I started this blog before my twins were a year old, 7 years ago. We were a growing military family. We had PCS'd together 3 times by then. I felt like when I talked to other parents of multiples that there was a marked difference in our family mentality. They all had a long view-- neighborhoods they planned on living in for their children's entire childhoods, or sending their kids to schools that they themselves had gone to or all their previous children had gone to. As a military family, our focus is much more on the present. The time we have together today. Where we are living right now. My husband's schedule that week.
We have to approach our plans with an open hand. Because I have found that I make plans and hold on to them with a tight fist and, like sand, they slip through my fingers. The military is always changing the game on us. Our orders were revoked before we moved to this duty station. Granted, they came through a week or so later, but at that point in time my husband couldn't go house hunting with me. So I had to drive 12 hours to my parents' house, leave 3 of my children with my mom, fly across country with the nursing infant, and buy a house with a power of attorney (sight unseen to my husband).
Our entire marriage has revolved around the Navy. We have tried to make a family first approach, to always spend as much time together as possible. Sometimes with the Navy we have moved ahead of my husband or moved behind my husband or been separated during schools he's gone to that are a various number of months at various locations. We've stayed with my family during those intervals or stayed at our duty stations. We spend a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of those separations and making sure we are doing the right thing not just for our marriage but also for our children and for our day to day lives.
It hasn't been easy knowing that at each of our tours we will only be living there for 1-3 years. As we've added children, it has felt even more difficult connecting at each of our duty stations. We need to make sure our children are adjusted. We need to take care of their needs. We need to settle every one in. And then, of course, we need to find friends that are welcoming of a big (and, up until now, growing) family. Sometimes we have had easy tours where the friendships fell into place, even if they were somewhat slow in coming. Sometimes we have had hard tours with unforeseen complications and we have never connected and we leave feeling upset about all the missed connections. Often, the frustration of every military spouse, you meet that PERFECT friend just as your tour is coming to a close ("WHY NOW? WHY COULDN'T WE HAVE MET AT THE START OF OUR TOUR?!"). Our present tour I have had the double pleasure of making a fabulous friend as soon as I arrived at this duty station, only for them to PCS right after we moved here, and then making another fabulous friend, just as we are getting ready to leave! Every military spouse has those friendships that are missed due to PCS and it never gets less frustrating!
Even more than that, our own aspirations as military spouses are constantly being rethought. At one duty station with those resources, we lay our game plan. Only to PCS and have a whole different type of resources-- maybe better, maybe worse, maybe not fitting your current needs or your current game plan. And you are left refiguring again. Because you have to PCS, sign your kids up for school, find doctors, find dentists, find activities, find childcare, and find everything it is that you as the military spouse do. And it doesn't always come together. Some tours are very demanding and you say, "At my next tour will be my time." And sometimes, it keeps getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off, until you realize it has been how many years now? And your goals, your game plan, is still left undone because you have supported your spouse's career and your family for all those years.
Because military spouses often have to chose. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that having a family has to come at such a high price, because a complicated pregnancy shelved all your hopes and dreams for another 3 years. It isn't fair that a new duty station shelves your hopes and dreams because the wait list for childcare is so long and is much more expensive than at a previous duty station. It isn't fair that your hopes and dreams get shelved because a tour is so demanding-- emotionally and physically-- and there isn't anyone else to do the work. You don't live near friends. You don't live near family. Your children need you. You don't have enough hours in the day, enough health, enough money, whatever the barrier is to do what you intended at that duty station. And so you support. You plan another path.
You as a military spouse know that you have 1-3 years at that duty station. That this time will eventually come to a close and you will move to the next duty station. You can hope for better hours. For better resources. For better friendships. For better access to family. Whatever it is that you find lacking, you always have this hope that the next one will be better. Or maybe you are always mourning the loss of a duty station where you had that. Or orders to a dream duty station that got changed. You always hold on to the hope that it will come together. That maybe this isn't your time... yet. That you need to still your heart... for now. That your hustle isn't over... forever. That you are resting and then you will pounce. You will do what you desire. You will have your time.
