Drawing near departure time

 
Quite a bit of today’s post is devoted to matters in the military side of my life, so I’m putting it in a cut.

( Coming Events )

The preceding does have an effect on other things in my life. Susan and I have finished the pre-marriage counseling sessions we were having with a church-sponsored counselor; in fact, we stretched it out into half a dozen visits, instead of the one required. There are other requirements, however, and there may be some small problem in meeting them. Catholic practice is to require a minimum of five months between the church being notified and a wedding taking place, with certain preparations mandated to ensure a proprely functioning marriage. I leave in two weeks, I won’t return until October, and my unit is expected to be back on orders in January. We’ll need to meet some of the requirements by e-mail, and manage others in the three-month interim, and I don’t yet know what can be done or how we’ll need to do it.

I don’t want to go back into a combat theater without Susan as my wife of record. We were apart for ten years, and now that we no longer are, I want it properly settled before I proceed. No foreboding, no presentiments of dire events to come; I just want things to be right.

I’ll be going back tomorrow to stay with her for a few days, then I’ll have to return to my current ‘home’ to finish preparations for the coming duty. Not long now.