5 Lessons Learned From 5 Years in the Army – Part 5

2020 – Developing flexibility

It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that 2020 messed with a lot of our plans. It messed with everyone’s plans! But while a pandemic definitely added an unexpected twist to things last year, the back and forth, on-again/off-again of 2020 was nothing new for us. It’s a staple of military life. Because of this, a key skill needed to maintain sanity in the military is flexibility, or adaptability. And that is what part 5 of this series is all about.

I confess that flexibility is not one of my strengths. Not physically, or mentally. I thrive on routines and struggle with decision making. I hate surprises (much to my husband’s dismay). All of this, naturally, makes me a perfect candidate for an Army spouse!

I’ve talked a lot about how plans change suddenly and frequently in this line of work. Both in this series and in other blog posts. I also mentioned in part 1 of this series that as the spouse you must be a pillar for your family, tethering everyone to something solid and reliable. Unfortunately, the very nature of a pillar stands in opposition to flexibility. We’re meant to be sturdy and unwavering. The key to being a successful pillar for an Army family is learning to bend just enough so that you don’t break when the winds unexpectedly switch directions. Sometimes, I can be extremely rigid, and I feel myself nearing my breaking point.

While I may struggle to be flexible in the moment, I have learned to be humble. To acknowledge when what I’m doing isn’t working, and then to studiously seek out a better solution. This is something I have to do on the regular when it comes to my kids (especially my oldest). But it’s also something that I do as an Army wife. When a decision we made previously is no longer working for our life and situation, I’ve had to take a step back, reevaluate, and (frequently) let go of what I had thought was the best solution. It’s important not to let these moments get you down, or make you feel like a failure. Altering course, especially when it’s uncomfortable, doesn’t mean that you gave up; it means you did what was best for you and your family under the circumstances. And circumstances change. In the military, they change a lot. Learning to let go—of things, of plans, and even of people—is hard. Humans long for things to be permanent. We like being comfortable and settled. The military lifestyle flies directly in the face of that natural desire.

When we first joined the Army and Michael was in initial entry training, I decided to go back to school online to get my teaching certification. I had loved teaching special education and have always had a talent for teaching. In the state I taught, you could work as a teacher so long as you were actively working towards getting certified. Even though we were now in the Army and I was staying at home with a new baby, I wanted the option to go back to work and teach. But I didn’t get far into the program before I realized it wasn’t making me happy, and the more I thought about leaving my daughter in daycare to go back to teaching other people’s kids, the less it appealed to me. Switching courses made me feel like a quitter. I hated to back out, but it wasn’t working for me or my family anymore.

At DLI, I decided to open my own retail business from home. I absolutely loved the work, and I wanted to continue building my business. But once we moved to our first duty station and our second child was born, the workload of running a business, taking care of two small children, AND being a full-time support to my husband in his busy career became overwhelming. I was struggling with extreme postpartum anxiety, and my life was just too full of unnecessary clutter. So I ended up closing my shop. As I said before, I’m not very good at going with the flow. Both these experiences were examples of me having to adapt to the circumstances the military had created in our lives. And I’ll be honest, they were gut-wrenching decisions for me to make, both times. At first, it felt a lot like quitting on things I wanted or hoped for. But I’m starting to understand that the end goal—the end, end goal—doesn’t ever change.

I still want all the same things for my kids, my family, my husband, and myself that I did five years ago when we joined, or three years ago when I closed my shop. I’ve just learned that my short-term vision is usually blurry. Its good to be farsighted as an Army spouse. Because, ultimately, we’ll end up where we want to be. All the stuff in between here and there is just stuff. It isn’t what matters most.

What adaptations have you had to make because of the military?