Spring in Kentucky was messy in 2009 – that’s when I realized that what I thought was a bad reaction to dust, was actually the beginnings of allergy hell.

Kentucky is bad for allergies. When I went in to have myself looked at, I was told that people who have never had issues with allergies before moving to Kentucky would normally end up with allergies within the first year. The explanation was that it’s situated right there in the middle of a large river valley – it’s humid, and festering with all kinds of bugs and weird trees and shrubs.

Texas wasn’t so bad on my allergies – except for the fact that my cats caused me to break out in some pretty bad hives. It got so bad that I literally looked like I was developing some kind of skin condition. It was alarming and uncontrollable. It was then that I discovered that I have allergies to cats, dogs, cows, and horses. (I didn’t even know those animals could be lumped into a category together other than the generic “animals”.)

Moving to Washington state seemed to be some kind of a godsend. It was going to be cool, rainy, mountainous, with a l’il sea breeze when I wanted it. We got here in August, as most of you might remember. So the chance for allergic reactions was minimal until now.

Spring is here, in the Pacific Northwest – finally. It only just started getting warmer within the last week or two and all the shrubbery has finally had the opportunity to spread their blossoming limbs. It wasn’t until halfway through a most miserable week that I realized the connection between my burning, tearing, itchy eyes, constant and very uncomfortable post-nasal drip (isn’t that one of the nicest ways to say I have icky stuff draining into the back of my throat from my sinuses? gag), and a voice that hovered between throaty and crusty.

Clearly, allergies are regional as well as seasonal. I feel a lot better these days, though I had to ask my doctor to run another allergy panel for me. I don’t trust those Texans too much where this is concerned. Mostly because they told me that if I had never had allergies before, I would certainly develop them in Texas.

Um … I hate to have to break it to them, but Texas allergies for me were a breeze compared to my experiences in Kentucky and Washington. Get in line!

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My best friend asked me recently how I did this MilSpouse thing, I’ve had a few other people tell me they don’t know how I do it and I know that other MilSpouses get the same comments and questions, too. It’s a tough gig, I’ll tell you that. The responses are many and varied and each of us does it differently. Yet we all have the same basic tools that we use and build on.

If you spend anytime at all trying to understand it for yourself, you’ll see that most articles and bloggers, other writers and advice columnists start off by telling you to “keep busy“. And at the core of dealing with military life, keeping busy is the single most important tool you have.

Some of us have jobs that keep us extremely busy and occupied, some have kids that keep them busy (and tired!) – others have their causes and hobbies, and still others have artistic ventures. There’s so many different ways to keep busy that it’s hard to pin point any one way.

For me … I have tons of interests and hobbies. For the year while he was down-range in Afghanistan, I had my job, I had my reading, my cats, I picked some TV show addictions. I had projects that I started – and most of them never finished. And I had sleep, lovely sleep. I learned a lot in that year; I read almost incessantly. And when I wasn’t reading or working, I was watching mindless TV or sleeping. I kept busy alright.

Oh don’t get me wrong!

You have moments when you feel you really, absolutely cannot go on. Those moments when the shit hits the fan and a big piece hits you in the face. You realize cleaning up would be so much easier if your other half was here. It’s a moment or two (or hundred) when you break and you fall on your ass on the floor and sob and blubber because at that moment, you are as alone as you have ever felt. And every time that moment happens, it’s worse than the last one. You literally break in half and settle into a puddle on the bedroom/bathroom/living room/kitchen floor. Pick one or all – it happens enough times for each floor to get it’s own special time with your face buried in it.

If you want to live, though … and you do because you know at some point your DH will be home and finding you on the floor in a puddle of unwashed, tearful misery is not the kind of image you want him (or her) to see … if you want to live, you will realize that food must be eaten, baths must be taken, bills must be paid, and work must be done. So you eventually pull yourself up from the puddle and wipe your face.

Then when you do that, you realize how positively septic you smell, and how ravenous you are and suddenly, the shit that hit the fan and how difficult it is going to be clean it up, is of far less importance than having a bath and eating some food. And in the eating of the food or the taking of the bath, you realize that the soap is almost done, or the towels need to be washed, but you’re out of laundry detergent… or curses! … you’re out of ice cream!

In short, you get past those moments of utter and complete despair and since life goes on whether you want it to or not, there are reminders that bring you back to the present and keep you busy again until the next break.

It’s a cycle. A long-time friend of mine once said to me that he savoured the emotional lows because they allowed him to really appreciate the highs. He wasn’t wrong… when you can survive through the lows, while you scrape the bottom and eat ice cream … then the highs are so much brighter and enjoyable.

It is being able to survive those lows that gives me my strength. I’ve survived some lows in my life. Oh boy! Some lows I thought I would never dig myself out of. Some lows where not even the brightness of the high was visible from that far down. Some lows where I didn’t know if I was going to make it through the next 5 minutes much less another few months. But I survived and I am here to tell you that the one thing that kept me going through a year of separation from DH … was the thought that one day he would hold me in his arms again.

And when he finally did …. it was absolutely the best thing in the whole world!

And oh yea – now that he’s here, I take every single opportunity to hug him … over and over and over again … because since the war isn’t over yet, I don’t know when he’ll be gone again and I want to make sure to store up as many of those hugs as I can for the days when I won’t be able to just take one.

You ask me how I do this? I do it because the alternative is inconceivable … now that I have found him, there is no way I am letting go of him. And when the army takes him away from me, I just think forward to when I get him back. And when he’s here, I make sure to maximise as many of the moments we have together as I can so that I have tons of memories and reminders to keep me going when he’s gone… and something to look forward to when he comes back.

And that is how I do it… because I can’t not. Simple – no?

