Nine months.
It has been nine months since my husband and I packed up our lives and
headed to The South. It has been 13 ½
months since we got married. Neither of
these huge life events were exactly what we expected. My husband, J, and I have fairly frequent
conversations about how nothing that happens in life is like how it happens in
the movies. Marriage, relationships,
sex, moving to the coast, none of it is like what you see in the movies. Real life is messy! It is hard and exhausting, but it is real-and
I would much rather live a real, honest life, than live a lie that looks like
what people want to see.
Don’t get me wrong-being married to J has been
wonderful! It is lovely to be able to
face life’s challenges and excitements with someone that you love, and loves
you in return. The first several months
of marriage were pretty blissful-kind of like the movies. We were surrounded by the love and support of
many friends and family. We first met in
a community group at our church, and everyone was able to witness how our
relationship took shape and bloomed over a couple years. We were spoiled to have such loving,
committed relationships around us. And,
we were able to share our love and joy with all of them at our wedding-such
fun! Along with all of the glory, we have also had
some difficulties. It has been a wild ride for us so far. I became an official military spouse, and had
4 moves within the first six months of marriage, but each transition has helped
us to learn how to trust and lean on each other and how to trust in God and
lean on him for our source of strength.
We have been learning how to “leave and cleave” and how to survive while
separated from all our family and friends.
We have been learning how to love each other despite our sinfulness and
how to offer grace to each other, and accept the grace that God offers to us.
Since J is in the Air Force, I have a feeling that
moving and transition will become a regular part of my life. In fact, we will have to move every 2-3
years, per Air Force rules, which makes it difficult to plan very far ahead in
life or to know how to make roots. The
temptation is to focus on building roots wherever we currently are, but time is
precious and fleeting and I am thinking that it would be a better plan to root
our relationship in the Lord, rather in a location. Moving to the Gulf Coast has been hard for
us. Neither of us have been overly
enamored with the location-it is hot, humid, and they have some really big bugs
here. Eww. The tea is beyond super sweet, and for
someone who doesn’t like seafood-it’s not the best location for culinary
delights.
However, I think the thing that has been most
difficult for us is our current lack of community. I don’t think either of us realized just how
good we had it in St. Louis. We were
surrounded by friends and mentors that we could trust with anything and we were
never lacking for social interaction or engagement. It is one of those things where you don’t
realize how good (or how important) what you have is until it is gone. Since I am new to the whole military spouse
thing (let’s face it, I’m still new to the whole being a spouse thing!) I have
tried being what I thought other military spouses are like so that I could fit
in. I act proper, and polite, offer to
cook meals for others, smile lots, dote on my husband, etc. The problem with this is that it doesn’t work
well when that is not who you really are.
I am much more of a say-it-like-it-is, rough around the edges, but will love
your pants off kind of gal.
Community and connection, in my opinion, should be
about living life and getting in the nitty gritty of honest living with those
around you. It doesn’t look pretty (like
in the movies) but it is real, and life changing, and lifesaving! Although we haven’t found that down here yet,
we continue to search for a church, and for a community where we can do
that. Knowing we will move again within
the next 1-2 years doesn’t mean I get to opt out on relationships where I
am. It means that even more so-I need to
be intentional about keeping rooted to God, and loving others well. I need to work to love my husband well, and
to love my neighbors, co-workers, and fellow military spouses. Not just because they are all deserving of love,
but because community is essential to our survival. Community provides a way for God to love on
us and for us to share his love with others.
It is how we can grow and stretch individually and as a couple. It is how we can have peace, hope, and joy in
the midst of difficult and stressful circumstances and the good ones!
~Written by Nicole Morgan M.A., LPC
