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When You PCS, What Did You Leave Behind?

These past few months I’ve been investing quite a bit in a local non-profit I work for.

Lots of time. Lots of effort. Lots of printer ink and paper.

I am so proud of how large and successful we have become and how many families we have helped affect.

I feel we make an important the difference.

But then, I lay in bed, tired after teaching a community class or working a table at a community event, and I realize that all this work and growth and sacrifice I’ve made won’t matter in just two years.

Because, we will move. The Navy will have another life and base and community for us, and this small town and non-profit will be another piece of my past.

And that’s it.

A proud piece of it, maybe. 

But I won’t see what happens to this organization. I won’t see if it will keep going, grow more, fall or fly.  I won’t see if anyone remembers me. If they miss me. If they miss my impact.

In fact, because we live in such a military town, I’m not sure the current families we work with will even be here to remember my presence in the non-profit either.

While there is something to be said about the benefits of not putting down permanent roots in a town I have no particular attachment to, it is sad that I don’t get to see the mark I made in years to come.

And, it’s interesting. Long-standing institutions here – churches, recreation centers, city council – have high turnover. Non-profits are led by and serve entirely new populations from one year to the next.

It’s hard not to get discouraged and wonder why I’m up two hours too late in the evening working on non-profit tax paperwork, exhausted, when I’m not sure I’ll even make a long-term difference.

And yet, I keep going. Two-and-a-half years into it, I’m still going.

Why?

Because no matter what, I care. I care about this community, temporary home though it may be. I care about my neighbors and fellow mothers and babies and kids. I care that others reach their goals, and I care that this non-profit remain financially solvent, despite being totally run on donations.

My husband’s job in the Navy will always keep us moving, but that doesn’t mean I stop having interests or beliefs. And the extroverted helper inside of me always wants to come out.

So I keep going.

After all, just because I’m a Navy wife, doesn’t mean I don’t care.

 

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