Orders..im already gone

Picture this: You have been at a base for 4 years. You having been waiting for orders. You get them finally. You are so excited to be moving, something you have wanted for 3 1/2 years :) That first week you spend researching your new location on line. Looking at housing, looking at the area, contacting people there..already making new friends. But what about your old ones? Its like you have already PCSed..your already gone. You leave in 6 months you dont need to make new ones. Your leaving. You are wanting to make new friends at your new location. Then with the friends you already have, you bcome distant already. Sometimes with those who you werent the closest too you become extreamly distant. We all do this. Come on.. I have done this I know that. I am doing it now already, and I deffinittly see friends who have orders doing it as well. It hasnt even been a week and they have already exiled any friend who isnt moving as well. Why do we do this?? Why is it that the second we hear that we are moving we stop living our normal life? We stop participating in events and seeing friends. I dont get it. When I sit down and I try to explain this I cant... It doesnt make sense to me. This is the time I want to be hanging out with my friends MORE! This is the time im the most stressed because of the move and I need my girls to vent to lean on. So why dont we do just that?? I see it everywhere on military bases. People are gone before they are gone. You dont actually think you do it until it happens to you, your friends get orders, all of them, and its like they left yesterday. Thats happening now. So I sit back and I look at my life, at how Im acting and treating my friends who will not be moving. Sure enough Im doing it to them. I can only imagine how hurt they are. I know I am when it happens to me. Its sad. Its not fun. These are your friends. The ones that have been here with you dealing with all the ups and downs, deployments, tdys everything, with you. So why is it so easy for you to drop them at the sound of ORDERS??

Now that I have sat back and realized that I do this as well to others I immediately have a change of heart on how I want to spend my last 8 months here. I dont want to exile myself from my friends. The ones I spent countless hours with watching boring softball in the 100 degree weather with, football in the 5 degree weather with, and countless hours of basketball games. Im gonna miss these friends when Im far away and no no one. When all I want to do is be out to lunch with my girls but instead im in my house alone. Then on top of that you left these friends long before you PCSed so do you think they are eager to jump at the sight of your email complaining about something at your next base, your new location...I know I wouldnt be... I dont wanna be that friend.

With the military you make lifetime friends. So make sure that you dont do this. Because you will leave every base with no one... and then what was the point of all of it?? Sit back and look at the way you act when you get those orders. Because you are gonna need those girls to vent too before you even leave and they wont be there for you if you left them to dry the first month you got orders.

Just a thought.