One of the hardest things I have had to deal with in regards to moving from Kansas to Georgia is leaving my friends, my family and the known, again.  Georgia is great.  Being with my husband and dogs in our own little house is great.  But not having friends to call up last minute and go get drinks with or my parents around to help with the dogs if Rob and I want to take a day trip.. among so many other reasons... is hard.

When I moved from Kansas to Maryland to join Rob.. I was fortunate enough to kind of walk into a great group of friends.  We had our differences.  Many of us didn't have children.  Almost everyone was under the age of 30.  Rob had already been in Maryland for over a year, so he knew many of the husbands already which made it that much easier for the wives to naturally get along.  I had that support needed.  In fact I was at a company FRG meeting when I found out one of my grandpa's had passed away.  If you've never seen a group of Army wives come together when someone has an emergency, then you haven't been around the military long enough.

So maybe I had my expectations set really high about moving here.  I thought, it can't be THAT different.  Oh yes Amanda, it can.  I've kind of touched on this before.. but Fort Gordon is a rather large base (bigger than Meade at least) that consists of a lot of AIT students and a lot of higher enlisted/officers.  Which poses a problem because you can't all intermingle.  So I can be friends with the AIT students wife, but our husbands can never hang out.  I can be friends with the officers wife, but our husbands can never hang out.  Makes it kind of hard to do normal married couple with friends things.

The other issue that I've noticed in regards to this is age.  I'm 22.  Rob is 22.  He enlisted straight out of high school and has 4 years under his belt.  At one point he was one of the youngest if not the youngest person at his rank in the entire Army.  So when you look at other 22 year olds... they are either fresh into the military as a student or at a lower rank.  Or they have kids.  Not that I hold anything against those women for starting a family young... it's just not me, yet.

Where do I fit in then?  A married 22 year old with 2 dogs, no kids and a husband on the fast track to making his military career above standard.  I want to build that support I have in Kansas.  The support I had in Maryland.  But I'm just not finding it here at Ft. Gordon yet and we've been here since July.  I've tried clubs on post and Facebook pages associated with post.  I have gone to lunch with a few different girls.  Out of all of my effort I have one person from post that I can go to lunch with and talk to.  But she won't be here forever as her husband is done with AIT soon.  Then what am I to do?

I'm just at a loss.  I made friends easily in high school.  Then made friends easily at the community college I went to.  When I left Kansas I made friends easily at Ft. Meade.  Heck I even made friends when I lived in Kansas while Rob was deployed... but now here I am six months into this adventure at Fort Gordon and I am not making friends like I have in the past.

I guess it is just something you learn to deal with.  I can't obviously change the fact that I am young and my husband is a superstar (not that I would want to!)... hopefully shortly after the new year I will land a job to preoccupy my mind.. so I don't spend days like today thinking about all that I wish I had here in Georgia.

Regardless of who I can consider a friend though.. I am thankful to have my husband.  I can call him my best friend and mean it.  He knew that so far this twelfth day of the twelfth month of this twelfth year of this century (tongue twister much? Had to incorporate it!) was not going quite how I hoped and he swooped in and took me out to lunch.  I am blessed and I know it.

But being young and not having a huge Georgia support group is really weighing on me.


P.S. I'm sending a special shout out to the one cousin I have here in Augusta.  She's great and I am thankful she is here.  When our schedules work out the same way we can go shopping, get food and just hang out.  I know many military individuals don't get this luxury so I'm soaking it up while I can and trying not to think about the fact she won't be here forever.  (Wait, neither will I!)