There isn't enough respect for military spouses. We move from community to community without ever really belonging. We get thrust into support groups that are not always welcoming, for a number of reasons. Maybe the people don't want new blood to mix up a dynamic they enjoy. Maybe you don't jive with the group. There's a million reasons and they aren't always bad. But it might not be the fit for you, at that point in your life. And sometimes that's your only option. Because military heavy areas are usually full of civilians who know what it means to be a military family. It means their civilian kids will make friends with your military kids and then you will move away. We have had our kids' friends stop playing with them because they were military kids. It's hard enough making our own friends in those circumstances (being a military family) but it sure does sting when our kids have the same hardships.
Being a military family means working through those hardships. Finding the resources for all the various health concerns in our family at each duty station. Helping our kids who tend to get bullied fit in, yet again. Easing our kids prone to anxiety. Being patient at regression during deployments and schedule changes and PCS's. Standing up for our kids when other parents (or even their schools) don't understand or don't want to understand. Knowing when to be firm and when to be a safe place with the kids. (At one point do you send a crying kid to school who cries every day before school? Why are they crying? And working with the school and teachers to solve it, even if they brush it off.) It means being an advocate, always. Because Tricare doesn't care. Because the school doesn't care. Because the doctors don't care. Because the neighbors don't care. Because the transient friends don't care. Being the person who keeps the log of what needs to be done and then making sure it gets done, instead of listening to flippant advice or being swayed when the odds are against you. Being the person who makes phone call after phone call. Who goes into the office. Who files the form. Who browses the web. Who does the research and asks around and reads and reads and reads and fills out form after form after form. With babies in baby carriers and toddlers throwing crayons and older kids throwing fits and bickering. And everyone is done and tired and the staff wants you to leave because they are annoyed with your kids, but you stay until you have the answers.
Being a military spouse means people don't understand what you do. You can move across country by yourself with however many kids but the stomach bug throws you into a tailspin. (WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET SICK? WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS?) It means you are viewed as a stay-at-home mom mooching off your man. It means getting lectured if you inquire about a military discount because it is "only for military members. You aren't in the military, are you?" It means constantly feeling inferior to how hard the military member works and the hours they keep and trying to make their life easier and constantly feeling frustrated with the civilian friends you make because they have friends and family and community and you feel left out. How different would your life be if your mom could come over and watch some of your kids while you take some to the doctor?! Instead of dragging everyone, including the sick one, in with you? Instead of being the only one for all pick ups and drop offs and sick calls and sick days and visits and appointments at all times for everything? How different would your life be if you could count on your spouse's schedule? Because even if they say they will be there, there is always this nagging feeling that you will get a phone call (or they just won't show) and it will all be on you again? So you don't sign up for the class or the lesson or whatever it is you or your kids want to do because you know you can't commit to doing it each week, if your spouse can't show. (And then, true to your doubts, your spouse can't show.)
Being a military spouse means trusting in the investment you are making. "All of this will be worth it when we get to..." retirement? When we get out? When this tour ends? Whatever date you have set, you think it will all be worth it. The benefits. The retirement. The security. You tell yourself you are investing in your future because it will be your time. You believe in what your spouse is doing. Because at every turn, you were forced to chose. The family you wanted? The children you wanted? At what price? Pushing your goals off for another duty station. And another duty station. And another duty station. It isn't possible to do it all. And you took that gamble because you knew. You knew this was worth it. You trusted.
