Dodging 2024's Punches

2024 showed up with her boxing gloves on and fists a-swingin'!

It's been a rough start to the new year and it's taken me this long to really wrap my brain around all that's happened so far.  

January was a blur of horrifically cold weather, disappointment, and heartbreak.  

The new year started with weeks of sub-zero temperatures that made RV life un-survivable, forcing us to take Journey and Carley and flee to hotels and Airbnb's and back to a hotel again.  The freezing temperatures were one thing, but heavy snow and severe blizzards on top of it forced us to cancel Eric's promotion party - a party I had spent months planning for.  The anticipation and excitement at having Eric's parent's pin on his new rank was a once-in-his-decades-long-career-moment that he can never get back (not to mention the countless missed opportunities to catch up with our friends, family, and people we love most).  Because of the complexities of Army life, we don't know if we'll ever get that chance again.  And the thought of all the memories that could have happened but we lost out on, is heartbreaking.  

We eventually made it back into our RV to find that the extreme temperatures had caused severe damage to what we learned was a poorly made rig (we bought ours brand new, never off the lot in 2021).  We had tough decisions to make and were looking at hefty costs and a potential exorbitant amount of time for repairs.  But 2024's punches were swift and brutal.  We couldn't think too long about our living situation because it was right at that time that we noticed that something was very wrong with our beloved Journey.  

We knew that Journey had a tumor on his back leg, but after a biopsy three months earlier, we were assured that it was a benign fatty growth (our perfect Journey was so fat, his fat had fat!).  But after some terrifying symptoms arose right around Christmas, we took him back to the vet as soon possible - twice - where x-rays and an exam (at the second appointment, after I had to very sternly communicate how scary things were), showed in no uncertain terms, that his tumor was actually an extremely invasive cancer.  

And it had metastasized to his lungs.  

Journey did not have much time left, no one knew how much time exactly, but we got the impression that the sweet veterinarian didn't want to say the word "soon."  Six days from the time we learned of his diagnosis to when we had to let him go was... dizzying.  Six days is a very short amount of time no matter how you measure it, but we had spent most of those six days in total disbelief and our hearts full of hope.  So when Journey was unable to sleep for even a few minutes at a time before beginning to drown in his own fluids, the inevitable happened SO fast.  There are no words for how that felt... and there still aren't.  

We will never ever get over losing him.

Journey BernieSanders Schnell 

March 1, 2014 - January 26, 2024

Eric and I both lost family members this year too, adding even more heartbreak onto already severely broken hearts.  

And 2024 still wasn't done throwing her punches.

My husband and I spent the entire last half of last year apart - him in Korea, me in Kansas - in anticipation of him coming back for five months and me following him back to Korea at the end of the school year (no one has ever said that Army life makes sense). Eric and I are no strangers to life's changes, we have become very good at adapting, but when the Army decided that I wasn't going to be able to move to Korea, we had to pivot so majorly (in the midst of all that we were already going through) that we still haven't settled into all of the changes that came with that decision yet.  

Within weeks of Journey's passing, Eric lost a family member, the Army made their decision, we ended our RV adventures, moved me into an apartment, renewed my contract at my school, Eric graduated from his course, then he left for Korea (without me), then I lost a family member.  

MAJ Schnell is ILE complete!

Eric left two hours after this picture was taken.  Our smiles were super fake, our hearts were breaking.

To say that life was hard on us the last few months and that our hearts are broken... would be an understatement.  

Even though we have a lot of experience adapting to life's curves, that doesn't make all curves or changes (however you want to word it) easy to adapt to.  Sometimes... life hurts.   

We WILL make the most of the situation we are in... we always do... but right now, we're in the suck of it.  We miss each other unbearably.  We needed time to decompress and be sad and settle our souls from so many different things that happened all at the same time.  

But anywho... that's the gist of how 2024 has panned out for us so far.  If you're on my Christmas card list (and y'all know how much I love Christmas cards), our address will stay the same this year.  Next year will be a different story as it is a PCS year for us, and PCS's always come with a whole lot of change.  We don't know where to yet, but let's just sweetly let whatever is in store for us sit out there until it's time to face it... I need 2025 to be sweet back and I'm not trying to piss off the Universe a year too soon by complaining about something that doesn't exist yet.

So yeah, that's the gist of everything so far.  I'll be back at the end of the summer with a better, more joyful blog post.  I'm begging 2024 to put her gloves down for at least that long.

*With the state of the world being what it is, some of the sentences that I have written, in re-reading them, have made me pause on posting this.  While our experiences these last few months are real and have been very difficult, I know, and I want you all to know, that the problems I face, the things I write about, are first world things and cannot EVER compare to the horrific suffering in the Gaza-Israel Conflict.  Here are ways to help: https://www.un.org/en/situation-in-occupied-palestine-and-israel/donate and/or https://www.icrc.org/en