After reading all of these posts yesterday, I began to feel a lot of different emotions. Whether it was other women's pictures of reuniting with their loved ones after a long deployment or reading about their devotion to their spouse while maintaining a long distance relationship, so many emotions came rushing back. And at the same time, I felt a whole new wave of emotions come over me as I sat and evaluated my own experience as a military wife.
I'm just going to flat out say it... I have a bad attitude. When Z first enlisted, I was so excited. I may even have purchased an Army Wife t-shirt and ACU bag but that's a post for another day. But as time went on, I didn't want to be known as an Army wife. I was a wife, and my husband happened to be a soldier. I didn't want special treatment, I didn't want people to feel bad for me, and I didn't want to be known as a dependent. I've always been extremely independent and I started to feel as though people were treating me differently because my husband wore a uniform.
I've been having a hard time adjusting to life here for a few different reasons but one of them has been because his job requires long hours and sometimes weekends. But had he not switched jobs, he would be deployed right now and I tend to forget that. Had he not switched jobs, he would still be rocking his blue infantry cord and facing a front-line deployment wherever we went next. And I am so thankful that's not the case.
As I was reading everyone's posts yesterday, I realized how negatively I've been looking at this lifestyle. I've focused on what I don't have; I don't have family or friends near, I don't have a career, and I don't have my husband as home as much as I would like. But there are so many wonderful things that I do have that I feel as though I'm writing off and forgetting to remember.
I have a loving husband, a man that I chose regardless of his career.
I have two beautiful children; children who have adapted to 3 different states and 3 different houses in the past 2 years.
I have fabulous healthcare and benefits.
I have had the chance to live in upstate New York and now Georgia, two places I probably never would have lived without being told I had to.
I've made friends that I consider family, people from all different walks of life and experience. People I can't imagine my life without.
I've matured and been forced to stare close calls in the face; I've learned what it feels like to send a loved one to war and welcome them home safely.
I've learned to make new friends, which is harder to do as an adult. I've learned to accept people for who they are and give everyone a fair chance.
At the end of the day, I love my husband, and I support him in his career. As of now, we don't plan to continue this lifestyle when his contract ends in a little under 3 years. But who knows what will happen then and it's time I start embracing my life now.
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I've been sitting her counting down the time until we can move back to Ohio, but I'm wasting this precious gift of life when I should be living it. I can't change where I am for the next few years but I can change my attitude. A lot of people move for jobs and why should this be any different? Although the possibility of a move is always in the Army's back pocket, I can't keep blowing this place off as a temporary. Yes, we are only here temporarily, but that doesn't mean I have to treat it that way.
How have you adjusted to a move? If you've had experience with the military, how do you make it feel like home?