-carry my career to our next location, and the next.
My grandmother's advice on this effort is pure West Texas: "Well, pin your ears back and go on."
One day, I hope to count off the places I have lived as matter-of-factly as she does, the lost contents of the second train car long forgotten.
Rebecca Noah Poynter is a co-founder of the Military Spouse Business Association, a nonprofit networking organization
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