Living the dream

I've been asked many times about being a military spouse and a stay at home dad. When asked whether or not I enjoy/like/love this life, my answer has been different over the years. Being a military spouse most certainly has its ups and downs. Life is pretty good when our spouses are home, not so much when they are deployed. And adding children to the mix only serves to complicate things even more.

As many of you know from reading my past few blog posts I wasn't thrilled about our change of direction back in January, going from a three year assignment to Kansas City to a two year shot in San Angelo certainly knocked the wind out of my sails. As you know, we had a 3 year plan to would take us right up to retirement and finally settling down. I'll admit I was really looking forward to finally moving beyond our military career. Now that my wife will be taking a command, though, things got a lot more complicated. As you may or may not know, a successful battalion command opens up more doors to promotion and future assignments. Thus, a 3 year plan went out the window.

As with any major change that comes our way, it takes some time to get used to it, to adjust to a new direction. Having had more than 2 months to come to terms with our new direction, I can confidently say I'm ready to go. But, confession time that this is, I have to admit that my earlier desire to bolt from the military was based more on my mindset during a deployment than a clear headed examination of the facts. No one can be blamed for wanting to pull the proverbial rip cord when times are tough; however, major life decisions shouldn't be made when times are tough. Now that my wife has been home for the last few months, I can see that we probably won't be ready to retire at 20 years. There's still a lot my wife wants to do with her career and as long as she's capable, it would be wrong of me to demand her to end it simply because I get tired of the challenges that come with it.

Is this "living the dream"? Perhaps. We travel, we live in lots of different places. We meet tons of different people. And, just maybe, we make a difference in many of the places we go. It's not always easy, as the MANY deployments of the last 3-4 years have shown. But we've proved that we can survive and thrive during them. I know that I've learned a great deal about resilience simply by watching how my kids deal with adversity. Funny thing: they look at each PCS move as a new adventure, ready to see what is waiting for them at our new destination. They don't look around themselves and mourn all that they are leaving. Watching them, I feel a bit ashamed of how I feel about not wanting to move. The Bible talks about how we should have the faith and the midset of a child. I always applied that to simply a "child-like" believe in God. But the truth is it can also be applied to many other aspects of our lives. Every new move is an opportunity to them, not a hassle.

So that's how I'm going to approach this from now on. Each new move, each new assignment as an adventure. So bring it on, I'm ready to go!


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