My experience with being a military wife

You could also call this post "How a recent dinner party went for me"

My husband and I were invited to a dinner party last night. He was tasked to bring a fruit platter. I had an old plastic platter left over, so instead of spending $30 on a new one, I just went out and bought some fruit, cut it up, and put it in the platter. This has no bearing on the story, but I was proud of how it turned out. :)
What would have cost me $30 ended up costing me $8, and I had 3/4 of a watermelon, 2 heads of broccoli, a nearly-whole bag of carrots, and 1/2 a cantaloupe left over for me to enjoy. I ended up using a yogurt that was unopened but expiring soon as a dipping sauce for the middle portion. ANYway. :)

So, we went to this dinner party. I don't know anyone there (they're all my husbands friends), and I'm feeling super-awkward. I try to stick to my husband's side because I tend to be shy until I warm up to the atmosphere.

Three people there were military wives. What did we talk about? Here are the standard questions every military wife must ask the other when having a conversation for the first time and they're usually asked in this order:

• Where are you from?  (Chances are VERY good that you're all not originally from where you're stationed at the moment.)
• Do you like it?
• How long have you guys been here so far?
• How long have you guys been married? (In my experience, enlisted tend to spend less time dating so when you hear an Officer's wife say 2 years, you might bet they've been together for years longer than that. This isn't always true, but it's just what I've observed.)
• How many times has your husband deployed?
• For how long?
• Were you married when he was deployed?
• Did you have kids then?
• Do you work? (Most don't so things start to go downhill from here...)
• What does your husband do? (This is probably a boring answer, too. It's probably something like "Work in the motor pool" or "He's infantry"... okay and that means what?)
• (All of the military wives there were breastfeeding new babies. I had my 16 month-old who is still breastfeeding. I suppose in this case you could add:)
• How long do you plan to breastfeed? (or) Have you had any trouble with it yet?
• Are you guys co-sleeping (bed-sharing)? 

People like to pretend there is some sisterhood in being a military wife. We're all as different as the general population. It's just a bunch of people thrown together in an unusual circumstance and we have to get along.

It's been a really lonely time for me. I'm a couple-thousand miles away from home. I have no family here and I was super close to my family before I moved. I miss them and I miss my home state and the climate there. I guess I'm homesick.

The friends that I've made here so far have moved away in the short time I've known them because they got stationed somewhere else or got out of the military. We all pretend we'll keep in touch, but it never happens that way (also, I'm not on FB anymore, anyway!... that makes keeping in touch a lot less likely).

I guess I'm feeling jaded with the whole military thing. I've been at this for 7 years now (a girlfriend for most of it). Anyway, I think you really have to be cut out for this lifestyle. I don't mind moving a lot. That's actually pretty cool... getting to start over. Being able to be a teeny, tiny bit more open about my religion is also kinda nice. I still don't wear my pentacle when I know I'll be around people who know me or my husband. But if we go to the neighboring town a few miles away and I'm feeling adventurous then I'll wear a Pagan-themed necklace. I get tired of hiding.

Aaaand there you have it. That's pretty much it. That sounds like a hoot, doesn't it? Like a really whimsical time, eh? Don't you want to be a military wife now?

Putting Curses on People

Totally not worth it!

I'm a firm believer that if you put a curse on someone, that shit will come back at you--and HARD. Just don't do it!

First off, you never know if it's going to work in the way you intend. For a person to be cursed they have to believe they have a curse on them. That would mean that you'd have to tell them that you cursed them. This is problematic in polite society. If they don't believe in curses, your curse won't work. It's as simple as the Law of Attraction (however "simple" that really is).

Secondly, if you're Wiccan, you believe in the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three. Whatever you send out comes back to you three-fold. Cursing someone could spell disaster for you. Even if you don't believe in the rule of three, chances are you believe in some sort of "What Goes Around Comes Around"  philosophy. This is reason enough not to curse someone.

But what if you curse someone into a situation that they are eventually happy about? Like "I put a curse on her that her boyfriend would cheat on her and leave her." Well, what if that happens and she ends up meeting some hunky astronaut? Man, wouldn't you feel like an idiot? 

