My Life as an Air Force Wife

So, have you realized that my generation is getting divorced typically before their first year of marriage? I am curious as to how many of my high school peer's marriages lasted. I know of at least 7 couples off the top of my head who have gotten divorced. In all honesty there were times when I absolutely hated my life and my marriage. There was many a time when I was ready to call my marriage a bust and move on. I don't know if it was Jon leaving for the Air Force or God pulling me out of my selfish misery, but I eventually found out that leaving my husband hurt more than fighting with him. As I talked to God, whether it was Him talking to me or not, I realized that the promise that I made to God to stay with my husband through thick and thin was supposed to be a forever kind of thing. I can't tell you when my marriage got better or what exactly made it so wonderful. What I can tell you is that once my husband and I let God back into our marriage so many blessings fell upon us. It was as if every path we took was paved by God and walked by angels. There is something so beautiful about being "us" that it honestly hurts to think about being "me". Don't get me wrong, there is no reason to lose yourself or lose who you are and become who you think your spouse wants you to be. People change all of the time, that's part of life, but it's amazing when you change with someone. I'm not even sure how to put into words what I'm feeling right now. I'm angry, frustrated, and plain ol' pissed off that so many people my age are so extremely selfish that divorce is the only way out to them. Do you remember why you even got married? Do you remember what it felt like to be in love so deep that you smiled every time you looked at that special someone? To feel like dancing wherever you go? To miss that someone when they are gone for more than a minute? There is no reason that you can't feel that way now. Granted you probably can't feel that way all of the time, but you can feel that often. God will show you how. I'm not the perfect Christian and my faith is weak, but I know that my marriage was a hollow illusion until we let God in. Now you'd better believe it ain't gonna be easy. He will make sure that you go through your trials, just like everyone else. He will also help you through those trials so that when you get through them your marriage is stronger and so is your faith. Have you seen Fireproof? If not, I highly recommend it. A comment is made that I have seen firsthand and I want to share it with you. It was somewhere along the lines of "You cannot truly love your spouse if you do not love God". I believe that with all my soul. You can't love your spouse if you don't love God because without God you don't know what love is. I can promise you that if you ask God to come into your heart He will not say no. Wow... this is not the message I was trying to get across. Well, when you think that divorce is the only way it is very possible that you're wrong! Please keep trying. Who knows? It might be worth it!

Tonight I cried the tears that refused to come for so long. I'd been expecting them now for some time. I was laying in bed, reading an inspirational book (Cassidy, by Lori Wick), I realized that I miss him so much more than I thought was possible. I opened the pictures stored in my IPOD and zoomed in on his face. I could literally feel my heart breaking with the longing that pulls at my soul. I tell my beautiful husband all the time that I know that God made me just for him, and that I'm so thankful that God brought us together. It's true, but this test of our faith and love is not an easy one. I'm tempted by Satan so much to worry. I've had thoughts of what I was going to do when I found out that my dear Jon was gone forever. I keep thinking the worst things and the tears run hot down my cheeks. Can he see me, my love? Can he see how much it hurts when he's gone? I love you, Mr. Martin. I always have, I always will. Where do we find the courage that we need to go on every day? I hug myself and imagine it's you. I dream and see you there, hoping you see me too. I miss our life. I never thought there would ever be a time when I would rather be away from my family if it meant that I could be closer to anyone, but you've proven me wrong. But where are you now, my love? Do you miss me? I miss you. I hope anyone else out there who is missing someone right now finds solace in the knowledge that you're not alone. Then again, we're never really alone, are we? Our Lord is there, waiting for us to let Him in, waiting for us to believe. I believe.

So, we've hit our 3 year wedding anniversary! Honestly, time has gone by so fast. I never thought we'd make it to this. I had hope, of course, but getting married at 18 makes things hard! Now, looking at him, I feel my heart swell with so much love and pride. Through the good and bad, we're still together. With all the problems we had, heartache, and trials I can honestly say it's completely worth it. We have the forever kind of love and it's amazing. No babies yet, we've decided to put it off for another 5-8 years. I really want to go back to school and I can't do it until I go back to the states! Unfortunately nursing school is not the same here as it is in the states. Hopefully while we are here I can get my house in order. This way when we move I will have everything that I need for the house. I've decided to go with the whole "country" look (Hearts and Stars, Primitive, Americana, etc...) and I'm hoping I'll get it done by the time he gets back from his deployment. Five days until he leaves, and it's heartbreaking. We've made it this far, though, and this is just another obstacle to overcome. We can do it. I know we can. We've had so much support from our friends and family, and to all of you I say thank you.

Recently I decided that I want to do my house in a country theme! Now I've bookmarked countless websites to look at and am making a new budget just so I can do this! I will probably start when I get home from the states. I figure with Jon gone I'll have all the time in the world to do what I need to do. We bought a brown leather couch and loveseat, which we should have Tuesday, and I subscribed to Country Sampler. Hopefully this won't be too hard for me. I'm going to drag my neighbor over here and have her help me. The only problem is that all of this crap is so expensive! I'm hoping that whatever I buy lasts me for the next, oh, forty years or so. Yeah, long time. Olie Polie is lying underneath the computer desk right now. He's so cute! Whenever I'm on the computer and I'm not playing with him, he usually comes and lies underneath it until I get done. He's so sweet. Deployment is getting closer, I'm gaining weight like crazy, and this morning I found a gray hair! Ugh... the things we do for love. Well, it's time for me to get back to cleaning the house. I just felt like informing everyone of my plans!

