You move quite often in this military life. Every two years. Every three if you’re lucky. You meet people. So many people. Some end up acquaintances, others friends. A chosen few become family. 

You leave this place. Sometimes willingly. Sometimes not.

Months and years pass and your footprint in that spot has seemingly disappeared. It’s like you were never even there.

Your heart breaks. How do we truly leave our mark on this world so that it doesn’t disappear?

It’s so hard living in the present.

So much of this life can focus on the past and, more often than not, the future. It rarely rests on today.

When will the deployment begin?

When do the promotion board results come out?

There’s a new job potential this summer. What grade will the kids be in when we retire?

We need to make sure our forever home is big enough so they will stay with us when they bring their families. 

We live in the past when we meet new people- especially new military people but not necessarily only fellow military.

Where were you last stationed?

How long have you been here? You’ve been stationed there?

Oh, so were we! How long have you been in?

This is the same song and dance you do everywhere you go.

Sometimes the questions are worded different but it all really means the same thing:

Are we going to be friends, or will you be just another person who passes me by in this life?

Will you be my 3 am friend? 

“Thanks for being my 3 am friend, for that brief moment in time that lasted only a few years. When we were actively in each other’s lives, when we were one another’s emergency contacts, when we were unknowingly building something that would last a lifetime.” -Unknown Military Spouse

We get particularly stuck on the good things we remember about our favorite duty stations.

Why shouldn’t we?

It’s far easier to remember the good and push the bad experiences from our minds.

We sit in those good memories especially when our present reality is not what we thought it would be. We think to the future and all the potential that lies in the next move, particularly when the current move is not going according to plan.

We take solace in the idea of being home in one location once we retire and not having to go through all of this again. 

“Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” -Hazrat Inayat Khan

It’s a rather unique life in this regard.

You often forget (but are somehow also constantly reminded it exists at the same time) there is a whole different world out there- one that doesn’t involve moving all the time.

That world that offers stability and consistency.

That world is simply an alternate timeline for you, for now.

If you sit and think about it, it is spot-on what they say, that the days are long, and the years are short. I’ve found this is usually talking about kids (and is very accurate there as well) but in the blink of an eye, I’ve found myself a part of this other world again, part of the stability and consistency, still trying to figure it all out.

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be ‘happy.’ I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” – Leo C. Rosten

Editor’s Note: So many truth bombs in here! If you want to read more of Erin’s posts, click HERE!