MILITARY Archives | Page 2 of 5

Military Life | Does it Ever Phase You Anymore?

February 19, 2016 · MILITARY · 5 Comments

As I’m sitting here being idle with my thoughts. I start thinking about this military life and all that it brings. Just like anything there’s always up and downs, but lately I just wonder if anyone ever gets numb to this type of life. There’s no rhyme or reason to this, but simply just emptying my mind and writing everything out.

My husband works on a submarine and it’s a norm for him to be gone or underway for the better part of every year. There’s plenty alone time, you’re essentially a married woman living a single life.

Dinner for one.

Endless good-byes and see you when I see you.

Spending more time with friends than I do my husband.

Answering the many questions of, “where’s your husband at”
or “is he traveling with you?”

Things just getting darn right lonely.

It’s not done with just deployments; there’s still plenty of sea time between deployments.

We don’t have any children, but I can’t even imagine what it would be like to constantly tell your child where their father is.

For me, I eventually get numb to it all or it doesn’t phase me that much anymore is a better way to describe it.

And to be honest, I have no idea if that’s a good or bad thing.

Or even when someone tells me that I’m so strong for dealing with this? Am I? I don’t know.

All I know is that I love my husband and would do anything for him. I support him 100% and just want him to be happy with every aspect of his life. And he does and wants the same for me. All the bad/tough parts of living the military life is all worth it in the end because of who will always be there when those bad/tough moments are done. Isn’t that enough? To be honest, it probably isn’t for a lot of people. But it is for me, I rather have my husband in any way that I can than not at all. Where emails become our lifeline for communication, facebook messaging during port calls, or even a short phone call to revise our magical wishlist.

To the outside perspective, this seems crappy to deal with. I’m ok with it. That’s my life and it has become my new norm since we’ve been together. Like I mentioned earlier, it just doesn’t phase me anymore.

You just do it.

Military | Deployment with the Silent Service

February 10, 2016 · MILITARY · 8 Comments

When it comes to the other communities and how their deployments are, I really have no idea. Today, I thought I’d do a little Q & A type of post about what our normal is in the submarine community. For my non-military affiliated readers, A is in the US Navy and works on a submarine. Yep, it’s insane and I still have no idea how they manage it. To me, they’re all crazy, but someone has to do it! [Read more…]

Life | My Deployment Thing

January 27, 2016 · LIFE, MILITARY · 10 Comments

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve realized that there’s some sort of activity that I latch onto, to help me get through a deployment. For our first deployment, hiking was my thing and it truly helped ease things. Not only was it a great workout, but it definitely took my mind off of missing A so much. This time around, barre has definitely been my thing. [Read more…]

Military | Making Friends

January 23, 2016 · MILITARY · 11 Comments

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine and fellow military spouse asked me if it was easy for me to make friends. And I responded with, “I think so?”. I definitely had to think about it a little bit and then I went on and shared my many experiences when it came to making friends every time we moved. Let me just say it wasn’t always the happiest of memories when it came to making friends. [Read more…]

Military | So … how’s deployment?

January 20, 2016 · MILITARY · 9 Comments

I haven’t really brought up deployment that much, just the fact that I’ve been trying to stay busy and missing the crap out of my husband, there hasn’t been a whole lot to share. This holiday season was our first one apart in six years and it was oddly OK. They were in port during that time, so I got to talk to him quite a bit during that week. With spending my holidays back at home with my family, it was a different holiday season already. As much as I missed him this holiday season, I was happy to spend time with my family. [Read more…]

Adventure | Moloka’i : Day Three

September 8, 2015 · LIFE, MILITARY · 1 Comment

Day three was another early day, we broke camp at about 6:30am and packed everything up before we started our day. As more days went on of camping, we quickly learned that we should invest in our own camping gear. We had quite a few issues with the tent that we rented from base, which became such a nuisance as the trip went on. I will say for the most part, it did keep us dry during the evenings since the the last two nights of our adventure were wet ones. But I think I’ll write up a post about what we packed for this trip and lessons we learned for our next camping trip. [Read more…]

Adventure| Back from Vacay

August 28, 2015 · ADVENTURE, LIFE, MILITARY · 1 Comment

And we’re back! I have so much to share with you guys, so it’ll be a busy weekend of editing photos and putting some awesome posts together. Originally, our plan was to fly back home on Wednesday morning, but due to the crazy weather (hurricane season, anyone?) we had to cut our trip a couple days short. Surprisingly, we weren’t too bummed out by because we’re pretty certain that we’ll head to finish the rest of the planned vacation way ahead in the future. We joked about how we’ll probably have little ones by then, so it would make for a very interesting and memorable adventure! [Read more…]

Life|A Year From Now

August 14, 2015 · LIFE, MILITARY · 1 Comment

Lately, I can’t stop thinking about what the future will bring. And it’s definitely the fact that we’re so close to the next chapter, my hopes keep rising that it’ll be here sooner. As some of you know, that’s definitely not the case.

Where will we be?

What will I be doing?

What crazy adventure will life and the military take us on?

Will we be happy with what was brought on our doorstep?

