cozy up with you: living your military story in a non-military world
I was recently on a writing retreat with a group of creatives whom I love and respect very much. As much as I enjoyed the time away from our kids and the chaos of everyday military life, I noticed some things. There are moments when I need to be okay with who I am and where I am. I need to learn to cozy up with me, just the way I am.
As military wives we can spend so much time in our own squad - our husband, our kids, our families, our small milspouse network. This is not a bad thing, but there is an entire world outside our bubbles.
Here on this blog, we chat about life as a military wife and everything that comes with it. We talk about service, loneliness, commitment, sacrifice, community, and uncertainty. Overall, we’re BA when it comes to navigating our way through messy situations. We know how to get things done when the walls are crumbling. We know how to help another military wife through tough times. We can learn how to PCS. We can learn how to use Tricare. We can learn everything there is to know about ID cards, commissaries, and OPSEC. But those are surface level basics.
Learning the ins and outs of daily military life is surface level. To go deeper means ensuring we are living military wife life well and confidently. This is hard soul-work. We must look inside ourselves so we can find our place in what feels like his world.
On the retreat, I caught myself glancing sideways several times. It felt very much like I was standing before a busy street and checking my surroundings before I took action.
My non-military friends were chatting about dropping their kids off with their mother-in-law neighbor and planning vacations years in advance. This is nowhere near my reality as a military wife. I started to get jealous and internally justify why my decisions were forced to be different.
I screamed at my jacked up brain, “For the love, Heather. Stop! Be okay with who you are and your own military story.”
Throughout the weekend there were moments when I felt unsure. Hear me out, I’m not talking about navigating social situations with non-military friends. I’m talking about the hard work we must do as military wives to be okay with our lifestyle even when others don’t understand.
As I continue to serve military wives through this blog and my social media, I’m learning how to break through the surface and dive deeper. We have to be okay with this and as painful as it may be sometimes, we must be willing to do the hard work.
Your civilian friends and family don’t understand the whole picture. They may see your Tricare frustration post on Facebook or your polished picture announcing your next move, but they’ll never fully grasp the depth of what it means to live this sacrificial life. We must do the hard work of cozying up with ourselves and our lifestyle so we can stand up for our own decisions.
I recently talked about this a little on Elisa Preston’s podcast, Praise Through It Together. She asked how to combat criticism from non-military family and friends. She also asked how to stand firm in your decisions as a military family when non-military people don’t understand or agree with your decisions.
This is the hard soul-work I’m talking about.
As a military family, we live in a bubble sometimes. We can get familiar with our daily acronyms and forget no one else knows what we’re talking about. We can think living husbandless is normal and forget it isn’t everyone’s reality.
You don’t have to help them understand.
You don’t have to prove your life is harder than theirs.
You don’t have to justify why you live the way you do.
You can be okay with your lifestyle.
It’s one thing to come up against someone on social media commenting on your Tricare frustration post saying, “Well, you signed up for this.”
It’s an entirely different thing to stand up for your decisions when your non-military extended family challenges why you’re doing what you’re doing.
If you have to make a hard decision as a military family to live separately for a time because one child is finishing school and your husband has orders somewhere else, great. It is the best decision for you and your family and don’t you dare back down.
Cozy up with yourself. Be okay with who you are and where you are.
If you’ve been around here for a minute, you know I rarely leave you with heady concepts and no practicals. So, what does it look like to cozy up with yourself?
Stop looking sideways. Comparison will always steal your joy. If you are trying to live someone else’s life, you’ll never feel confident in your own decisions.
Focus on what matters most. Cozying up with who you are and where you are in your uncertain military life means weighing what matters most. This also means you’ll have to let go of and sacrifice some things to make room for what matters.
Get uncomfortable. Spend time asking yourself and your family the hard questions.
Silence the distractions. Spend time each week in a quiet posture. You’ll never know who you truly are with your phone in your hands.
Stand firm. Once you become more and more comfortable with who you are as a military wife, hold on tight. Don’t let the outside world wreck your foundation.
This will not be an overnight success story. But with persistence and time, you can live your military story in a non-military world confidently.