Hurry Up and Wait: Things They Don’t Tell You About Army Life When You Start Dating That Cute Guy in Uniform

I’m in love with a man in the military. Crazy, crazy love for that man. He’s the best thing since sliced bread and Keurigs in my opinion. We have been happily together for 2 and ½ years (not that we were UNhappily together at any point in time) and engaged for almost a year. We are tying the knot on July 5th, and recently found out to our surprise, we will need to be at our first duty station by July 19th. Whoo hoo! Jumping right into married life! But really, words can’t express how excited I am to finally get started with our life together.

This said, being in love with someone in the military is not always as easy or romantic as it may seem. Sure, when I saw Luke in uniform for the first time back in 2010 when I was a college junior and he a sophomore (aw, he’s a youngin’), my heart went a little pitter-patter. But, I also very vividly remember telling a girlfriend in high school that I would never date someone in the military. I was perfectly fine with my Illinois soil and being tucked in next to that person every night, thank you very much.

Alas, how the Lord works in mysterious ways.

In the Army, there is a term – “Hurry up and wait.” This has pretty much become my motto over the last couple years when it comes to Army life. I can’t count how many times Luke and I have asked ourselves questions that we have no idea how to find the answer to, or if/when it will even come. We have spent more time apart than either of us would have liked, a hundred times over. We have tried to plan our weeks, months, and years around training dates that aren’t set or will inevitably change. Heck, even planning 2 days ahead is hard at times. Imagine trying to set a wedding date a year out!

Side note: I have experience of being a girlfriend/fiancé to a very high speed (civie translation: really good at what he does) ROTC cadet. I don’t know the worry or stress that comes along with being the spouse of an active duty soldier yet. I’m sure that my feelings and frustrations pale in comparison to what they face every day. But, since I’ll be joining the ranks of MilSpouses here in about 2 weeks when Luke commissions May 10th, I’m documenting my “pre-Army life 24/7-experience” here.

So, this in mind and in the spirit of super long lists that I seem to have an affinity for (usually because it involves crossing things off, which is so satisfying), I put together just a few of the things I’ve learned or wished I’d known a couple years ago so that I could become one high speed fiancé of a military man. Though I probably won’t be crossing any of these things off my list anytime soon.

1. There is an acronym for everything. ROTC, PCS, TDY, FTX, LDAC, NCO, CTLT, BOLC, ACU, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP… ok, maybe not that last one, but still. These things are tossed around in daily conversation. Advice to past self: learn fast, kiddo.

 2. You don’t get to hold hands if they are in uniform. If you need to take their arm, it needs to be their left, so they can salute a higher ranking officer with their right. (silly me, not knowing I shouldn’t take the arm of the side I’m walking on while tripping over my heels)

3. Separation sucks, no matter if it’s a weekend or 2 months. What does make it better:
    a. Letters and pictures, of the love kind and the humorous kind. (I have done everything from perfecting the art of stick figure drawing to demonstrate my daily happenings to writing the entire letter in a spiral)
    b. Countdowns, not count-ups. (‘51 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes, 45 seconds til I see you again,’ NOT ‘It’s been ___ days since we’ve seen each other’)
    c. Attempting to find new hobbies (“I’m going to collect velvet tiger art!”)

4. You get those ‘first kiss’ feelings every time they've been away for a long period of time.

5. You start sounding like the next Miss America praying for safety for the troops– “If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?” “World peace! World peace for everyone! And puppies!” Because really, who doesn’t like puppies?

6. “Apparently” you should not yell out, ‘That’s my baby!’ at an awards ceremony.

7. My most recent discovery: I will be living on an Army POST. Not an Army base. There are Naval and Marine bases… no such thing as Army base. See what I mean about Army wording and its clarifying nature? Yeah, me neither.

8. Uniforms are dead sexy until you get a whiff of them during laundry time.

9. DOG TAGS ARE NOT A FASHION STATEMENT!

10. It would be so easy to martyr yourself, and feel like everything is so unfair and you never get to see him enough and there are stupid rules to follow and ‘I’m giving up my life of X-Y-Z’ for a weird new acronym that was basically assigned to your significant other. False. Don’t go there, girlfriend. There are some awesome, and I mean AWESOME opportunities that I’ve gotten from being involved in military life, and I know there are tons more to come. I appreciate our time we get to spend together so much more. Little spats of disagreements are put in perspective really quickly. I’m going to get to travel all over. The man I love is willing to sacrifice quite literally everything for something he believes in with his whole heart.

Commitment, loyalty, love, and sacrifice is the language of a soldier. He lives and breathes it every day. Who wouldn't want to have a part in someone like that’s life?