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I have been noticing @MMFlint (Michael Moore) talking about taking a walk (#miketakesawalk) for a few days now. It triggered my guilt reflex because walking is something I ought to have been doing for months now. I even had a goal last year to walk 2 miles everyday for a month. At the time, people pointed out to me how unrealistic it seemed and I agreed with them. I just thought that it would only serve to inspire me to do if even half of it. I never did.

Today, I actually got an early start to my day and was up and early at the computer at about 7am looking into my school discussion board. Class started today and I had promised myself from the last class that I’d start my days with school instead of trying to finish with it. It didn’t quite work out the way I had imagined because I started Skype and work colleagues attacked me with a vengeance. A work vengeance anyway.

At about 11, I decided I was going to take a damn walk!

I walked halfway around our little circular lake community to the community Center and sat on the deck looking out over the covered pool and lake while the rain dripped and drizzled. There was no one there, it was peaceful and oh so sublime. At that moment, I felt the full effect and blessing of living in this secluded community that is such a gem in the middle of nowhere. At that moment, I knew I had to hold onto this experience and milk it as thoroughly as possible.

When I first left home, I had thought I might not get that far. When I got there, I thought the return home might be difficult to come back. But just sitting there on the deck renewed me in ways I cannot explain. Walking back was actually more pleasant and more enjoyable than the walk there.

As a bonus,I met our mail woman on the way back and had the most awesome conversation I have had since Paul the Wood Guy brought our wood here. We talked about the weather … of course, what else is there to talk about in the Pacific Northwest? Pleasant conversation and we both left feeling elevated, I am sure. (Amazing how human communication works, isn’t it? You share a story, I commiserate or applaud, and then I share a story, and you commiserate or applaud, then we both wish each other well and move on.) I sent a text to hubby saying “She’s awesome. I’m awesome. I’m …. Yay me!”

The best part of it is that I did that in the rain without so much as a blink of an eye. Which tells me that the weather is not going to be a problem.

Dammit! I think I need to do this tomorrow again!!!

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Yep – we all deserve a little excitement in life every now and then. I just prefer that mine not have to do with sitting in a mud-bound jeep for just under an hour waiting for someone to come literally “yank” us out.

I got something like 5 hours sleep last night because I had to be up early to collaborate with schoolmates on an assignment. Nevermind why I didn’t go to  bed early or what I was doing why I went to bed in the first place. This is not the time or place for WoW discussions. *smirk*

The idea, today, was to take the half-asleep wife out to the mud holes to show her just how “uber” our Rubicon is in the mud. Well, that was all well and good until one realizes that the half-asleep wife is a worry-wart who doesn’t really have fun in the same ways he does.

We were going great too – until I decided to weigh in and say “While I can see how this is fun, I am not having all that much fun because I am too preoccupied with worrying whether we’re going to get stuck or something…” Hubby goes “We’re not going to get stuck! I was out here just the other night…”

And predictably, what happens? We get hung up on a mud bar. Let me explain. These particular trails are swampland on the banks of a river. They are literally mud tracks through the woods full of mud and water and tree branches, etc. Well, hubby turned a corner and said “this particular hole is a little deep”. And while I tried to figure out why we were going in anyway, he launches the Rubicon in full throttle and we grind to a halt.

Presumably, we’re stuck, but when he gets out and watches while I try to maneuver the jeep out, he realizes that the wheels are all moving freely and when we turn the wheels all the way, we notice that the front axle is hung up on a mud pack in the middle of the road. You know that part of a track that gets built up when the tire ruts on either side keep getting deeper and deeper?

While we wait for help (because help is what we needed), hubby took pictures. I refused to get out of the Jeep simply because I didn’t feel there was need for me to get as muddy as he did.

The Cavalry arrived…

And hauled our asses out … well, yanked is more accurate description

Man, it doesn’t even look half as bad as it felt sitting in the driver’s seat. But we’re home and all is well and I can say I had a pretty exciting day. Although … I won’t be game for that kind of excitement anytime again soon….

At least my boots got to see some “real” action.

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These days, I feel so far removed from military spouse life that I sometimes wonder if I was fooling myself into feeling a part of it in the first place. There is no avoiding the face that I am a military spouse. If the ACUs in the laundry hamper and the various items of other military gear lying around the house aren’t good reminders, then I have serious issues.

No, what has happened is that our life has become quite civilian, living out here in the so-called boonies.  I no longer hear the bugle calls, there are no unruly children running around in my front yard, every second person is not wearing some kind of military uniform and a trip to the supermarket does not mean I will be one civilian swimming amongst a sea of ACUs.

To be honest, I sometimes forget that we are military. It feels as if we have transitioned to civilian life and I suspect that is only because I was civilian for a lot longer than I have been military.

In some ways, I miss it. I felt safe living on-post in Texas and in Kentucky. I knew that no matter what, I was one amongst a community that would be taken care of in the event of something bad happening. It was an illusion, though; at least in Texas. When Maj. Hassan blew into work one morning and emptied his gun into a crowd of soldiers, all I officially knew about it was that we were to stay inside and keep our doors and windows locked and our air conditioning systems off. (Yes, our air conditioning units.)

A few months later, there was a flyer being placed on our front doors warning us to be on the alert for a man in uniform who was not a soldier but a sexual pervert who had assaulted at least two other women on post.

When they caught the guy driving a car full of explosives near the gate where we lived, we heard nothing about it until way after it happened.

Safe? Safety is an illusion in this crazy world. There are so many disillusioned and ignorant people around that I am beginning to feel safer trusting myself to the wild than to the wider community. I would rather be mauled by a bear in my backyard than come that close to a car full of explosives again.

Meh … I fear my misanthropy is showing again; and while that may be true, I have to say I like living out here in the boonies. I like the peaceful quiet of this neighborhood. I don’t know what I would do if I learned I had to leave.

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