I started this blog to talk to those people. The military spouses struggling to find their way, to make sense of all of this. The military spouses trying to balance family and find out who they are. This blog has been my way of "writing my resume" all along the way, since I eventually would like to work at a publishing company. (Can one get paid to read books?) I wanted to have a big family and I wanted to have them young and then I wanted to dive into the rest of my schooling and work towards my next stage in life. It felt like it was possible when I met my husband and the military kept changing my plans. I started feeling overwhelmed and lost in all of it. Am I "just a mom"? Is that a bad thing if I am? And I realized a lot of stay at home parents and military spouses were feeling the same way I was. That there are a lot of people searching for their voice and identities and having to readjust their game plan every 1-3 years. I started the blog and almost immediately the emails started coming in. I've made several friends from this blog, emails I've received that turned into real in person friendships. I can't even begin to say how happy it made me to read emails from people saying, "Yes, this is exactly how I feel and I felt like the only one."
We, as military spouses, aren't in the military and don't belong in that community, but we aren't the same as civilian families and we don't fit in there. We drift between these two communities and have to restart every 1-3 years. It is isolating. This blog has made me feel grounded and I think, in some small way, it helped other people feel grounded too. We worked together to make a little sense of this military life.
I have to shut this blog down for the time being. I don't know if-- or when-- I will ever write here again. I think, at present, I have said all I can to this community. I have struggled a lot in my role as a military spouse the last couple years and I think I've finally hit "my time." Thank you for following my journey in this honest, judgment free zone.
And, please, THANK the women in your life who get it done. Thank the stay at home mom with one kid who works hard to raise it. Thank the moms of multiples. The moms of multiple multiples. The moms of multiples who chose to have more kids. The moms who never got to chose how many kids they would have or when they were done having kids or if they would ever get to have kids. The women who hold down the fort, who support each other, who send an encouraging text, who drop off a latte, who watch your kids. THANK THEM. Thank your mom who answers your calls. Your sister who answers your text. Your daughter who looks up to you. Your niece who rocks the casbah. These women work, not just for a better life for themselves, but for each other, for the next generation and the generation after that. It isn't easy being a working woman, a stay at home spouse, a military spouse, or, really, a woman. And we are living in a time where that is changing and people can talk about it and work in real ways to support each other. My blog has really targeted the moms, but, ladies, you are all queens. And we need to support each other through it. We need to rally and rejoice in each other's successes and be there for each other when we fail or struggle. Because that is how we are going to change the world and it's already happening.
All the best, Kimber
We have to approach our plans with an open hand. Because I have found that I make plans and hold on to them with a tight fist and, like sand, they slip through my fingers. The military is always changing the game on us. Our orders were revoked before we moved to this duty station. Granted, they came through a week or so later, but at that point in time my husband couldn't go house hunting with me. So I had to drive 12 hours to my parents' house, leave 3 of my children with my mom, fly across country with the nursing infant, and buy a house with a power of attorney (sight unseen to my husband).
Our entire marriage has revolved around the Navy. We have tried to make a family first approach, to always spend as much time together as possible. Sometimes with the Navy we have moved ahead of my husband or moved behind my husband or been separated during schools he's gone to that are a various number of months at various locations. We've stayed with my family during those intervals or stayed at our duty stations. We spend a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of those separations and making sure we are doing the right thing not just for our marriage but also for our children and for our day to day lives.
It hasn't been easy knowing that at each of our tours we will only be living there for 1-3 years. As we've added children, it has felt even more difficult connecting at each of our duty stations. We need to make sure our children are adjusted. We need to take care of their needs. We need to settle every one in. And then, of course, we need to find friends that are welcoming of a big (and, up until now, growing) family. Sometimes we have had easy tours where the friendships fell into place, even if they were somewhat slow in coming. Sometimes we have had hard tours with unforeseen complications and we have never connected and we leave feeling upset about all the missed connections. Often, the frustration of every military spouse, you meet that PERFECT friend just as your tour is coming to a close ("WHY NOW? WHY COULDN'T WE HAVE MET AT THE START OF OUR TOUR?!"). Our present tour I have had the double pleasure of making a fabulous friend as soon as I arrived at this duty station, only for them to PCS right after we moved here, and then making another fabulous friend, just as we are getting ready to leave! Every military spouse has those friendships that are missed due to PCS and it never gets less frustrating!