My experience with Family Readiness Group (FRG)

I hope this post isn't too boring. I don't think it will be.

So, Family Readiness Group (FRG)... or as my husband likes to say "Families Ruined by Gossip." I'll tell you a little about my experience with FRG,  but first a little about how I see the world. :)

Okay, I'm an idealist. I see *potential.* I see possibilities. If there is the potential for something to be
awesome and great, I definitely see it. Trust me, I do. I'm a fantastic visionary.

With FRG the possibilities are definitely there. It has the potential to be a really great organization. With the right FRG leaders and the right volunteers, it could be awesome.

The (long ago) past:

When I met my husband I was a wet-behind-the-ears girl. I was in college, I was in love. And I was a girlfriend. A military girlfriend. My husband was deployed when I met him, so let me tell you what this means to military girlfriends. It means we don't get any information. It means we don't get any rights. It means we don't get any phone calls telling us when our deployed military loved one is coming home.

Even if he asks for his FRG to disseminate this information to his girlfriend, she won't get any. If he signs a waiver stating that she can receive information about his movements, she won't get any. 

Fast-forward a few years.

We've moved to another station (I'm still a fucking girlfriend). I was invited to the battalion (BN) Executive
Officer's (XO's) house by the BN XO's wife where she was having a FRG mixer. She was a wonderful lady, very nice and sweet. There were military spouses there. That's right. Spouses. This is the key word here. One of the spouses asked me "So, how long have you and your husband been married?" I said "Oh, we're
not married yet. But we've been through a deployment together and we've been together for 3 years." At that point no one wanted to talk to me. I didn't know what had just happened, but they all clammed up. Later, as things were winding down,  they made it very, very clear that they were not interested in speaking to me again. One of them said "We all host FRG events at our houses on base. When I host the next one at my house I'll have everyone bring pictures of their wedding day and we can talk about it together." Then she looked at me. "Well, you can bring a picture of your boyfriend and you or something." *giggle*

Bitch.

And it was then that I knew why I wasn't being accepted by these women. They were all in the "Military Wives" club and I was not a member to this oh-so-exclusive club.

So, I sized them up really easily after that. They were a bunch of petty, holier-than-thou women who had no self-worth. They had so little self-worth that they had to ride the coat-tails of their husbands for their self-annointed importance. "I'm a Military Wife. Toughest Job in the Military." or "My husband's a First Sergeant. What's your husband's rank?" 

Fast forward a few more years:

My *HUSBAND* (yep, that's right, after 5 years and TWO year-long deployments as his girlfriend he decided to marry me) got a command. I was asked if I wanted to be the FRG leader. I say yes. My, my how the tables have turned! Given my less-than-stellar experience with my husband's previous two FRGs, I take this one on. Like I said, I'm an idealist. Well, my husband's new command doesn't have an existing FRG structure. The exiting commander didn't take the time to nurture and grow it, and there's nothing there. So, we built it from scratch! We got a treasurer, and events coordinator, key callers to disseminate information to the spouses, a newsletter editor (that's right, we created a newsletter!), the works! I was soooo on top of my game. It was amazing. I was a great FRG leader. No need for modesty here. I think I was pretty good. I included everyone. Girlfriends and boyfriends, fiancees and fiances, wives and husbands.

And I thought to myself *THIS* is how a FRG should be run.

The FRG was my husband's legacy. After he left command, the FRG continued on, built on itself, became more involved. This was something to be proud of.

The lesson here is that the FRG is a mixed bag. You're gonna have your douchebags and your bitches. You're gonna have your awesomely organized FRGs. It really just depends.

I should mention that the FRG is an all-volunteer organization. The military does NOT pay ANYONE to do any of the work involved in making a FRG great. If you have a gripe about the FRG, don't just sit on your ass and complain. At that point you're only part of the problem.

GET INVOLVED. Or as Gandhi said "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Let's pretend we won't die

Maybe I've been out of the "TV World" for too long. My husband and I haven't had cable TV for... 6 years? We have satisfied our need for television with Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon prime over the years. For a long time we didn't even have a TV. We just had a projector that we'd set up if we wanted to watch something and play it on the blank wall in our house. Now we have a huge TV and sound system. It's nice. But even with this big TV and nice sound system, some days I don't watch it at all.

