A New Beginning

Chris invited me to the spring 2025 US Navy and Marine Commissioning ceremony at Texas A&M University last week. Of course I tossed on an old fit and flare navy blue Banana Republic dress and low red wedges.

On campus, black graduation gowns tangled around the ankles of all the nicely dressed students flowing in the direction of Reed Arena for the commencement ceremonies. Chris would be joining them for the all-branch commissioning at one of the afternoon ceremonies later in the day. Parents and grandparents and fiances and spouses and friends and little siblings—generations orbited around their graduate as they moved together in one direction.

The sun was warm and bright, the breeze unusually cool for May in Texas. Excitement and hope flowed like a current, swirling in eddies around the families, rushing in and out of the treetops and whooshing through the buildings.

I graduated 20 years ago this week. I spent the summer reporting for the local newspaper before moving to Corpus Christi to be a full time reporter. I was back here a year later, engaged to Chris, planning our wedding, packing up my apartment and getting ready to move to Pensacola for the first time.

He stood here in his whites to take the oath to defend the constitution and all that, vows that seem harder and more critically important now than ever, vows that directed our lives more than probably anything else.

Being back abruptly after 20 years gone is like having a conversation with myself in the past. I felt the same way when we returned to Japan 11 years later—pre kids me starkly contrasted with current me. Now it’s college me—unmarried, career-focused me contrasted with world-traveled, more introverted, unemployed me.

Chris has a very clear focus in his job that it is all about the students, especially the commissioning ceremony. They are taking this oath, they are starting on this path. Many of them had their rank pinned on by fiances; many will proceed to flight school in Pensacola, many are going straight to the fleet all over the world. This is their beginning of all that comes after graduation.

Sometimes moving back to College Station feels like The End. I guess I live here now? Buying our lovely home sight unseen and arriving here and dropping the kids immediately into school mid-semester was one of the most abrupt moves we’ve had. We almost always pass through Texas from one tour to the next, and this time we got to just stay! Yay! And also it felt weird. I have moments of panic. Is this…it?

When talking with people who have lived here for decades I feel like a bit of a weirdo—almost anything about our past sounds so normal to military friends or expats and sounds completely bizarre to many Texans. Easily solved by not talking about myself, no problem, but I struggle not to get quieter and quieter, to disappear altogether. To keep asking questions without grilling the other person while they’re trying to eat. Ha ha. Hmm.

Being back in Texas feels like a huge, deep breath—my brain feels so relaxed not having to translate all the time—time zones calculations, yen to dollars, liters to gallons, kilometers to miles, Japanese to English, French to English, Dutch to English, kanji to thoughts. My brain was so tired.

Everything here is so much simpler. I continue to wax poetic about Texas grocery stores, which truly must be a wonder of the world.

But…is this…it? It’s so hard to get involved mid-year. Is the adventure…over?

“I love Texas,” said Eloise the other day. “It’s so full of adventure!”

“Texas is full of adventure?” I asked. “Tell me more about that.”

“There’s so much to do, and it’s so close to cousins and grandparents, and I love our house and my school.”

So the adventure seems to not be over. Dare I say, although our time in the military is wrapping up, we find ourselves in College Station yet again to seek out a new beginning.