Blog Brigade

Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic — when I see my husband unloading the dishwasher, my heart is aflutter.

Kristi

OK, so “romantic” might not be the right word. Tired, busy and easily impressed are probably more accurate. Either way, my outlook on marriage has changed considerably from the fairy tale days. And this is not one of those lowering-the-bar scenarios — it’s very much a happily ever after, you just have to be able to recognize what real-life happy looks like.

Messages from childhood hint that Prince Charming should scale castle walls for us. We should be showered with love notes, serenades and public displays of affection. Love was supposed to look like grand gestures, big plans and 24/7 googly eyes. If I saw my husband scaling a wall, I’d be the first one dialing 911 — now that is love.

Marriage in the military isn’t free of those lovey-dovey things — deployment letters are by far the most romantic thing in the world. And, I still look googly-eyed at my husband (then he asks me if I feel OK, and we have a good laugh). Seriously, though, I’ve come to realize that showing love and feeling loved is all about the little things. In this life of sudden changes and strange hours, the little things are much more dependable than the grand gesture.

How do I know? Experience:

• First year of marriage — We lived apart more than we lived together thanks to training and a deployment.
• First wedding anniversary — I celebrated around a hibachi table with my deployment buddies, while my husband sat in Iraq.
• First deployment homecoming — After I spent six months waiting and days getting ready, it was postponed the day of.
• Honeymoon — We had a perfectly wonderful time in Jamaica, 18 months and one deployment after our wedding.
• First Thanksgiving together in our own home — I cooked for those same deployment buddies, then treated my pregnant self to a second, reheated dinner in the ready room with my Marine.
• Second deployment send off — Instead of waving American flags until my husband was out of sight, his dates shifted. He waved goodbye to our son and me since our travel plans were already set.
• So many date nights I lost count — Our babysitters and a very understanding Nana can verify that dates and times tend to slide to the right.
• Mom’s night out — I am a perpetual “maybe” while I wait for the duty and flight schedules.
• Soccer games, swimming lessons, weddings, parties, etc. — I’m a pretty safe bet, and call it a happy accident if I can RSVP for two.

When my husband comes home to announce a schedule change that will cancel or change our plans, I now usually reply with, “Of course,” or “I figured.”

But, do you know what is always a safe bet? The little things —after almost seven years of marriage, we’ve (mostly) figured out the way to each other’s hearts. My husband knows that helping me around the house or offering to take my son to school makes my day a little less chaotic (and makes me a more pleasant human being). A little help goes a long way to making me feel like I’m living my own version of a fairy tale. Those happily-ever-after endings failed to mention how much that princess would come to appreciate an uninterrupted 4-minute shower — but it can do wonders for a tired mom.

It’s easy to overlook these little acts of love — maybe even expect them. Sometimes I have to slow down and remind myself what we’re doing for each other:

• Hanging with the kids so the other can go for a run
• Hanging with the kids so the other can do literally anything else alone and in a reasonable amount of time
• Watching a movie or an entire season of a TV show together
• Discussing said movie or show when it’s over — this makes my English degree shine a little brighter in its frame…in that box…in the back corner of that closet
• Going for walks together
• Pitching in around the house
• Talking — about nothing, about everything
• Remembering to return driver’s seats to the right position after driving each other’s car
• Picking up dinner or pretending to be OK with another cereal or leftover night

If I could give a little piece of advice to newlywed military couples, it would be this: Keep your expectations for happiness high, but remember that good things come in small packages. Big plans change (constantly), so make the little things a big priority.

Blogger Biography: My name is Aliyah Meehan. I have been a military spouse for over 13 years. It is the most intensely joyful, complex, rewarding and also painful experience of my life. I have three beautiful children. One that was “gifted” to me (a high schooler that we adopted nine years ago), and two that have been birthed to me who are 6 and 8. I have a nursing degree, a bachelor’s in business administration with a minor in healthcare management, and I am currently working on my MBA. I love to write, sing, dance, cook and host parties. I am an avid archer. I also like to go skydiving about once a year, and my husband and I have taken up sailing this past year. I currently own a company contracted to the state of California that provides early infant assessments and am the director of family engagement for www.Sandboxx.us , a military lifestyle app that converts digital media from the convenience of your phone into a physical letter to our beloved military members who are off the grid.

Years ago, we inherited a cedar chest from one of our adopted Marines. I did not think much of it. Honestly it was just another thing that I had no use for, but it was an interesting piece of furniture nonetheless.Naturally, as a military spouse I made it a point to give it a purpose, in order to justify dragging this thing around from move to move. I filled it with every deployment memorabilia that I would come across.

While doing so, I began to notice that through the years email began to dominate most of our communication. Something about the convenience of instantly being able to communicate the thoughts and feelings that overcome, or overwhelm you, when the love of your life is miles away, is a blessing and impossible to resist. However, out of habit l would still write. Even when he would insist that it was no longer a necessity, I would still write to him.

My husband is not the type that shows excitement easily, but the bounce in his voice when he would tell me he got a letter has always been addictive. I loved hearing his plans for the pictures, how he planned to keep some in his wallet versus the pictures he planned to pin to his wall. It was a brief moment of reprieve from the distance. I loved soaking in every bit of this happiness as he was holding something from home. A serendipitous moment for me — for a second it almost felt like he was much closer to home.

I am not sure how most families do it, but in our family we describe time by its location before, during or after deployments. My husband’s absence is only reason to plan the celebration of his return, and when he comes home, stretching time, slowing it down and filling it with a lifetime of memories is the most important order of the day. “Welcome home” is a moment where space, time and distance collide and produce a most surreal reality. It is the moment where our deepest thoughts and feelings are felt and conveyed within that long powerful grip of our initial embrace — his laughter finally echoing and booming down the hall, as if he never left, before he has to leave again.

