Realistically…

Oh your Oga is not around? How long has he been gone for? He doesn’t come around for weekends? I thought they allow them to go and visit their families on weekends no… It’s well oo; but come oo, how have you been coping? I doubt if there is any military spouse who is not familiar with these lines. From the military community, you hear things like, good morning Ma, how are the children? Hope you are hearing from Oga? Where is he serving now?

I personally appreciate the care and concern that come with these questions, what I find puzzling is the context of how are you coping that I always get. I have wondered sometimes if this is perhaps how I am coping with the loneliness or maybe the workload of family life and work generally or the conjugal aspect of my life. Truth is, you find yourself adjusting to the changes however slow or quickly they come.

There is no manual for military spousal life, no hacks and quite frankly, very few straightforward ways of navigating it. The uncertainties and loneliness can be really hard to deal with and more often, most of us in a bid to be strong and not fail at keeping the home front, attempt different ventures and oh boy, a lot of us have succeeded. I have personally failed at most of the ventures I took on but, I got the point where I realized that, those were not for me and I was bound to fail regardless of what I did or didn’t do. Most times. takes someone else’s intervention to understand this; one thing I know is that everyone needs help in some type of way and being able to help out makes you feel like you are here for some reason.

At the heart of success for a military spouse in my opinion is community- church/mosque, outdoor activities for the kids, school, organizing and participation in community outreaches, sports etc and ours is a journey with a responsibility that demands us raising kids while our serving partners are away. From watching our partners adjust to the demands of their job, we also adjust to having or not having them around and simply do our marriage(s) by correspondence as best as we can.

It takes me about a week to get used to the fact of my husband’s absence and less than a day to adjust to his being around. The easiest thing about his absence is the freedom to cook just about anything for myself and the kids and the hardest part of his being around is the thought and intentional way with which I would need to prepare meals. In all, I have learnt to appreciate the time, words and the little things that make up for the memories we are creating.