What does being a military spouse mean to you?
I have asked myself this question several times. And as I continue my journey as an army spouse, the answer to this question continually changes. Being a military spouse is not an easy role. When I’m having a particularly tough day, I like to ask myself this question.
have been loving the different “this-or-that” posts that have been roving around social media. You know the ones I’m referring to, right?
Do you like coffee or tea?
Mountains or beach?
Sweaters and boots, or flip flops and shorts?
As a social media manager, I use this-or-that posts to remind clients about options. And it works. People love to give you their preferences and tell you exactly what they want.
It took about one minute after saying goodbye to my husband for it to feel like my entire world was turned upside down.
Living just the two of us and our dog in our tiny condo, I had grown accustomed to having him almost within an arm’s reach the majority of the time. We spent almost all of our time together, and once he left, I found myself doing our usual routine but becoming overwhelmingly saddened by his absence at every point during my day.
The week before a deployment.
When I look back, I barely remember that week. By that time, we had done all the chores we needed to do to prepare.
We had our paperwork in order.
His stuff was packed.
We had our new phone plan set up…
We had done it all.
Months and months of brainstorming and planning every way possible to prepare ourselves, and we had finished.
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).
A new friend and fellow milspouse just embarked on her first deployment, and she was telling me about some things she had successfully accomplished while her husband was gone.
As she accomplishes a task that perhaps her husband would have normally taken care of, she gives herself an imaginary pat on the back, takes a picture, and sends it to her husband with the hashtag #takingcareofbusiness. It’s become a cute way for her to share what’s going on day to day, build her confidence that she can do this, and also remind her husband that she’s doing just fine.
I thought it was such a great idea, so it got me thinking about the last 16 years of Army wife life and all the unique skills that I have developed, thanks to those Army-ordered times of separation.
My husband recently returned from a deployment. During that time I found myself enjoying a new schedule and a few new habits. At nigh,t after I put my two children to bed, if I didn’t have work to do, I would enjoy a cup of coffee, a not so healthy snack, and pick a movie that would inevitably make me cry.
Hello and welcome to another installment of Army Wife Talk Radio. Today’s episode features Juanda Bryant, author of the Danny and the Deployer Book Series.
Join this week’s guest, Becky King, to talk about her children’s book titled ‘I’ll Lend You My Daddy’, a story for military children during deployments.
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