The questions are just endless and the waiting game isn’t always my favorite. It’s crazy to me that being a part of the military life, so many decisions are out of our control. I don’t think that I’ve ever sat back and really pondered about it. A lot of decisions are based around it, like choosing which job to have, when to start a family, the list goes on. It’s not exactly a normal life, but it is ours.

I know that a lot of things will happen, but it’s just the when that really gets to me. If we lived in a world where everything was working and never had an issue, we’d have new orders and getting to move around the holidays. And that’s just a few months away, but as of right now, that won’t be happening. It’s been bittersweet to see a lot of our friends getting ready to make moves with the next chapter of their Navy career. We’re ultimately happy for them, but we’re just as eager to start that next chapter.

As time keeps ticking, we’re losing our window to put in our dream sheet for the 1st quarter. And it makes the impending delay that more dreadful and unmotivating. Lately, we’ve just been hearing bad and rather upsetting news and zero good news. For now, I’m staying positive and hopeful, but some days (like today) just outright suck.

I’m sorry this is a whiny and morbid post for a Friday, but all of this has been a constant in my mind. I’m not asking for pity or anything, it’s just one of those days where I need to write things out to get them off my brain.

I know I’m not the only one that has had these moments, please share them below!

Military | The Way We Choose to Handle Things

July 24, 2015 · MILITARY · 5 Comments

You know, real talk, sometimes things that happen with this military life can be a ‘B’ and you know exactly what I’m talking about.

How about getting orders and having them change quite a few times? Even that time when everything’s all packed and you’re nearly ready to go and BAM, new ones. Or that time during deployment, when they’re almost done and then you find out they’ve been extended for a few more months? How about that time when you’re nearly months away from getting new orders, but were told that your significant other will have to stay a bit longer than expected?

Now some of these I haven’t experienced personally, but I’m sure it has happened to several of you out there. And probably with different scenarios, but we all have mutual feelings when these things happen; frustration, anger, anxiety, the list goes on.

As frustrating as things can be, we have the power to control how we feel and handle whatever is to come. Within the past year, it has been quite the roller coaster of emotions and just getting this constant feed of change after change. My head was all over the place and at some points it felt like I was going to explode. After some time and long talks with my mom, I realized that I have to resort back to my old ways of taking things as they come, and to not stress about it.

The one thing that we have to realize is that we really have no control over these changes, they’ll happen at any given notice and that’s just the way it is.

We have no control over these changes, they'll happen at any given notice and that's just the way it is. Click To Tweet

And I know I’m not alone on this one, but we sometimes bring all over our frustrations onto our significant others. It’s like we just dump it on them and it’s not fair to them at all. They’re definitely more frustrated than we are and it’s their job. What happens to them is pretty much out of their control and most of the time, they can’t change the outcome of things. I’ve had so many discussions at home with my husband and I could always see how it affected him, but he always accepted things and moved on. And that’s because he had to.

I, as a wife, am my husband’s #1 supporter. It’s my job to be there for him, to be understanding of all the curve balls, and to not blame him for any of this. He’s already dealing with the madness of work, so he definitely doesn’t need any of my frustrations to top things off.

Lately, I have the mentality of always preparing for the worst, so that I won’t be disappointed in the end. And it has worked out so well for me, I have no expectations, my hopes won’t be shot down because I already prepared for it. It’s so easy to get caught up in the mess, but you just have to step back and take a breather.

Truth be told, his job is his #1, it’s his duty to our amazing country. He made the choice to be in the military and I made my choice to be by his side through the thick and thin. I will always support him in whatever he chooses, period.

Yes, I rant and complain (my mom gets an earful) about things all the time especially about our military life, it’s natural. But I always choose to accept it and move on from it. I just don’t want to spend all my energy on things that we can’t change.

The more we talk about something, the more power we give it to affect us.

The more we talk about something, the more power we give it to affect us. Click To Tweet

For all of you, that’s waiting for whatever’s next, it’s coming and you’ll get there. It may not be as soon as you want it to, but it will happen because it has to.

Why I Don’t Blog About Military Life Too Often

July 16, 2015 · LIFE, MILITARY · 8 Comments

As time goes on, I’ve realized that I wouldn’t exactly identify as a military blogger, since I don’t post too many military-related posts. And I have quite a few reasons behind that.

I follow so many amazing military bloggers and I’ve learned so much through all of their experiences. I’m a huge fan of reading about all that they have to say. And then I think about what I might have to offer and there’s not a whole lot that comes to mind or at least, none that I can talk enough about.

Lets make a list :

Not sure what to say about it | I do have a handful of military life posts, but most of them are revolved around deployment and getting through being apart from the mister.
Negative Nancy | I definitely try to keep things on the positive side especially when it comes to my blog. Recently, things haven’t been on the up and up, so I have zero nice things to say about all of that. I rather keep that to myself. Lets just say we’re both eager to be on shore duty, whenever that day comes.
Writing something that hasn’t been written already | There are many military bloggers out there, so I find it hard to write about something that hasn’t been written before. But if I ever have something to write, you bet I will.

It’s funny that I’m writing about this because in the next few weeks, I’ll be writing a few military life posts, but they’re mainly updates and things to hopefully look forward to. I realized that I’m pretty overdue with that.

What about you guys? Have you kind of felt the same way?

@wanderingmalia