Realia

Archive for the ‘Military’ Category

Okay, so it’s been a very long time since I participated in a Friday Fill-In on Wife of a Sailor’s blog, but this week’s seemed easy – a series of either/or questions, so here goes:

Facebook or Twitter? Both! I use Facebookfor keeping up with people I know in real life; I mainly use Twitter for connecting with other librarians and other milspouses, most of whom I haven’t actually met.

Hard Tacos or Soft Tacos? Hard – tacos should be crunchy!

Gardening or crafting? Crafting, definitely crafting, a million times crafting! Gardening is work, crafting is fun!

Fruit or vegetables? Fruit – they’re sweeter, so you can eat them for dessert.

Motorcycle or bicycle? Bicycle – motorcycles kind of scare me.

For several weeks, I have been reading with interest the responses to Wife of a Sailor’s MilSpouse Friday Fill-In. I’ve even started working on my answers the last couple of weeks, but never got around to posting them. I was determined not to miss the chance again this week, so here goes:

1. What secret indulgence do you act on while your spouse is away?

This sounds really lame, but going to bed early is something I indulge in when the husband is gone. He is more of a night owl than I am, and he tends to talk me into staying up later than I would on my own. When he’s here, we usually go to bed at 11:00 or later. When he’s gone, it’s not unusual for me to take a book to bed around 9:30 or 10:00, read for a while, and be sound asleep by 10:30.

2. If you were a spice, what would you be?

I’ve been trying to think of a really clever answer to this question and trying to find the spice that really captures my personality, but for some reason, cinnamon is what keeps popping into my mind, so I guess I should stop ignoring my subconscious and choose cinnamon as my answer. I don’t really have a good reason for it, though, other than I like it.

3. Where do you go for support when your significant other is deployed?

We haven’t been through a deployment yet, but when the husband’s been gone for OBC, training, etc., I have really leaned on my younger sister for support. She lives 8 hours away from me, but she usually comes out to visit me for a weekend any time that the husband is gone for longer than a week.

4. What is the oldest thing you own?

That’s a tough one to answer. I honestly don’t know. If we’re talking about the thing I’ve personally had the longest, there are a couple of stuffed animals from childhood that I still have. If we’re talking about the thing that is actually the oldest, I have two of my grandma’s cookbooks from the 1950s.

5. How did you vision your future pre-military?

The husband and I were married for six years before he joined the Army, so I definitely had time to form a vision of what our non-military marriage would be like. When we got married, I never in a million years would have pictured myself ever being an Army wife. And I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a somewhat rough transition when he joined, two and a half years ago. He’s a reservist, so I suppose our life hasn’t changed as much as it would have if he was active duty, but I think the biggest difference between our life now and how I would have envisioned it before he joined the Army has to be the feeling that we are not entirely in control of decisions about our future. It’s hard to plan for the future and for things like trying to start a family, when I know that the Army could totally pull the rug out from under us at any time. I realize that nobody really has control over their future, and that unforeseen circumstances could mess up anyone’s plans, but when you’re married to a Soldier, it almost seems like it’s not a question of if your major life plans will get disrupted, but a question of when. I’m not completely used to that yet. I’m not sure if it’s something you ever get totally used to.

When I was growing up, my younger sister and I spent more time than I care to admit playing a Barbie-themed computer game on our Commodore 64.  The premise of the game was simple; Ken would call Barbie up for a date.  Barbie would always cheerfully respond, “That sounds like fun!” And Ken would say, “Great! See you in an hour!” The object of the game was to get Barbie ready for her date (buying clothes, getting her hair done, etc.) before the hour ran out and she missed her date with Ken.  Some of the ever-so-thrilling action of the game can be seen here:

What this short snapshot of the game fails to capture is the fact that at least half of the time, once you got Barbie ready for the planned date – say for example, the prom – she would arrive home to get a phone call from Ken, who would say something like, “Sorry, Barbie, plans have changed.  Let’s go to the pool!” And she would have to go through the whole process again, replacing her prom gown with a bikini and her high heels with flip flops.  And did Barbie ever complain about Ken’s last minute changes? Of course not – she just repeated her cheerful refrain of “That sounds like fun!”

When we first got the game, my sister and I played to win, dutifully dressing and re-dressing Barbie to comply with each of Ken’s whims.  After the novelty wore off a little bit, we began to play a little more subversively, making Barbie arrive late on purpose, or having her show up to the prom in a bikini and blue hair.  While the lack of an appropriate outfit did not change Ken’s reaction one bit, it did make the game more amusing.

I was reminiscing about this game the other day, and what I was struck by (other than complete amazement that I managed to grow up without taking this game’s wonderful gender sterotypes to heart), was the fact that there are times when being married to a soldier makes me feel like I’m living this game.  I’m Barbie, and the Army is Ken, changing plans at the last minute without any regard to the preparations that I’ve made.  My husband’s reserve unit wants to send him to anti-terrorism training, oh, next week? Great! He’s going to have to stay at annual training a week longer than planned so he can train the rest of his unit when they arrive? That sounds like fun!

I know I’m not saying anything that other military spouses don’t already know – the one constant in our life is change. And I know that since my husband is fairly new to the Army and we haven’t been through a deployment yet, being a military spouse will disrupt my life in the future in ways far beyond the small annoyances I’ve experienced so far.

So, fellow military spouses, I suppose my question to you is, how do you deal with the many last minute changes that are a part of military life? Do you have any mantras you repeat to keep yourself sane? Any tricks that are the equivalent of Barbie showing up to the prom with blue hair?