Why does life throw curveballs?

So life is going strong for me. I am in a great relationship with a beautiful woman, have just gotten a promotion, and am settled well in an apartment that I am renting. Then it happened, life in its finite wisdom threw me a curve ball.

I am expected to rotated from my current assignment in 12 months. "So what?", you say.


Big things.

The biggest question is where do I want to go to for my next assignment? Just looking at what is available is not good if I needed to rotate from here in the next 90days. It is all USS Neverdock scattered either here, San Dog, or Norfolk. On top of that if I want to stay in the community the only place to head off to is Japan and forward deployed. I am due to head to shore duty because I have done two sea duty tours with a short 9 month school in between them. Just looking at shore duty all I see locally is Always In Meetings Department. Which I am not really motivated to head to either. Been there, done that one, and got rid of the nervous tick.

What do I want to do? I want to head to either the school house and teach or head to the training squadron. If I do the school house then it is Monday thru Friday and a chance to get home by 1700. If I do the training squadron, I will still go to sea. Yet that will only be for two weeks then I am home. There are disadvantages to these choices.

My other choice is if I need to head back out to sea I would love to do a pacific deploying squadron and see some of the sights, sounds, tastes on that side of the world.

The other question is will the romantic interest react to me being forced to move if I can't stay in the area? I mean I am getting all back into the dating thing and really enjoy being with her. Yet, if it falls apart because I move away, then what? Do I become a hermit again and retreat to my job again or do I man up and try to date at my new duty assignment? Or will she stick by me and we just try to do the long distance thing?

I really liked Japan last summer I was there, but do I want to spend the next 3-4 years there?

I am so full of deep thought philosophical questions that unfortunantly only I can answer. I can try and talk to people about this, but still it is my decision. I am totally confused and unsure of what I should do.