PCS Season
I know it’s not technically PCS season since the winter cycle is usually much smaller than the summer one, but it does feel like open season for my stress levels. So, I want to focus on this process a bit to help myself and hopefully anyone else going through it. I’ve talked a little about buying a house in Georgia and selling our Oklahoma house. But there is so much more to the process. It’s never as simple as going from one place to another.
There is a lot that our spouses handle during this process. I honestly don’t know everything they have to manage to schedule TMO and get everything approved and signed on the correct timeline, along with the whole slew of out-processing tasks. My husband and I work together to make sure that things are scheduled to fit both of our needs, but in his day-to-day tasks and sending emails, I really don’t know it all.
I do know how much “hurry up and wait” plays a role in this process. From the time we put in our requests for stations to when we actually show up at the new assignment, there is a lot of bureaucracy involved. Step B can’t be started until Step A is completed, even if the two things have almost nothing to do with one another. Then we find out that Step A actually can’t be done until someone signs the form for Step Y. We have to wait for a callback from this office about that thing, which can take up to two weeks to hear about. And, at least with this PCS, there is a lot of excitement surrounding it, so the time between hearing and doing feels like it’s dragging out even more.
Even though I’ve gone through one PCS season before, and I mostly did that alone while my husband was at SERE, this one feels totally different. For one thing, we are leaving an area we’ve lived in for four years and a house we’ve lived in for three years. We definitely have more stuff this time around. And it feels like we are saying goodbye to more. No matter how excited we are for this move, this one feels more like closing a chapter than the last one did, at least for me.
We have 34 days until we hit the road to Georgia. My husband is allowed three days to travel, and we plan to take advantage of all three. It’s only a 13-hour drive to our new house, but my son is definitely more of a flying baby than a road trip baby. So we are breaking it up for both his sanity and ours. We’ll stop in Little Rock one night. Then, Nashville the next. We have friends that just moved there, so that is the stop I am most excited about. We’ll get to our new house on the 3rd and have our household goods delivered (hopefully, everything goes according to the schedule) on the 4th.
As much as I want that trip to begin, we have to deal with what is right in front of us. The packers come in 12 days, and we will be out of town for four of those days. So I have eight days to take photos of everything we own, inventory the house, and plan/pack everything we need in the in-between. I’m not doing this alone this time, which is so much better (although I wasn’t alone last time either because my mom came down), but we have a one-year-old, which makes everything a little bit trickier.
We will have three days in our house without our stuff. Then, we will have a lovely and much-needed vacation to Punta Cana for a week. We’ll follow that up with eight days of nowhere to live and very little stuff to bring (although with a one-year-old, there’s never a small amount of things). Thankfully, we have developed some very close friendships out here and have some people who will house us during that time. Otherwise, we would be stuck in a hotel room. It’s only three days in the house without anything, but I wonder how people get by without a fridge, even for just a few days, because constantly filling a cooler sounds exhausting.
I think every PCS is going to feel new in some way. This is the first one where we say goodbye to an important place. But next time, it’ll be the first time we are helping our son say goodbye. Next time, we may be downsizing. Next time, we may have just a few weeks’ notice. Next time, we may be heading overseas. Next time, I could be pregnant or have a newborn. My stress level would look very different if, on top of all of it, I wasn’t getting a good night’s sleep. We’ll be in a different stage of life every time, so even if you consider yourself to be a seasoned spouse, give yourself a break. It’s all still very new, even if, on the surface, it looks like the same thing you did just a few months or years ago.
On Friday, I just want to share a PCS prep checklist with everyone so that when your time comes, you are prepared. Whether we are seasoned pros or newbies, it’s always better to have a checklist on hand to ensure we don’t forget anything. I will combine many resources to make the list as inclusive and extensive as possible. It’ll primarily be from a military move perspective rather than at PPM or DITY since that is what I am most familiar with, but I’ll probably make a list for both at some point. And I especially want to focus on the pieces that we, as spouses, have control of and will likely be in charge of. So, please send all of your PCS prep advice my way so that we can all be in the best position possible. I’m looking for your best advice on:
1. What do we do six months out from a move?
2. What do we do three months out from a move?
3. What do we do one month out from a move?
4. What do we do the week of the move?
5. What stuff do we keep with us during a move?
6. What are "must-haves" depending on how long we will be without our household goods?
7. What do we do when the packers and movers are in our house?
8. What information do we need to have prepared?
9. How do we stay sane through the chaos? (Please help with this one because I am
starting to stress!)