(Shameless ring shot)

So, this is my life as a soon-to-be Army wife. Sometimes crazy, ALWAYS worth it, it’s a life that 19-year old me would have never in a million years dreamed up. Throughout the rest of this blog, I hope that I can accurately describe the things we encounter, so that you all can come on the journey with us.

Until then, I’ll continue to blog silly long lists, stress out about wedding planning, contemplate my career situation, and all-together try to figure out my life as a farm-girl-turned-world-adventurer.

I need an acronym for that.

Things They Don't Tell You in College About Teaching

So, my first year of teaching can be summed up in just a few words. Overwhelming. Exhausting. A whirlwind. I had so many expectations as a starry-eyed graduate about what my first year was going to be like. I knew as an Agricultural Education teacher and FFA Advisor that I would be busy and overwhelmed a lot of the time, but I never imagined it would be for the same reasons I encountered this year.

I teach at a pretty impoverished, low-education school in a rural area. This I knew going in. My kids are not all destined to go to college. This I knew going in. Ag teachers are somehow a magnet for trying to connect with the lower performing kids of the school. This I knew going in.

But, what they didn’t tell me and I didn’t know was just how broken a public school’s educational system can truly be without the support of its parents and community. Don’t get me wrong, we talked about that in my college classes, but it is not something you can understand until you’re standing in the middle of a classroom on your second day, asking your kids about their future goals and someone says, “My plan is to collect.” Welfare, that is. At 15 years old, that was all some of my kids were seeing in their future. Talk about a punch in the stomach.

I have learned so much this year through the trials and tribulations, late nights, tears, and venting sessions with coworkers (who are amazing, by the way!). I have gone from literally feeling sick every day walking into school and tearing up on my drive home, to being a somewhat confident first year teacher that knows I have a lot to learn, and that this is, in fact, an okay thing.

So here is a list of things that I had yet to learn on graduation day. Funny, sometimes sad, always frustrating, but each a lesson none-the-less in what it has meant to be a first year teacher in this day and age.

1. Your first day, they are going to try to scare you. They will succeed. 

2. Your second day will be worse than your first.

3. By the third day you are trying to dry up your watery eyes when the bell rings for your first class, and at least hold them at bay until 3:15, when you can go out to your car and release the monster tidal wave that is your feelings.

4. Apathy will be your worst enemy. While you are fighting to maintain your passions and fears about your new job, there will be an overwhelming amount of kids who could not care a bit about why you’re standing up there and what you’re all about.

5. You will hit a low. A really, really low-low. And guess what… that’s normal!! (WHY did no one tell you that, by-gummit!? Why??) You will also have some really great high points that make the lows seem like they never happened.

7. School Improvement Days are a big fat waste of time, but you love them because you love your coworkers (And half days! And jeans!).

8. You will have a football player and a troubled kid get into a fist fight in your classroom. You will step between them to break them up, because that is your first instinct apparently.

9. They will actually stop because they both tell you they respect you. (whoa!)

10. You will be a counselor/bouncer/disciplinarian/mentor/shoulder 50% of the time, and a teacher the other 50%. It will both break your heart and fill it up at the same time.  

11. You will start referring to yourself as 42 years old when asked (because who cares to admit to their students that they are only three years older than some of them?), and your kids will believe you the entire year. Plastic surgery will be the #1 presumption. Magic will be #2.

12.     Days will drag, weeks will fly.

13.   You will say things like, “I’m down with you kids and your hip hop noise” and “I'm picking up what you're layin' down home skillet” a lot, just to make them think you are not as cool as you really are in real life (because let's face it... I'm awesome).   

14.    You will be asked if plants are poisonous to humans. You will explain calmly, and the student will still not understand.

15. You will have earthworms put on your desk on rainy days (not maliciously, just because you have some real stinkers in your 1^st hour class that like to make you squirm).  

16. You will be called a lot of names, have a lot of doors slammed, know the office extension by heart, and hear some colorful language that would make the 17-year-old you blush.

17. There will be a lot of funny moments and sayings that you should have written down to publish a book one day.

18.  You will talk more about the military than you ever dreamed, and answer a lot of questions from kids either wanting an escape or a real life career with awesome opportunities they can’t get from their small town.  You'll feel pretty important having answers to those questions. 

19.  Teenagers are like rollercoasters. One day you’re their favorite teacher and best friend, the next they are storming out of your room because you did something silly like ask them to put their phone away.