Even more than that, our own aspirations as military spouses are constantly being rethought. At one duty station with those resources, we lay our game plan. Only to PCS and have a whole different type of resources-- maybe better, maybe worse, maybe not fitting your current needs or your current game plan. And you are left refiguring again. Because you have to PCS, sign your kids up for school, find doctors, find dentists, find activities, find childcare, and find everything it is that you as the military spouse do. And it doesn't always come together. Some tours are very demanding and you say, "At my next tour will be my time." And sometimes, it keeps getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off, until you realize it has been how many years now? And your goals, your game plan, is still left undone because you have supported your spouse's career and your family for all those years.
Because military spouses often have to chose. It isn't fair. It isn't fair that having a family has to come at such a high price, because a complicated pregnancy shelved all your hopes and dreams for another 3 years. It isn't fair that a new duty station shelves your hopes and dreams because the wait list for childcare is so long and is much more expensive than at a previous duty station. It isn't fair that your hopes and dreams get shelved because a tour is so demanding-- emotionally and physically-- and there isn't anyone else to do the work. You don't live near friends. You don't live near family. Your children need you. You don't have enough hours in the day, enough health, enough money, whatever the barrier is to do what you intended at that duty station. And so you support. You plan another path.
You as a military spouse know that you have 1-3 years at that duty station. That this time will eventually come to a close and you will move to the next duty station. You can hope for better hours. For better resources. For better friendships. For better access to family. Whatever it is that you find lacking, you always have this hope that the next one will be better. Or maybe you are always mourning the loss of a duty station where you had that. Or orders to a dream duty station that got changed. You always hold on to the hope that it will come together. That maybe this isn't your time... yet. That you need to still your heart... for now. That your hustle isn't over... forever. That you are resting and then you will pounce. You will do what you desire. You will have your time.
There isn't enough respect for military spouses. We move from community to community without ever really belonging. We get thrust into support groups that are not always welcoming, for a number of reasons. Maybe the people don't want new blood to mix up a dynamic they enjoy. Maybe you don't jive with the group. There's a million reasons and they aren't always bad. But it might not be the fit for you, at that point in your life. And sometimes that's your only option. Because military heavy areas are usually full of civilians who know what it means to be a military family. It means their civilian kids will make friends with your military kids and then you will move away. We have had our kids' friends stop playing with them because they were military kids. It's hard enough making our own friends in those circumstances (being a military family) but it sure does sting when our kids have the same hardships.
Being a military family means working through those hardships. Finding the resources for all the various health concerns in our family at each duty station. Helping our kids who tend to get bullied fit in, yet again. Easing our kids prone to anxiety. Being patient at regression during deployments and schedule changes and PCS's. Standing up for our kids when other parents (or even their schools) don't understand or don't want to understand. Knowing when to be firm and when to be a safe place with the kids. (At one point do you send a crying kid to school who cries every day before school? Why are they crying? And working with the school and teachers to solve it, even if they brush it off.) It means being an advocate, always. Because Tricare doesn't care. Because the school doesn't care. Because the doctors don't care. Because the neighbors don't care. Because the transient friends don't care. Being the person who keeps the log of what needs to be done and then making sure it gets done, instead of listening to flippant advice or being swayed when the odds are against you. Being the person who makes phone call after phone call. Who goes into the office. Who files the form. Who browses the web. Who does the research and asks around and reads and reads and reads and fills out form after form after form. With babies in baby carriers and toddlers throwing crayons and older kids throwing fits and bickering. And everyone is done and tired and the staff wants you to leave because they are annoyed with your kids, but you stay until you have the answers.
