Inconvenient Me

I am not sure I have met one person that doesn't doubt their own self worth. Even those very confident people must worry about how they are viewed. Surely they must...

Yet again, this was passed over. I wish they would tell me why they don't want to publish these things, especially when I see things like this posted on Facebook...

So I present: Inconvenient Me

There is one thing I understand about people, and that is, as a whole, they love convenience. It is part of the reason social media is so huge, it gives everyone the most convenient and easy way to “stay in touch”. All anyone has to do is slap a “Like” or “Love” on something, and they now feel a part of your life. It’s actually very voyeuristic, the way social media has made us all. We have all become strangers to each other, just watching what happens from the outside.

While I may have a pretty package most days, I have rough edges. My husband does weird things like Deployments and TDY’s… we live a nomadic, lonely kind of life, and it’s hard for people not in the military life to understand me. Honestly, I am pretty sure it is hard for people IN the military life to understand me! We have three children, and two dogs, and our house is frequently very loud and chaotic. I have no chill, handle things with little to no grace, and I swear like a sailor. Who would want to even be my friend?

I am very inconvenient.

Our boys are only thirteen months apart in age… to say the youngest was a mistake is not accurate, but he sure did arrive a bit quicker than we planned. Our daughter is some kind of old soul gifted to us by the angels, and I often find myself astounded by her. I can see why the children have as many friends as they do, and it makes my heart glad. They are the kind of people that other people will think about when they are not around. My husband is also someone people think of when he is not around, but I am not so sure people think about me when I am not around. I don’t think anyone actively thinks to themselves “I wonder what Caitlin is up to?”

This used to bother me more when I was in middle and high school than it does now. I desperately wanted to be in the popular crowd, be invited to all the parties, and do all the cool things. I wasn’t popular and I didn’t get invited to do the cool things. In middle school, I was frumpy and awkward – I had bad acne and my parents were going through a divorce. The first two years of high school I was still awkward with acne, but now my father had graduated to full blown alcoholic. Who wants to hang out with the girl whose dad is a drunk? No one. That’s who.

After my Ma rescued my sister and me from my father, the last two years of high school didn’t really go the way I had envisioned either. I discovered things like marijuana and alcohol, and let’s just say I made some bad choices. What’s more is I continued to make bad choices all the way until I was 21! My learning curve was kind of on a bad bell curve, or something... Now that I am older, I know many of those choices and actions I did were in a deeply desperate attempt to get people to like me. At best, I think I was tolerated by people. At worse, I think people hated me. I don’t blame any of those people from when I was younger for those thoughts – I didn’t really like myself.

Despite all the growth I have done in my heart and soul, I still have that nagging feeling that people just don’t care. That it is actually too hard to care. That they are too busy with more worthwhile, and interesting people. Everyone wants to be friends with that gal that can complete an Ironman, or has the means to go to Disney World all the time. Everyone want to be friends with the fashionista momma, or the makeup-mom, or the good-at-telling-jokes mom. But what about all the moms that are just wondering if you think about them? What about moms like me… that used to be the desperate girl in school everyone made fun of? Who wants to be friends with us?

.....

I want to be friends with you. I want to see all the pictures from babyhood to toddlerhood and into school age. I want to drink coffee, or a diet coke, with you and I want to laugh at how dumb we used to be when we were younger. I want to hug you when you realize your parents are aging, and we are losing our grandparents. I want to cry with you when you stumble upon that day you realize you are all done having children. I want to go to the gymnastics meets, the cheerleading competitions, the football games, and the band concerts. I want to glory in all of your mundane things you do every day, because to me they are divine.

To me, you are the friend I will always chose. You know how to do real life, and you will always be worth the text message, the phone call, or the handwritten letter. I will always keep trying to be your friend, because I know that like me you feel inconvenient. So, come along, we can be inconvenient together. 

Always.     

     

Being Lonely

I had one response back from POPSUGAR about the piece I am presenting today. But it didn't seem to matter how many times I changed things around, they just didn't want it... It's a shame really. I think there are lots of new spouses, and maybe even seasoned spouses, that need to hear this sometimes. There are people out there that have no idea what military families go through, and maybe they need to read this also. Please feel to share as needed.

How I Survive

Someone asked me how my marriage works, as an Army spouse, and I had to think very hard. Our marriage works because I love him, I love our children, I love our country, and I have figured out how to be lonely. I think when a spouse doesn’t, or can’t, figure out how to be lonely, that is when the marriage hurts. It’s not your spouses’ fault he or she has to leave to do “Army Stuff”, but it will be one of your faults if you don’t figure out how to be alone. You don’t need to be full of grace, and patience while alone. You don’t need to be happy while alone. You don’t even have to smile while alone, but you do have to be alone. Alone, and lonely.