20.   Somehow, you know it will all be worth it on the last day of school when you’re sad to see your kids go.

There are so many stories, good and bad, that have become of this year. Most of the time I’m so busy getting through the day that I don’t stop and appreciate all the fun stuff that happened. I have had some awesome times with my FFA members, and especially loved teaching middle schoolers about agriculture and leadership. Hopefully sometime in the future I can go back to teaching a little more confident, a little wiser, and a little less challenged on a day-to-day basis. :) 

The Beginning of the End

Alright, it happened. The thing I always went in between “I don’t want to, but I feel like I should” and “I want to, but I don’t think I should.” *sigh*

That’s right, I joined the blogosphere.

Probably 95% boredom, 5% because I wanted to, but 100% because I just needed another social media outlet to keep track of.

Not really. I mostly took the leap because of all the exciting things coming up in my life, including completing my first year of teaching (shoulda kept a blog from day one… oh the stories I would tell!), celebrating my upcoming wedding and marriage to the man of my dreams (my partner in crime, my best friend, my one-and-only-mushy-gushy-insert-unnecessary-social media-endearment-and-proclamation-of-love-here), and oh, a few moves across the country thrown in here and there for a dash of good fun. Not a big deal.

(That's him on the right... mushy gushy proud moment comment here)

I don’t particularly know what I’m going to write about. All the blogs I read are about categories such as food, photography, crafts, child-rearing, or NFP and the Catholic faith. I’m going to try to give you an exciting snippet and quick take on of all of these things, just to keep you coming back wanting more!  

1.        Food –

I’m a culinary whiz. Here’s a picture of the frozen pizza I ate for dinner recently.

2.        Photography

Here’s a picture of the frozen pizza I ate recently in black and white. Stand back and let the awesomeness soak into your eyeballs.

3.        Crafts

Last fall I decided to take on the project of redoing my boring kitchen table that I bought last summer at a garage sale. It wasn’t bad, but just not my style. Forever on Pinterest stalking other peoples’ genius, I saw a picture that showed a stenciled table top with a dark-stained top and teal legs, and I thought, “Hey, that would match my kitchen! Sounds like a great idea!”

(Not mine, though I wish)

And so I proceeded to spend some hard earned cash on some painting supplies, scoured the internet for a cool stencil idea, went to work applying my skills I learned in 4-H, and voila! I should have a finished table soon!

Should.

But alas, that project began back in January during some stir crazy snow days, and has yet to be finished. I’ll keep you updated. Perhaps my 7 children can pose around the table the day I complete it.

(that's the Von Trapp family standing around my completed table, happy and singing a song without a Nazi in sight)

So I’m not quite a craft whiz. Mostly I’ll show you the projects that I like to start and not finish.

If you want some awesome craft inspiration or all around display of awesomeness, go to my beautiful sister's blog.

4.        Child Rearing

7 fictional children posing around a table leads me to my next point.

My take on kiddos is this - I love them. Very much. I especially love the ones I can love up on, squeeze, watch silly kid movies with, spin around, exchange funny conversations, and promptly hand them back to their parents when a dirty diaper or temper tantrum interrupts my hopes and dreams of being the perfect parent someday. Darn those unrealistic expectations of mine.

Notice: Child rearing conversation shall henceforth be put on hold until the good Lord says otherwise. So there.

5.        NFP and the Catholic Faith

Ahh, the true reason I was pulled into the blog world. There are so many wonderful women and men who write about their experiences with Natural Family Planning and how that coincides with their faith. I have sought out so many blogs on NFP over the past year it would make your head spin. As I’m learning (I’m quite the novice since Luke and I just started our NFP journey last fall… more on that later), I am becoming more and more fascinated by other peoples’ stories on how this choice has changed their lives, marriage, faith, etc. I hope that I will eventually be able to add my humble voice to theirs as we continue our journey over the years.

And last but most certainly not least, the Catholic Church. I want so badly to be able to write intelligent, thought-provoking, insightful conversation about the faith that I love so much. But the truth is it would sound more like “Whoa!! Did you guys know that there is a patron saint of the internet!? I wonder if I can follow him on Twitter?!” (tehehe lame joke)

Insightful and uplifting there, Ems. Someone alert the Vatican, we got a future theologian on our hands.

In truth, I am a cradle Catholic that grew up in a faith that she did not truly understand until it came down to a choice-  learn it or leave it. That journey began in 2010 when I went away to college, another story for another time. I am continuing to try my darnest to learn, grow, understand, trust, and wrap my head and heart around the beauty that is my Catholic faith.

So all in all, I have no idea what I’m going to write about. Mostly it will probably be ramblings about silly things my students said or did, the craziness of planning a wedding, the hilarity of my family and friends, life as a new Army wife, and all the adventures I encounter in between.

So, to all of my droves of readers, welcome! Thanks for coming on the adventure with me!

(AKA, hey Mom.)