Fast forward to several deployments later and we now have three beautiful children. Duty stations have come and gone, and the treasure chest has been moved more times to more houses than most people ever live in through the duration of two lifetimes. As I like to whisper to my children, “Adventure is what we do for a living, baby.”

It was not until our most recent move to the opposite coast that anyone really paid attention to the treasure chest. Truth be told, I was so busy battling the humid, fly-filled Carolina heat, helping hubby carry furniture into our new home, when I noticed the girls huddled in a corner of the garage going through the many contents of the aging cedar treasure chest.

My heart could not have been more delighted — our children marveling at prom corsages, the dried flower that I picked at his boot camp graduation for my hair, which he completely freaked about, because of course, it was government property. Our first car together, our first dogs, teenage pictures of us in our pre-World War II first base house were all in there.

However, the letters stole the show — 18- and 19-year-old mommy and daddy. Back when we were just Tim and Aliyah, teenagers madly in love, writing boot camp letters to Recruit Meehan and making the most incredible plans that turned out to be an even more incredible life.

I suppose I must have known this day would come, because I had already separated the risqué “love note stack” from the more “PG” love letters. It was endearing throughout. As we stopped and listened to our kids read some of the letters aloud, I felt every inch of the distance that these letters have traveled, only serving as fuel meant to rekindle our passion for one another till the end of time.

As our children continued to read our story, it became their story. The fiery flame of the young warrior (Tim) and the nurse (me) liquefied into a placid existence. The story solidified into the concrete joys of our first baby. A few deployments later we were on our third baby. Ultrasound photos with the nickname “Peanut” on the back, with holes where they were once pinned on his wall in Iraq.

The letters expressed our life more vividly than our own recollections. Every picture, every word and photographic angle so carefully selected. Each and every letter exuding the deepest sense of urgency to connect our little family to the best of our limited ability.

Chaotic as this life may seem, it is beautiful. We are not perfect, but this is our family, and in it we have created a deeply rooted culture of optimizing every moment for the savory appreciation of life and each other, through this adventure disguised as chaos. We survive the pain of distance by investing ourselves through letters and phone calls, emails and loving care packages — mailing bits and pieces of ourselves in hopes to build us emotionally, mentally and spiritually, in the absence of physical presence.

Sitting over the treasure chest with our not-so-little Peanut in my lap, we spent the next few hours laughing, sometimes crying, remembering and reliving magical moments captured and forever encased in words we once lovingly shared.

I am sure I could probably pull up emails of that same time in our lives at any time. However, personally, the romance in this kind of beautiful life can only be told and truly appreciated sitting on a dusty garage floor with my family, sifting through our aging cedar treasure chest and reading out loud our letters of war.

Melissa

Let’s face it. Being in a military marriage has all sorts of challenges. On top of work schedules, kids’ schedules and life, we have to add in fun things like deployments, temporary duty assignments and PCS moves! I don’t know about you, but my chief complaint is that we don’t get to spend enough time together in this fast-paced, hectic lifestyle. I bet you have felt the same way at some point or another, right? That is why it is important to make time for your spouse whenever you can. I am a huge advocate of dating. Yes, DATING your spouse. Just because someone “put a ring on it” doesn’t mean that you should stop carving out time to spend with each other…one on one.

Now before you think you are too busy to add a romantic dating life into your schedule, I am not talking about fancy dress clothes, champagne, roses and expensive dinner dates every week. I am talking about taking at least two hours a week and making it just about YOU and your SPOUSE. It can be any time of day, and it doesn’t even have to include the standard meal that most people think of when they envision the word “date.” You can even have a date in your house after the kiddos have been put to bed. No need to hire a sitter! If you work opposite schedules, plan a morning or afternoon date, or even a Tuesday date! There are no rules anywhere that say dates can only happen Saturday after 6 p.m. Military life getting in the way? Well, there are ways around that too.

Somewhere along the way, consumerism made us believe that dating is synonymous with spending money. Well, let us pop that misconception right now. My husband and I try to make the majority of our dates “budget friendly” (translation: cheap to free) and splurge on a fun day or night out once or twice a month. We really enjoy the time getting to talk with each other and make memories. We find that we are flirtier with each other during the week and are more connected. Don’t believe me on the cheap part? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Make ice cream sundaes and a watch your favorite show that you DVRed but can never watch because cartoons have taken over your television.
• Play cards or a board game.
• Plan your future together. Sounds cheesy, but it is fun to dream with your partner and set goals.
• Take a biking trip around a local park to feed the ducks. While you’re at the park, you can even pack a picnic!
• Explore an off the beat local attraction. This is usually free, and you can end up getting some funny pictures of each of you being silly.
• Go to the zoo or a museum without your kids.
• Go window shopping. I like to do this before the holidays to get gift ideas for the hardest person on my list.
• Rent a movie and cook dinner TOGETHER beforehand. There is something romantic about cooking together.
• Go to a local festival.
• Watch the sunset – cliché I know, but there is just *something* about it!

If you are reading this while going through a deployment or preparing for a TDY, do not get discouraged. You can even date your spouse long distance! Through the wonderful world of technology, you can even date via webcam (keep your minds out of the gutter here folks!). This will require some pre-planning, but it’s not impossible. If there is a birthday or anniversary coming up, send your spouse a wrapped shelf stable treat (think snack cake or cookies) and don’t have your spouse open the package until your date. You can both share the same “meal” on your virtual date. Sure it isn’t a five star restaurant, but I don’t think many of military spouses require that sort of treatment…especially from a war zone.

The important thing is to think of dating your spouse as “preventative medicine” to keep your marriage strong. As military families, we know how important time together is. Make an effort, enjoy some time together as a couple and remember why you fell in love with that good-looking spouse of yours in the first place.