Anyway, as I was saying, I've been out of the TV World for a long time--so long that I feel like I've awakened.

I see Lemmings..... *says in scared voice with frosty breath* They're everywhere.

Occasionally I'll catch a Youtube video with an ad on it in the beginning because of the video's popularity. When I see ads now, I really think about them. Not in a "I want that product/service" kind of way. I think about WHY they're there. I think about the world as it relates to the ad... and how the ad relates to the world. And I've come to a few conclusions

1. Advertisers don't want us to think about death or dying. 
2. Expounding on my first point, they always use young, healthy, "beautiful," and fit people to really drive this point home. Life is awesome if you're young and beautiful, right?!
3. Advertisers are training people to think they need to constantly improve themselves to conform to society. This really makes sense, of course. It wouldn't be effective if their product didn't make you want to buy it. But I think this goes deeper than that. It touches a subconscious nerve that people don't even realize is there. 
4. They're distracting from what's *really* going on in the world. There is so much to distract us today. 

I'm not saying I'm this enlightened being that knows everything. I'm sure there are blinders that have been pulled over my eyes in some areas of my life. But some commercials are so obviously distractions (at least to me) from death/dying/aging that it is disturbing. Do people really think they aren't going to die? 

It always amazed me that people paid for cable service in which they are bombarded every 5 minutes with commercials. What a racket is that!! If you're going to watch TV, watch it without the commercials. In a 30 minute program you get 9 or 10 minutes of commercials now, right? Plus commercials in-between shows, too. And the commercials last 3-5 minutes, too. Annoying! 

I would love to be 10 years younger for just one day, my more naive and innocent self, able to go on living life and have nothing to worry about. There's nothing like having a child to really solidify your place in the world--to really make your mortality real. Now it's real. Now it's THERE. 

I almost envy the ignorance of youth. I'm not old by any stretch. But I'm not 18 anymore, either. Wouldn't that be nice, though? 

Just think of all of these distractions in your life as the Buddha's father. Buddha's father wanted to shield the Shayamani Buddha from all of the painful realities of the world by over-indulging him in harems and all of the pleasures of the world. When the Buddha would go outside of the gates of his home his father would order all of the old, sick, dying, and disabled people off of the streets so the Buddha would not see them. But this was a false world that his father had created for him.

I won't tell you the whole story of the Buddha. If you haven't read it, you should definitely read it for yourself. And I highly, highly recommend the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Please, read it!!

So, maybe you should kill your TV, too. Maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about with all of this then. In the meantime, if you're happy with your ignorance, I suppose the only thing to do would be to find out how much happier you'd be if you were awake. TV is an addiction that must be squelched. Get rid of the cable company... this intrusive, time-wasting commercial-touting liar that you've allowed into your home.  

Why I (kind of) quit Facebook and how my life is different for it

It's been about 2 months since I quit my main account. By "main account" I mean the account that had all of my friends from elementary school. Life is different now.

I was a member of a Stay At Home Mom group. I was a member of several local buy and sell groups. I was a member of a local military wives group. I was an admin for a few groups. Throughout the day (when I'd get bored) I would browse through my news feed. It wasn't really MY news feed, though, when I think about it. It was the news of random people who had added me out of some compulsive need to keep up with people they knew when they were in 2nd grade. I had people on there from middle school and high school, too. None of these people knew me. None of them cared about the pictures of my new baby. None of them cared when I got married. Sure, they clicked "like" on a status update or timeline event. "Congrats!" on big ones. It was the loneliest togetherness I've ever experienced. On top of all of this, I was no longer the person these people knew as a second-grader or even as a high schooler. I was an entirely different person on a different path. I felt as though I had to adhere to the way I used to be as to not surprise anyone with how much I've changed. I avoided people so they wouldn't notice the change if they were ever to talk to me. One day I realized that I saw one of my Facebook friends at the supermarket and I avoided her. I decided at that moment that if I didn't want to speak to you in public, you probably shouldn't be on my friends list. That was the first cut back. 

