I have learned a lot of things in this life. There are the silly things that your grandmother tells you—never go out without a clean pair of underwear on and a quarter to call home, or never leave the house without either lipstick or mascara on. I have learned that no matter how much you fight, your sister is and always will be your sister and will always have your back. I have learned that while I thought I knew what love was, I didn’t until I had my first child and then I fell in love again with my second. BUT there are things in life that grandma couldn’t tell me, things my sister couldn’t take care of, and things in life that I have learned that you just have to let go sometimes.
I have been a military child my entire life. A “dependent.” I wouldn’t trade that for anything. We were lucky; my dad moved around with his job, but we always stayed at home in Georgia, five minutes up the road from my nana and papa. I didn’t get uprooted every three to four years. Sure my dad deployed probably more than most—I mean heck he was gone three years straight and back in the time when I was a teenager that was not so common. In Today’s military, its too common. I was one of the “lucky families.” I had friends that were sisters and family that was always there. Well change all of that in 2002.
My fiancé at the time joined the military—I was happy for him. We moved from Georgia to Alaska (a beautiful place, by the way). Leaving home and everything I know was a big step into adulthood and a scary one at that. Those four years taught me that marriage is tough and parenthood is war... And that while you don’t have your blood family; you do have your extended military family. It’s the friends that become family then. The friends who hold your hand while you are in pre-term labor. The ones who sleep at your house to take of you while your husband is gone. The ones who claim your children as theirs and love you as their own too. The marine members and air force members who don’t even knock to come in your house—they just walk in because they can.
Being away from home taught me what true friendship is and what it is to be a true friend as well. But, in the back of your mind you know that one day you will have to say goodbye. It is then those friends who hold you tight and cry with you as you say goodbye, possibly forever. Then you have to start over again.
So here you are: a new base and new neighbors and new people. You make friends, you trust them and you take them in and treat them with so much respect. You’re thinking that again you have found good people, but soon you realize they are not. You trusted too soon and too easily. Let me tell you this: South Dakota is not Alaska when it comes to generosity of people. I’ve learned that you have to make friends quick because soon all of us will be moving on—so you’re evaluation isn’t as good as it should be. The people that you thought were your friends are not and in times of grief in your personal family, in times of death and pain, they are spreading things that aren’t true or talking about you and cussing you out. I have learned from this base like I did in Alaska. This base has taught me that sometimes it is best to stick to yourself and take care of your family. They are definitely more important. It makes you realize that the long distance phone calls to Alaska or text messages and e-mails are your true friends. The ones who cry with you when your family member dies, who call to check on you and make sure you are okay. Not the ones who say oh well get over it. It is those people that cause too much stress and that I don’t need in life. They cause rifts in my relationship to my husband a strain I don’t need.
