You know how sometimes, maybe as a young adult, you are aware that the future is not set in stone, but somehow, without actually realizing it, you always expected that some portions of your future were guaranteed? Like, I’m going to graduate from college and get a job that will pay me enough money to live comfortably, or I’m going to practice a lot and that will ensure that I will do well on my exam, or I’m going to have children and when I hear the pattering of little feet coming toward my bedroom door, I will overwhelmed with love, joy, and happiness? Sometimes those things happen. Sometimes they don’t. Thankfully, sometimes things happen that you could not have predicted, but also manage to be things that delight you. This post is about that.
My experience as a military spouse has been intensely rewarding and intensely challenging. It certainly is not for everyone. I have seen spouses decide that marriage was not worth living apart from their families. I have seen that happen while their spouse is a home and while their spouse was deployed. I have seen spouses make that choice with kids and without. I am not here to judge. Better to know what you want and spend more of your life being happy.
I have a fairly strong sense of wanderlust, a robust supply of empathy, and a sturdy sense of duty. Making a household run, while my spouse is off doing worthwhile things, is meaningful to me. We find ways to stay connected to our family. We get to live all over and discover what makes each area awesome. Sometimes that means amazing restaurants and sometimes that means making good friends because game nights are the only option. There are seemingly endless ways to be involved, or to help a neighbor, or to be a hermit – if that is your thing.
Okay, you say, but WHY? What is the point?! Well, I want to tell you what happened to me last week. But first, more context. Though my spouse and I had dated for about a year before we got married, we had not really lived together for more than a week or so at a time. After we got married, he deployed A LOT. We spent a while seeing each other for two weeks at a time. (Try to plan a family on that schedule!) I missed my husband, but it was doable. All this to say that, while we were married, it took us much longer to get used to living in the same house at the same time and figure out what our roles, tasks, etc. would be that it might take a civilian family.
In our house, we have a digital calendar that takes our shared calendar from our phone/computer and displays it on the wall. (I think he just got tired of me constantly erasing and rewriting and cramming one more thing onto the paper calendar.) On that digital calendar, I have a weekly reminder to make coffee. (I make a coffee concentrate for the week because it is the most delicious, low maintenance way to make coffee for the work week. I also love peak roasted coffee in a pour over, french press, or chem ex, but those aren’t practical every day things for us right now.) Last week, (see I got there!) my partner asked me if they could delete the reminder on the calendar, and add in the reminder themselves when we were running low on concentrate. We generally communicate well with each other. What I did notice though, is that he’s home enough now that we could actually do that. He usually puts coffee in cups for us in the morning, so he would know when we were running low. He is able to commit to doing a thing because he is home and I trust him to do what he said he would. And I thought to myself -THIS! THIS IS WHAT MARRIAGE IS SUPPOSED TO BE! (Insert obnoxious end-zone dance here.)