Oh… Military Life! This is likely what brought you to Mission: Milspouse in the first place. It is what binds the military community together with its wildly unique lifestyle.
Whether you are here to learn how to better live in this military life, how to support a loved one who is living the military lifestyle, or to see if this lifestyle is something you may like to be a part of, you have come to the right place.
Here at Mission: Milispouse the military lifestyle is what inspires us, drives our home lives, our moves, and our service member’s career, and gives us a camaraderie like no other. So welcome friend, take a seat and read more about all things that make us who we are and make the military lifestyle a life like no other!
If you’re already registered to vote, you’re probably prepping for the next part of the election cycle: requesting absentee ballots.
Active-duty service members and their voting age family members can request absentee ballots rather than physically voting in their home state. There is still time to request absentee ballots for the general election!
My family would have PCS’d this summer if we were on our normal schedule. But what is “normal” this year anyway? The coronavirus swept over our world, leaving us with uncertainty and quickly grasping for a new normal. Plans we have all had over the past several months have been unraveled. We have postponed, rescheduled, all out cancelled, and been ever flexible with our activities, events, vacations, and PCS orders. A military life forces us to be flexible and deal with last minute changes somewhat gracefully. But this year?
This year…well, it is a whole new drill for us all.
Seth Godin once said: “A group needs two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
Which makes the United States military family perhaps the largest, most caring, and most diverse tribe in the world, particularly military spouses. Sure, the military may drop you hundreds or even thousands of miles away from your home and family, but they do a really great job of surrounding you with a new one.
This large, extended military family is your tribe, and I encourage you to love them fiercely. And
understand, they will love you back.
No, no, no. Not like that!
In my previous blog, I mentioned that I cannot drive.
That’s a big deal in the over-16-year-old circles, yes, but it is even more so when you are a military spouse.
Your spouse deploys, goes to the field, or heads to a training school…
Okay. Now what?
Deployments are tough—there is no way to sugar coat it. Being the spouse of a National Guard member, deployments are something that I never really thought about. I always assumed that they were something that happened to other people—people who were much better equipped to handle them.
But sure enough, I was wrong.
I feel like I blinked and found myself fist deep in a tub of cookie dough, crying, because my husband was being deployed. I read countless books and articles, and I played out thousands of scenarios in my head as to what it would be like. I thought about things, like missing out on celebrating holidays and special events, and the fact that I now would have to take out the trash and take the dog out late at night (my two least favorite chores).
Sometimes it is hard to believe that we are already this far into a pandemic. I never imagined that’s what 2020 would look like. And frankly, I’m pretty ready for this year to end. Sometimes I find it difficult to imagine how life has to keep moving forward even though it feels like everything must be put on hold.
My husband is currently at recruiting school, and we are planning to move before the year is over. (We were supposed to move in June, but the stop order put that to an end.) He hasn’t been there long, so I am still waiting to find out where we are moving to.
Mission: Milspouse is a
501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
EIN Number: 88-1604492
hello@missionmilspouse.org
P.O. Box 641341
El Paso, TX 79904