It has occurred to me recently that there are a few things that I either haven’t talked about in a long while in this little blog of mine, or I have totally not talked about at all. I’m going to try to dig into those subjects in this mini series of “things unspoken.” Please bare with me as I try to find the words, I know myself well enough to know that while talking about these things is good, it doesn’t make it easy.
I was sitting at Olive Garden talking to dear friends and somehow my military background came out. For those of you who read this blog because you’ve known me for years, this is not a new fact. But in the past couple of years my military life has been overshadowed by college and Peace Corps and the bubble of the world I currently live in, plus my Dad has been retired for almost four years now. However, once upon a time, I was a military brat. It was 21 years and it was all I’ve known.
Back to Olive Garden.
So, I’m sitting there spitting out bare bones facts. Military jargon. Deployments. Moves. All of the schools, the hellos and goodbyes, the homecoming I got to miss school for, life on base, life as a civilian.
You want to hear some stories? Talk to a former military brat. We know a lot. We see a lot. And our perspective on the world is magical. Why? Because we grew up seeing both sides. We know the sacrifice and yet we believe. Duty, honor, loyalty. Those aren’t hollow wishes, those are the pillars we all stand on.
When my brother was in elementary school my Dad took his class on a tour of the aircraft carrier he was on (my brother was therefore the coolest) as a school field trip. When I was in fifth grade my siblings and I sat at the pier for hours waiting for the ship to come in after deployment and started playing UNO (the ONLY game the four of us can play) once the sun came up and ended up in the local paper.
My Mom used to create these paper chains and we would take a picture of my Dad in full uniform and move his picture down the chain as we got closer and closer to his homecoming.
I remember living in Seattle and he was due back just before Christmas. The three of us were still young, all in elementary school, so my Mom went all out for the holiday. I’ll never forget it, we show up in the Christmas tree lot and we aren’t there thirty seconds before my Mom looks at us and says, “What if we just got the biggest tree here?” We all looked at her in total disbelief. This isn’t how we roll. But she smiled and it was like some big secret, we were going to get the biggest tree so that it would be beautiful for when it would be the five of us again. I don’t think my Mom ever second guessed that choice. I wish I could remember the looks on all of our faces.
I remember loving dusk, when the sun would go down and living on base you could hear the trumpets of Colors, when all the flags are brought down and everyone stops and salutes. I can see it, us driving up the hill away from the base, aircraft carrier behind me, traffic light in front of me, towards home we went, the sounds fading into the background.
Being a military brat is a way of life. It’s a fraternity that few join. It’s not just a destination or a career choice, it is most definitely a lifestyle.
It’s a community. It’s waking up to your neighbor mowing the grass of the entire block because she was feeling empowered and knew that your battlegroup was out. It’s the Marine across the street explaining to inquiring minds all the tattoos while a bunch of elementary students ohhh and ahhhh. It’s Moms getting up early to make sure that everything runs as smoothly as humanly possible--dogs are walked, lunches packed, breakfast is ready, play dates are planned. It’s the dreaded spring conversation of what move will happen this summer.
I have all the stories. I have fond memories that make me smile and I have the sad ones. It was hard work, it was a lot of growing up fast, it was duty and honor and respect. It was lessons learned and humans molded. It was uniforms and balls, wives clubs and commissary Saturdays. It was military IDs and having a parent whose job you never really could explain (I will have to tell you the turkey story later).
I used to sit on the bus and look at the window of the suburban life around us and dream about staying put. I would imagine having grandparents at soccer games and friends for years. I thought about living in the “house you grew up in,” of having the same bad wallpaper and creaky stairs, of having so many people know you being a teenager would be hard because you could never do anything scandalous.
I didn’t really get that. And if you had asked me then I would have told you I got the short end of the stick. After all, I didn’t ask to be a military brat.
But here I am. Eating my selfish teenage words. Just like my Mom said I would. (Note: My mother is ALWAYS right. Except when she picks a winner in The Bachelor, for that I am always right. :)
It was hard. But really it was different. It was our kind of different.
So yes, I grew up all over. I’m not “from” anywhere. I don’t have a childhood home. My friends are on three continents in about 5 time zones.
It’s a crazy, beautiful life. And so I get to blow people’s minds with my stories, and then promptly go back to eating my Olive Garden breadstick.
And just as it turns out, I will probably never live in one house, or down the road from my parents--what can I say? Old habits die hard.
PS-- Go here for one of my favorite military family blogs.
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| Pictures from my road trip a couple of weeks ago |
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