There’s something about a permission slip.
I remember my days in school when bringing home a permission slip was a thing of excitement. It usually meant a cool field trip or new experience that was so out of the ordinary we needed a parent’s permission to participate in said adventure.
People might think I’m a little odd. Not, like, Steve Urkel odd (child of the ’80s here; however, I don’t look good in suspenders), but I like to think more “unique.” I do things that make good stories. Because, why not?
I’m not just “different” because I went to (and subsequently graduated from) Missouri Auction School during Spring Break my senior year of college. It isn’t that I wore duct tape to senior prom in high school (it was for a scholarship contest… don’t judge. And yes, we rocked it). My uniqueness doesn’t come from my love of inky pens and journals or my affinity for analogies.
Featured guest, Stephanie Seldin Howard, director and producer of The Weight of Honor, a documentary about families caring for their catastrophically wounded loved ones returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Being a military spouse is not for the weak-hearted.
There are ups and downs, joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, seasons of celebration and seasons of suck. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that can leave us excited and ready to jump back on and take another spin. But other times, this life-calling finds us with a spinning head, holding back tears with a nauseous stomach and searching for a puke bucket.
There’s an epidemic in the military community, one in need of help.
Join the AWN Core Team and featured guest, Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright, as they discuss how to have positive and empowering conversations with your health care provider. Dr. Fischer-Wright is a nationally recognized physician leader, health care executive, and former business consultant, whose work focuses on innovation and creating cultures of excellence.
Finding time for yourself, especially when you’re the parent of young children, can sometimes be difficult. There’s laundry to be done, messes to be cleaned, and blogs to be written. Even at the end of the day, when the kids are in bed and you might have an hour to enjoy your favorite late-night television show or play a game, the list of things that still need to be done may still be weighing on your mind. This is what has become known as “the mental load.”
Once upon a time, someone started a ridiculous rumor that military spouses should be the strongest people on the planet because asking for help and verbalizing life struggles are signs of weakness. What a silly fairy tale, right? Unfortunately, so many of us (myself included) have believed this “story” to be true for much too long, and instead, took the struggling path.
Today, I want to encourage each and every one of you: If you are struggling with anything, please know that you are not alone.
It’s no secret that many aspects of our lives, especially as military spouses, are very serious. The challenges, the unknowns, the changed no-plan plans. All of it.
If we aren’t careful, we (ahem, as in—myself) can get sucked down with a pretty negative attitude.
In the seriousness of this world, I’m on a mission to bring a little bit of humor to it, especially on social media. Because, really, my sense of humor (and my faith) are sometimes the only things that keep me going.
Mission: Milspouse is a
501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
EIN Number: 88-1604492
hello@missionmilspouse.org
P.O. Box 641341
El Paso, TX 79904