Monday, March 28, 2011
Why is it so easy to be negative?
Sunday, March 27, 2011
OMG Bawl Fest (Army Wives, so spoiler alert)
Quarter Life Crisis?
I feel myself changing lately, maybe it is getting a little older or a quarter life crisis, who knows? But what I once thought of as important or aspiring no longer seems relevant. What is the deal with that? What is making me change? This is what I am talking about....
I always wanted (as snooty as it sounds) the big fancy house. I pictured lots of square feet, marble, huge open rooms, HGTV anyone? That is what I could see myself loving life in. But now that isn't what I see in my dreams. I am content with our average subdivision, 4 bedroom, ranch style house. Where I use to focus on when we could move to a newer, better house....now I find myself just wanting to make my current house cozy. Whoa! Cozy? Who am I?
When I say cozy I mean I want my flowerbeds full of fresh flowers, hanging baskets on the porch, and a fresh herb and berry garden in the back. I want my girls to be able to water flowers and go pick a homemade bouquet at any time. To feel PEACE when they walk in our home.
Instead of worrying about how HGTV my house looks on the inside, I am more concerned with it being a place of serenity now for my kids and my husband. I just wonder whats changed in me?
And it is not just my house, it is everything. I find myself just wanting to give more and more of myself to my husband lately too. I recently posted about how out of no where my dreams of having this big important career changed into this strong powerful desire to stay home with my girls. I find my relationship with my husband evolving too.
I use to be more about what is fair for me in our marriage. It was all about are we doing an equal amount of work? How many days will I have to man this house alone? How can you make up for my feelings of loneliness and overwhelmingness (yeah, its a word in Coley land). But now I am getting to a point in my life and marriage where I want to make my husband feel fulfilled.
I am finally at a spot where I am OK and actually accept without whining (ok, very little whining) when he has to go. I use to hate the military, all I could see was the negative and how much it disrupted my life. But now I see our military service as privilege and honor. I am finally able to look past the bad and see all that it has provided for my family. And that has made my marriage so much stronger. It feels good to know that distance means nothing, time apart means nothing, and that our marriage is finally about us, not our circumstances.
My husband is military. That is just who he is and will always be. Until I was able to realize and ACCEPT that, our marriage was at a standstill. It was in a rotten place full of jealousy, resentment, and all those ugly, not so fuzzy, feelings no one tells you about.
So back to original question: Why am I changing? I don't know to be honest with you. I don't know what has happened to me in the last 6 months, but it has definitely been life altering. Has anything like this ever happened to you? Where you wake up one day and realize I am not the same person?
But I am OK with that?
Thursday, March 24, 2011
It seems as if the pendulum is going backwards
Could I send a son?
The Hidden Sisterhood
I took our oldest daughter, LoveBug, to a birthday party a couple weeks ago. She is in preschool and this was her first birthday party for a school friend. It was actually her first birthday party of a friend that wasn't family. Earlier that day I was thinking about how NG (National Guard) wives and families are like a secret society. How we live among the civilians, not others of our kind. I think most Americans who do not have a tie to the military forget there is a war going on right now, forget that servicemen are dying for our country right now, and thousands of kids are missing their daddys tonight. How hard it is to live among the real world, when you feel like no one understands your daily fear and pride.
Anyway, back to the party, I was making small talk with the other moms like you do at these not so entertaining events. I don't really know these moms except who their kid is and what they drive from the many afternoons sitting in the pick up line. As I was talking to this one mom, I discovered they are an NG family. They just left the service within the last 6 months, her husband severed 10 years and 2 tours to Iraq. I was in shock that my daughter went to school with another military kid. And although they are out now, that little girl will always be a military kid. And that is when it hit me, being a NG family is like a secret society. We walk among civilians, we look like civilians, but we serve our country with everything we have.
We talked the rest of the party, swapping our own war stories of birthing those deployment babies alone, 1 am trips to the ER with one sick kid, one tired kid, and no daddy, and of course the "well my fill in the blank broke the day after he left" stories. As military wives, past and present, we can look back on those and laugh. We share the struggles, tears, and now laughter. It was like an instant connection to her, like we were just old friends. It amazes me how quickly military wives can connect. Its like our souls were made to help each other through this crazy life we chose.
Military wives are like a hidden sisterhood. We can be complete strangers and the instant you find out what you share, it is like your hearts are connected forever. Being a military wive is a feeling of pride, fear, anger, hurt, love, that only other military wives can understand. They get why knocks on the door or 3 am phone calls can scare you, why you are suddenly so computer savvy with a webcam, how you learned to fix that leaky pipe, how your kids know what a true hero is (and nope he doesn't wear a cape). You almost have an unspoken language, a language that comforts all your fears and shares all your stories. I am so thankful for this sisterhood, it has always served me well. I think its part of our duty to our country and I proudly serve.
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