Being a military spouse means people don't understand what you do. You can move across country by yourself with however many kids but the stomach bug throws you into a tailspin. (WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET SICK? WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE KIDS?) It means you are viewed as a stay-at-home mom mooching off your man. It means getting lectured if you inquire about a military discount because it is "only for military members. You aren't in the military, are you?" It means constantly feeling inferior to how hard the military member works and the hours they keep and trying to make their life easier and constantly feeling frustrated with the civilian friends you make because they have friends and family and community and you feel left out. How different would your life be if your mom could come over and watch some of your kids while you take some to the doctor?! Instead of dragging everyone, including the sick one, in with you? Instead of being the only one for all pick ups and drop offs and sick calls and sick days and visits and appointments at all times for everything? How different would your life be if you could count on your spouse's schedule? Because even if they say they will be there, there is always this nagging feeling that you will get a phone call (or they just won't show) and it will all be on you again? So you don't sign up for the class or the lesson or whatever it is you or your kids want to do because you know you can't commit to doing it each week, if your spouse can't show. (And then, true to your doubts, your spouse can't show.)
Being a military spouse means trusting in the investment you are making. "All of this will be worth it when we get to..." retirement? When we get out? When this tour ends? Whatever date you have set, you think it will all be worth it. The benefits. The retirement. The security. You tell yourself you are investing in your future because it will be your time. You believe in what your spouse is doing. Because at every turn, you were forced to chose. The family you wanted? The children you wanted? At what price? Pushing your goals off for another duty station. And another duty station. And another duty station. It isn't possible to do it all. And you took that gamble because you knew. You knew this was worth it. You trusted.
I started this blog to talk to those people. The military spouses struggling to find their way, to make sense of all of this. The military spouses trying to balance family and find out who they are. This blog has been my way of "writing my resume" all along the way, since I eventually would like to work at a publishing company. (Can one get paid to read books?) I wanted to have a big family and I wanted to have them young and then I wanted to dive into the rest of my schooling and work towards my next stage in life. It felt like it was possible when I met my husband and the military kept changing my plans. I started feeling overwhelmed and lost in all of it. Am I "just a mom"? Is that a bad thing if I am? And I realized a lot of stay at home parents and military spouses were feeling the same way I was. That there are a lot of people searching for their voice and identities and having to readjust their game plan every 1-3 years. I started the blog and almost immediately the emails started coming in. I've made several friends from this blog, emails I've received that turned into real in person friendships. I can't even begin to say how happy it made me to read emails from people saying, "Yes, this is exactly how I feel and I felt like the only one."
We, as military spouses, aren't in the military and don't belong in that community, but we aren't the same as civilian families and we don't fit in there. We drift between these two communities and have to restart every 1-3 years. It is isolating. This blog has made me feel grounded and I think, in some small way, it helped other people feel grounded too. We worked together to make a little sense of this military life.
I have to shut this blog down for the time being. I don't know if-- or when-- I will ever write here again. I think, at present, I have said all I can to this community. I have struggled a lot in my role as a military spouse the last couple years and I think I've finally hit "my time." Thank you for following my journey in this honest, judgment free zone.
And, please, THANK the women in your life who get it done. Thank the stay at home mom with one kid who works hard to raise it. Thank the moms of multiples. The moms of multiple multiples. The moms of multiples who chose to have more kids. The moms who never got to chose how many kids they would have or when they were done having kids or if they would ever get to have kids. The women who hold down the fort, who support each other, who send an encouraging text, who drop off a latte, who watch your kids. THANK THEM. Thank your mom who answers your calls. Your sister who answers your text. Your daughter who looks up to you. Your niece who rocks the casbah. These women work, not just for a better life for themselves, but for each other, for the next generation and the generation after that. It isn't easy being a working woman, a stay at home spouse, a military spouse, or, really, a woman. And we are living in a time where that is changing and people can talk about it and work in real ways to support each other. My blog has really targeted the moms, but, ladies, you are all queens. And we need to support each other through it. We need to rally and rejoice in each other's successes and be there for each other when we fail or struggle. Because that is how we are going to change the world and it's already happening.
All the best, Kimber
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