When I was newly married into this life, despite having been an Army brat all my life, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I discovered that part of being a military spouse isn’t a list of grand adventures, or the famous people we have met, or seemingly old-fashioned rules we have to follow… rather it is often times a long list of things we do NOT get to do. We do not get to go home for every Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, or any type of holiday one celebrates. We do not get to have our mother’s and sister’s present at the birth of any of our children, and some cases husbands don’t get to be there either. We do not get to hug our parents during the passing of their parents, and sometimes we do not get to be there for the burial of a beloved grandparent.

My experiences as an Army wife are as varied as the days are long. When my husband is home, the usual strange things happen to us… a kid gets a boo-boo, a dog gets sick, or the air conditioning stops working. However, when he is gone for any length of time, all hell breaks loose upon our household. When my husband deployed to Iraq two years ago, our then two-year-old ran into the corner of the entertainment center, fractured his nose, gave himself two black eyes, and a slight concussion. Later that same week, the washer began to leak, and there was a small flood in the laundry room overnight. The week after that, early in the morning a skunk was run over in front of our house, and instead of dying with grace, it drug itself to my driveway before dying - literally drug itself six feet from the scene of the crime to die in my driveway. This all happened in the first month he was gone!  

At the end of all those days, despite having friends to cheer me up and laugh with, I was alone. And lonely. It is isolating, in a way, that loneliness. It isn’t easy to articulate to people that don’t live this life, and while I don’t speak for every spouse out there, we have common themes among us. We all always have the same looming thing on the horizon - The PCS. A Permanent Change of Station is the term for the moves the military has a service member, or sometimes just his/her spouse, complete. P.C.S.’s always seem to happen right when you have found a few friends that really get you… Like, I finally found my mom tribe, one that didn’t begrudge my Diet Coke fueled crafting, and my mouth that swears like a sailor, then suddenly I swear the next day a crew of strangers arrived to pack my life into boxes.

The last move across the country was with three children, two dogs, and my amazing sister-in-law driving the extra car. My husband was in Iraq. A vast open highway sat before me, my friends behind me, and I was the loneliest not alone I had ever felt. A minivan full of kids and dogs, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I sat mile after mile listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, reminiscing about the last set of family photos I got to do with my husband before he deployed, and lamenting the fact I never got enough pictures with my friends. I also kept wondering if anyone would even want to be my friend at the new place.    

When we finally arrived in our new town, and I drove by two Targets in route to the new house! I felt tingling’s of hope start to creep in. I noticed things the locals probably take for granted –a fancy cupcake shop that was on Cupcake Wars, green chili on everything for some reason, and hot air balloons happily listing through the morning sky. I cried after the first week of living in the new place, because the moving truck was still not there. I just wanted to get on with things, and start to set up house. And when everything finally did arrive, lots of our stuff was damaged. Such is life.

Our neighbors were nice, if not somewhat bewildered at how I manage this life. People frequently would exclaim at me to “just ask for help” if I needed anything. I always just say thank you, and know I will probably never ask for help… it’s some type of flaw within me. I just do all the things. Everything was good during the days, and then bedtime would arrive.  All my doubts, fears, worries and loneliness would become all consuming. But, really, my time to dwell on those thoughts couldn’t, and can't, last long… tomorrow is always a new day, full of children with curious minds waiting to see just how high the heavy rock in the back yard can be thrown into the sky.     

…..

I have mentioned before that the only thing I have ever been good at is being a mommy. I am an above average wife, and I can usually admit when I am wrong… although, it might take me a couple days to admit this. The life I have built with my husband is actually the life I want. I have very little to no regrets about the choices we have made, the amount of children we have, and the number of dogs that occupy our home with us. This is my life. This is how many military spouses live their lives. My experience is not new or unique, but maybe it’s not talked about as much as it should be. There might be a young spouse out there right now that needs to read this. That needs to know, it is okay.

So, Little Spouse, you are okay. It’s hard, this life. We are nomadic - our tribe is always on the move, and we leave behind our members often. The first time is always the hardest time, and it doesn’t actually get any easier with each new move, but you do learn how to do it better. At your next duty station, try and find that spouse that seems to be able to do it all on his or her own. That is the spouse that, like me, is probably very good at being lonely. It’s not necessarily a skill we can teach you, but it is a skill we can model for you.

Plus, we usually make really good cookies.