Life In The Space Between

As I write this, our family has now resided back in the States for just over nine months. Those nine months have felt like an eternity, while also feeling like a blink of an eye since we stepped on that plane in Frankfurt on July 1 — headed for the USA. Truth be told, it’s taken me this long to get my feet under me from our last move. I was afraid to admit that for awhile but it feels freeing to be open and honest with not only myself but with everyone.

I can remember so vividly, those first few days, weeks and months — many family members and friends would say “welcome home” or a simple, “we’re so glad you are back in the USA.” With each time, I’d silently cringe inside — thinking to myself, “How can I call this place home?” Home is where I just left. Home is a sweet, yellow house in Weilerbach, Germany.

For months on end I struggled when people would say they were glad we were back in the USA. I wasn’t glad, so why were they? I think back to the beginning of our time in Germany and how it took us many months to acclimate. But by the time we had left at the end of our two year stint in Germany, I had completely submersed myself in our new life and made it “home.” I loved our little village and our familiar walk that overlooked the next village. I loved the grocery store options, with delicious fresh preservative-free food. I even enjoyed the crazy charades of the checkout process at the grocery store, the cashier slinging the goods as fast as they could while I attempted to keep up and bag them. I enjoyed trying to read all the restaurant menus in German, or whatever country we were visiting, and decipher what I was ordering before google translating words I didn’t understand. I had really come to enjoy how slow the pace of life was in our German world. Grocery stores, restaurants and shops all closed on Sunday — a family day. Rules laid out to not allow any loud outdoor work on Sundays. You could always guarantee that a noisy lawn mower was not going to disturb your Sunday afternoon nap. It gave reason to pause, slow down in our life. We learned to embrace it and in-turn enjoy the sentiment for the values.

What made it the hardest when people would say they were glad we we were back “home” was the stark and utter opposite I felt when those words were said. We had left behind an amazing friend group, a set of neighbors that was like family and a great job. Heck, I even had an amazing hair stylist and massage therapist. Those who move often know how hard these things are to find!

We had left all that we knew as a new family of three. Even though we were back in the USA, it felt like we were plucked from our cozy and secure life and plopped on another planet. I heard things like “Well, this isn’t your first military move so you must be used to this” or “You always make friends, don’t worry.” This time felt different.

I had such reverse culture shock upon our return back to the USA. I found myself being so daunted and overwhelmed at the task of navigating the aisles of the large grocery stores—why are the shelves 10 ft tall at Walmart?! We all found ourselves acclimating to our new-found, novelty of an air conditioned home. In our (almost) nine years of marriage, this is our first home with AC. Can you believe that?! I found myself embarrassingly frightened of the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. I think it took me a solid month and a half before I put anything down it. I struggled (still do) to understand the local Southern drawl and wondered if I’d ever be able to hear “y’all” be said without cringing. I still can’t get behind the contraction—sorry southern friends! It seemed daily I was trying to catch up on all the things that had changed (or had changed about me) in the last two years we had been away from our home nation.

I’m not entirely sure what made this move seem so different than the rest, but it definitely rocked me to my core and left me feeling bare. This time we were adjusting to a new Air Force tempo — school life for Ara instead of pilot life. This was our first time living in suburbia, where our house seemed to meet us with problems as a fluke hole drilled into the hot water supply line happened on our first day in the house leaving us without water for 8 days. We were navigating as a one-car family until our trusty Stuart, the Subaru arrived via ocean vessel — Ara taking the car to school each day leaving Nora and I at home to unpack our new home. Our six-month old baby decided to turn in her sleeping through the night schedule for partying throughout the night, leaving us sleep deprived and at our wits end. The kicker that really did me in was our sweet cat Newman had kidney failure a week after we arrived to Montgomery, which led us making numerous visits to him at the Animal Hospital ER for days. Additionally, there were several trips to introduce Nora to family members during the immediate weeks that we were in the USA.

For over a month I went through each day in a fog, trying to put my best foot forward and take it day-by-day navigating life in the space between. My best foot forward was not cutting it though — I’d never felt this defeated, this lack of enthusiasm for a new place to live, never this much animosity towards Ara and never had tears stained on my face for days and nights on end.

I remember distinctively one night, about a month after our move, Ara asked me what my short-term goals were. He rattled on about a few things and his goals while my mind went elsewhere. I know he was coming from a good place but all I could think was, “Goals!? I’m just trying to keep myself and a baby alive currently.” It was about two weeks after that conversation that I realized something needed to change. I couldn’t go on in this fog in any longer. I sought out professional help for this on-set of anxiety and depression that had taken over my life post-move.

I sat in the psychologist’s office one afternoon and listened to her tell me, “I think you’ll feel a lot better once you make some friends here.” While that sentiment may be true, the last thing a military spouse (or anyone who has just uprooted their lives) wants to hear is “to just go make some friends.” One of the hardest things about leaving each duty station, each “assignment” — each city or country we’ve rooted ourselves in — is finding new friends. Finding that village. I left that session so discouraged and angry she’d said that to me. I had found my village. I have friends — great friends. They are all just scattered around the United States, Europe and Japan — and weren’t living across the street in Montgomery, Alabama. I didn’t have an automatic village in our new “home.” I was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted from our move (felt like months leading up to the actual move), the rigors of being a new mother and all that July had thrown at me.

It took me until early November to finally start to feel like myself again. With Ara on a school schedule, we were looking forward to his “Fall Break” from school and eagerly planned a trip to see friends in Tacoma and procure some wine in Willamette Valley. We spent each day in Tacoma visiting old haunts, driving by our former house, seeing old co-workers, countless dinners with friends and a trip to my hair stylist for good measure. That trip ignited my soul in every way — it made life in the space between Germany and my current life seem less distant. I came back to Montgomery with some clarity, and turns out it does make you feel better when you put your pity to the side and make some local friends.

I was so stubborn and lost when we arrived back in the USA. It’s so hard to not leave a foot (or your heart) in your “old” location while trying to adjust to your new surroundings. You want to be able to snap your fingers and have the best babysitter, a coffee shop where you know you’ll get a delicious cappuccino, a church that you feel at home in, a best friend to laugh and commiserate with, a restaurant where they know your family and smile. You have to navigate a new grocery store and replenish your pantry and fridge with all new goods. You have to make the rounds around your neighborhood multiple times (months) to get on a first name basis with them. You have to try out all the coffee shops to find out where they make the best cup. You have to ask random teenage girls at Chick-fil-a for their number after they’ve been smiling at your baby—in order to get that babysitter roster started.

The reality is each time we move it takes time, effort, quite a lot of communication with your spouse, and daily grace to adjust to a new “normal” when your whole sense of routine is altered. We have to start over—completely over, to rebuild our new “village” around us. When you see a list of life’s most stressful moments—moving is in the top 5 and here we are doing that every 2-3 years.

I’m not sure life in the space between moves and adjusting to a new location will ever get easier. I’m not sure I’ll find myself calling Montgomery “home” — I hope to prove myself wrong by the time we move in summer 2021. A friend and former colleague of mine said to me once, “Military life never gets easier, we only get more brave.”

My hope is that from these words you can see a little bit deeper into our life, and behind the sweet joys that I always share on social media or the highlights from a conversation.

My hope is that you can reach out to a new mom you know and hold her, not just the baby.
My hope is that you knock on the door of a new neighbor who moved in and greet them with a hello.
My hope is that if you see a friend or family member struggling, offer a hug and ask the hard questions.
My hope is that if you know a military spouse—know that they are most likely living in the space in between and to give them grace, ask questions, and offer love and support.