Today was an amazing day. First off, I woke up this morning to the smell of lilies. It turns out I left the window open and the tiger lilies were getting restless, so they crept through my window to pull me out of my funk. I reluctantly climbed out of my bed into my bunny slippers (they were feeling kind of cranky this morning), and hopped my way to the potty. As usual the potty was talking 10 kinds of foul to me. I flushed, washed, and hopped on in to the kitchen. Olie was sitting at the breakfast table, reading the morning paper, and commenting on the current recession in England (he's worried about his hedge fund... I'm worried about the hole under my hedge where he's been hiding his bones). So, pancakes were the order of the morning. Unfortunately at this time it was the ass crack of dawn, not a pretty picture, so I had to leave the windows in the kitchen closed for the morning. I walked to the computer to feed my fish, take care of my theme park, and check on the ghosties. By this time Olie has abandoned reading the paper and has instead taken to shredding it. I've been living in a kitty litter box since we obtained Rolie Polie Olie, so I'm used to it. I pull out the vacuum, whom I hadn't fed in several days, and went whirring away. She happily obliged to digesting all the bits and pieces of paper lying about then topped it off with a few dust bunnies. Oh, don't give me that look. I know you've been killing dust bunnies, too. It's the natural order. I put the vacuum away, walked to the couch, and plopped myself down. There I fell asleep for a couple of hours dreaming about purple dragons and green poodles. I woke up to find that the rest of my body was not feeling so compliant. My feet were sleeping, and my bum was in that dream state where you're not quite asleep but not exactly awake either. I gave a quick shake (Olie shook as well, for my future body shaking reference), and shimmied to the kitchen. Jon was playing soft music with his nose, the wind was blowing through the curtains, and my stomach was attempting Beethoven's 5th symphony. Boring lunch, chicken noodle soup, though I must complain it was rather feathery this time. I decided to go for a walk so I laced up my shoes, put on a light yellow jacket, and walked the lonely street. The trees around me cast violent indigo shadows across my body, the clouds roll in clapping and heaving, so I retreat to my house. As I walk home I see couples walking around wearing smiles that seem forever plastered to their ceramic faces. I reach up and grab one cheerful looking woman. She's so young, surely there was time to help her. I squished her face in my hands trying to mold something else, something not written, but as soon as I let go it bounces back to its original eerie grin. I made it home, sadly confused, and headed straight to the kitchen. With a beer in one hand and a spoon in the other, I set to making dinner. Jon and I ate pureed bitch with a side of sarcasm. Desert was bitter life yogurt, naturally I skipped out on that one. Now here I am, filling you in on the day. 15 days to deployment.

Now everyone knows that there are families that are very A-typical to every Air Force base. Take for instance, the family I envy sometimes, the Super Family. They have two kids, both very young, and yet they manage to keep their life in perfect order. Take for instance, you go to their house to do them a quick favor, and their house is SPOTLESS. I mean anal kind of spotless. AND it smells good! No, not good, great... amazing, even. How do these people do it! To top it off they are ranking it up. They can cook, they always look well presented, not an ounce of fat on them, nothing. They're just... perfect. I wish my house looked like theirs. What kills me is their carpets! If you know who I'm talking about then you know what I'm talking about. I cleaned my carpets for almost a week straight and in 2 days they looked just like they did before, even though we didn't let the dog run around inside, no one wore their shoes in the house, and I vacuumed like no one's business (with a new friggin $200 vacuum!). Then there's the family who's not from the States. The husband is military and he's cool as all get out. You'd never know he wasn't American if it wasn't for his accent. The wife tries so hard to make friends with everyone, and usually succeeds. Nothing really weird about them except that their kid could possibly be from the book "Where the Whild Things Are". English+Foreign language = evil baby talk. Ok, the baby isn't evil. She just acts like it sometimes (but she is honestly a doll). The next family would be the young family. I'm talking 18 year old married to another 18 year old. They are in debt up to their eyeballs because they spend all the money they make as soon as they get it. I know because we used to be that couple. They think they're in love but you everyone knows that they got married for all the wrong reasons. Don't get me wrong, we all want it to work out. Divorce is ugly no matter which way you turn it. Now we have the Old Couple. They're getting up in their years, no babies, and newly wed! They're cute as all get out but both of them are unsure about each other. Even more so, the spouse is confused about military life, the service member is confused about the spouse being confused. But you see them making the adjustments and loving each other more for it. There's the couple with a million kids, the couple no one talks to, the drunks, the prudes, and the normals. I don't know where I fall yet. I'm almost a little bit of everything (though not old, and no babies). We're not drunks but we like to drink. We're young and probably got married for all of the wrong reasons, but they're right now. We were in debt up to our eyeballs, but now we've paid off everything but 1 credit card (stupid star card). I'm not sure where I stand. I do know, however, that even with all of the different kind of families I'm just proud that we are a Military Family.