Imagine this: A handful of close friends (or in our case, battle buddies) are miraculously back in the same zip code, be it for a few months or just a few moments.

You gather around the fire pit on the back patio; you pour yourself a beverage of choice. It takes only a couple of seconds before someone says it…

“Remember that time when…” 

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like our military family spends a good deal of time dreaming about the future: our next duty station, when our service member will be promoted, when the next deployment will creep up, and yes, even imagining (and sometimes dreaming about!) what life after the military will be.

You might recall that last month we kicked off a mini-series about what to do when the going gets tough as a milspouse.

We had such a good time with it that I didn’t want to stop there. So today, I’ll be sharing another one of my personal “coping” tips when things are harder than normal for our military spouse lives. And, of course, we’ll also take another look at some great ideas shared by our AWN followers.

Being a military spouse is a walk in the park… And by park, I mean Jurassic Park. 

Some days I feel like I can conquer the world while other moments it’s a complete miracle that my kids are still alive and I remembered to put on pants. 

We’ve all heard the saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I’d like to consider myself tough, but where the heck am I supposed to “go” on tough days when my service member is already gone to work/TDY/deployment?!

In the words of the late Paul Harvey, today it is time for “The Rest of the Story.”

The last couple of months, we’ve been sharing reasons for milspouse pride. (Need to catch up? Check out Part 1 and Part 2)

So now, we present our final chapter:

Some people believe there can be too much of a good thing. I might agree with this statement if talking about rich cheeses, excessive exercise, or Netflix binge watching, but I just can’t agree that there is ever such a “thing” as too much military spouse pride.

You might remember that last month I shared the first installment of our series “Reasons from Milspouse Pride.”

I have a confession to make.

Sometimes, in the day-to-day shenanigans that is military spouse life, I forget about the pride that comes with this calling.

And I don’t mean pride like, “Look at me, I’m so awesome” pride; more like, “Wow. My spouse is the bomb dot com. This life can be hard, but I sure am proud of what my service members is doing for our country/world/family.”

Maybe you find yourself sometimes forgetting the pride part of this milspouse ride.