The second cut back came when I had literally sat in my chair all day long ignoring my baby to participate in some random drama of some women I don't know in a Stay At Home Moms' group. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say that I wasted a day of my life there. Around the same time one of my "friends" at the time posted this ---------->
on her wall. It showed up in my news feed. I cried. My baby had just turned a year old and it had flown by... all the while I wasted the first year on this fucking computer--this wretched addiction to Facebook. And then I made the decision. I let my IRL friends know that I was leaving (deactivating my account). I e-mailed those that I wanted to keep in contact with and quietly exited the scene.

I got the response you might expect. WHY the hell would I do that? Wouldn't I miss my friends? Short answer, it seems, is ... NO. I don't miss them. In fact, I can barely remember who I had on my friends list to begin with.

Okay, so why do I say I (kind of) quit Facebook? I say I kind of quit because I still have an alternate account. On this account I'm free to be a member of all kinds of weird hippy groups, pagan

groups, and whatever else. I find support for my religion in a way that I never knew possible as a Solitary Pagan. I find community with like-minded people. Because of this freedom, the freedom to be myself, I've made a couple of good friends who know the important things there are to know about me (my personality, my likes and dislikes, and of course, my religious path) and they don't judge me for it. One in particular I consider a soul-sister (you know who you are!).

I still find myself wasting time on Facebook every now and then, but I don't waste nearly as much time as I used to. When the baby is awake, I'm off of the computer--with the exception of the ten minutes it's taken to  write this blog. :)

So how is my life different now? I have more time. Oodles more time than I realized I had! It's very freeing. Once you realize there's this whole big world out there ready for you to explore everything is more exciting. The air is crisper, colors are more vivid, the sun shines a little brighter, the moon is more mysterious. The world is more beautiful. My baby is more beautiful. My life is more beautiful.

And that's my story for you. If you're thinking about giving up Facebook... well, maybe you should. If nothing else, do like I did. :)

How do you want to be remembered?

The irony that this is mentioned in my first post is not lost on me. You know nothing of me and here I am telling you how I want to be remembered. Maybe you'll read this blog and find that you agree with my assessment of how I want to be remembered. :) So here goes.

I want to be remembered as a good person... as a good mother, a good friend, a good wife, a good daughter and sister, a good human being. 

It's been so long since I've written anything "creative writing" style. Nursing school kind of beat that out of me. The writing there is so technically-driven. It makes things really difficult now, 2 years after graduation.


So, a little about me:

Well, from my blog title you pretty much know what there is to know in a nutshell. I'm the mother to a beautiful 14-month old. I sometimes still can't believe I have a child when I look at my precious baby. It's kind of surreal. And the responsibility is so heavy. But I wouldn't have it ANY other way. I love this baby so much.

I'm a Pagan. This is my newly found religion as of about 2 and a half years ago. I am a former-Christian, the non-denominational kind. I still consider myself a neophyte. I don't have much time to devote to my religion anymore with taking care of the baby, but I do love the path I'm on. I feel like I've come home. All of my life I've been very nature-oriented. I found solace amongst the trees, the breath of the gods in the wind, the primal power of thunderstorms exhilarated me. As a child I questioned by God didn't have a wife or why God needed genitalia at all if He was an all-mighty creator. Why would a creator need sexual reproductive organs? I never got a satisfactory answer.

My husband is an officer in the military. This makes being more open about my religion difficult. I don't want him to be discriminated against for my religious preferences. Being in charge (an officer) puts him in a unique position. He has to keep his nose clean. If that means that I can't be open, fine by me. Not that I would be open about my religion if that weren't the case. My parents are devout Christians and I would hate for them to find out. If they did end up finding out, I'm sure they would be quite upset. But I don't think they would be surprised. They've always known I've been different--that I've always questioned things. I've considered telling them, by why rock the boat? It's not necessary.


I'm not exactly sure what I'll write about. Maybe the Family Readiness aspect of the military life. Definitely my Paganism. Probably about motherhood. Probably not so much about being a nurse, as I'm a stay-at-home-mom right now. Maybe I will... who knows.




Images obtained from:
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