After Justin and I got married in late October, he had one more month of tech school left. That month felt like it dragged on forever! When he finally graduated and got to come home for Thanksgiving and start his leave in route, we tried to spend as much "alone time" together as possible all while trying to squeeze in family and friend time before having to move to Okinawa. Justin was home for three weeks before he had to leave for Kadena (the base in Oki). Justin left the first week of December and I had to stay behind until I got my passport. (That's a long story that makes the US Postal Service and the Air Force sound like the bad guys...which they were. But I wont get into all of that now). Since I didn't get to leave with Justin, we spent another two weeks apart...this time over our first Christmas as husband and wife. Since the day we got married in October, we had spent all of 19 days together. What a way to start a marriage, huh? But that's just how it goes when you're married to an Airman. Anyway, I called the post office everyday from the time Justin left to see if they had gotten any registered mail. I'm sure they were getting really sick of my 7:00 a.m. calls every morning. After many early morning phone calls and getting to the postal workers nerves daily, I finally called one rainy morning and asked the question that I was sure I already knew the answer to. And much to my surprise, their answer wasn't the dreaded "no" that I had heard over and over! As soon as I hung up with them, I got in my car and drove to the post office to pick up this life changing package that I'd been waiting for for so long. I think I was still in my pajamas! After I got it, I went to the guard base and got all of my travel plans squared away and a few days later, I was on a plane headed towards my new life with my new husband. Saying goodbye to my family was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do but I knew "see ya laters" were just a part of being in the military and it was yet another thing that I had to get use to. Not only that, but flying was another big thing that I needed to become familiar with. I had only ever flown once prior to this and it was only from Knoxville to San Antonio which was only about a 10 hour trip, lay overs and everything. But this was FAR from 10 hours. I flew from Knoxville to Chicago. Chicago to Seattle (where I had to spend the night in the USO) Seattle to Tokyo and then finally to Okinawa from there. All around, it was about 26 hours trip. It was so tiring. Here I was, a 19 year old newlywed, leaving my family for the first time to move to the other side of the world to be with my new husband. The entire time, I sat there second guessing my decision and wondering if this was really what I was supposed to do or if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. But the majority of those thoughts and emotions were a product of sleep deprivation and PMS. Once we began our final descent into Tokyo, I looked out of the window at a new land that I'd never before seen and it all of a sudden hit me. "Holy crap! I'm in Japan. I'm actually IN Japan!!" The little dude sitting next to me was a Marine fresh out of Tech School and was also headed to Oki for his first assignment. I kept saying over and over "Oh my gosh! We're in Japan!" Then my little Marine friend looked over at me and said, "Are you on the right flight?" It was just so weird finally being in Japan after so much talk and anticipation of it all! It was a really strange, but exciting feeling that I can't explain. On the final leg of what I thought was a never ending journey, I boarded the plane in Tokyo to Okinawa and the giddy little girl inside of me came out. I was getting so excited to see Justin that I couldn't help but smile the whole way. People around me must have thought I was an idiot. I had been traveling for over 23 hours so as you can imagine, I looked (and smelled) pretty rough. But I went to the lavatory anyway and tried to make my terrible self look presentable. I brushed my hair and teeth and reapplied my mascara that I had cried off since I left Knoxville. And then it happened. We had finally made it to Okinawa around 10:00 p.m. Japan time. As I sat on the plane anxiously waiting for them to let us off, butterflies filled my empty, nervous stomach. I got my two 50 pound, over packed suitcases, sifted through the mass amounts of people, and finally spotted my Airman! He hugged and kissed me, and everything felt right in the world again. All the emotions, all of the airports and planes and weird people, all the bad airplane food...it was all worth it. I was so happy to see him and to finally start our lives together and begin this new journey. We went back to the hotel (we didn't have a house yet) and I slept for what felt like days. Jet lag sucks by the way...
And that's the story about leaving my normal life and beginning a new life, in a new land. with my new husband. I don't really have pictures for this post. But my next post will be all things Okinawa so they'll be plenty of pictures!
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