Editor's note: Friday is Military Spouse Appreciation Day. We count down with a blog each day from our own dedicated staff members as they recount why they love this crazy life.
I sat down at my computer a few days ago to tell you why I love being a military spouse. I wrote something about the opportunities this life has given me, and the people I have met and the friends I have made.
And then, I threw it out.
I pondered telling you about my kids, and how they have survived this life and been made stronger for it. I considered writing about the pride I feel as a military spouse. I thought about telling tales of hard deployments and marital strife.
None of it felt right.
None of it was completely true.
I am a military spouse, yet I rarely call myself that. And I especially never call myself an “Army wife.” There’s nothing wrong with those labels, but they are just that.
Labels.
In the minds of many, those labels conjure up one of two images: The gung-ho patriotic spouse who decorates her house in red, white and blue and can fix her dishwasher after watching a single YouTube video, raise three well-behaved kids on her own, work out at the gym and look gorgeous, every single day.
Or, we are broken people, struggling to keep our marriages together and our minds sane, trying to save our kids from a life scarred by deployments and danger, questioning our nation’s leadership and barely keeping it together, every single day.
But in reality there is a gray area where most of us live, caught between the pride and honor and self-reliance of being a military spouse, and the heartbreak and struggle and doubt that come along with this life.
Most days I love being a military spouse. But a lot of days, I don’t.
This isn’t the exact life I envisioned for myself, but it is one I’m glad and grateful to have.
It’s a life that has forced me to look inward, to grow up, to be independent, and to realize that sometimes it’s OK to be not OK.
It’s about realizing that the gray area is a pretty good place to be.
The gray area is where we lose ourselves, and find ourselves.
It’s where we raise a glass to celebrate each other, or put out our arms and cry with each other. It’s where we question why we ever agreed to this life, and thank our lucky stars that we did.
There are still things waiting for us in the gray area. Things we haven’t yet experienced. Things that will lift us up, or break our hearts, and put us on a roller coaster ride of expectation, fulfillment and disappointment.
No day there is ever the same.
The gray area makes us better, stronger, wiser.
It shows us the good, the bad, the ugly – in ourselves and everyone around us.
That’s what I love most about being a military spouse: the unknown, the experiences survived and thrived in, and the ones yet to come.
For all its hardships and laughter and sadness and elation, I love the life I live in the gray area.
