At the ripe old age of 22, I married my Army officer husband and left my small town, east coast bubble to move halfway across the country and begin my life as an Army wife.
I thought I knew what I was getting myself into - establishing myself in a new place with a new job, new friends, etc - but I quickly learned that I had grossly underestimated how hard it would be.
We pulled into our tiny little ranch home in Lawton, Oklahoma on a Saturday, and my husband left on a Monday morning for the week. I had no idea where I was, what I was doing, or how to navigate the very complex military world with their acronyms that sounded like a different language.
As a classic introvert it wasn’t easy for me to step out of my comfort zone to introduce myself to new people or seek out new opportunities, but with a husband who was gone a lot of the time and no one else in my circle…I had no choice.
It was sink or swim.
I threw myself into a part-time job while attending graduate school, imagining that I’d graduate and immediately land a job in my field…but that is not how my story went.
One month before I graduated, my husband got deployed to Iraq for a year. I thought of myself as a pretty independent person up to that point, but when he left - so did my security blanket. Beyond being worri ed about him + his safety, I wondered how I’d survive the year alone.
I considered moving back to be with my family for the year but I knew that it would feel like I was giving up on myself, so I stayed and threw myself into my job search.
Turns out landing a job as a transient military spouse is not as easy as I hoped it would be, and I spent four months going on interview after interview and landing none of them. I was lost, overwhelmed and questioning everything…and as hard as I tried to appear happy on the outside, it was one of the hardest periods of my life.
Until it wasn’t. An incredible woman decided to hire me for a job that I wasn’t qualified for, one that made no sense on paper, one that didn’t match up with my graduate degree…but she took a chance on me. And in her doing so, they taught me to take a chance on myself.
I showed up to that job each day with the goal of making an impact, no matter how that looked. Though I wasn’t counseling in the traditional sense, I took the skills I learned in school and used them every single day.
That job changed me. It was the reminder I needed that I already had what it took to find satisfaction + success. I had to stop waiting for the perfect thing to land in my lap, and I needed to get out there and create it myself.
Here’s your reminder that your path isn’t always going to look as you imagined it would, but that shouldn’t stop you.
Make the most of what you have, take tiny steps forward, and have faith that when you look back and connect the dots on your life, it will all make sense. It always does.
Thank you to our veterans today and every day, especially my husband ??????
