The Many Lives I've Lived (A military wife's perspective)

No one really talks about how many lives you live when your spouse chooses a 20-year career in the military.

They talk about the deployments. The moving. The uncertainty. The sacrifices.

But they don't always talk about the little things.

They don't talk about leaving your family behind, packing up everything you own, and saying goodbye to the first place you ever called home together. They don't talk about arriving at your first duty station and realizing that, for a while, it's just the two of you. You learn to rely on each other in ways you never imagined.

Then you move again.

And somewhere along the way, you make friends who slowly become family. The kind of friends who would drop everything to help you because they understand what it means to be far from home.

They don't talk about the first dog you bring along for the journey, or what it feels like to lose them years later. And then, somehow, you have to do it all over again.

They don't talk about having babies in the middle of all of it. About bringing them home to tiny military houses and watching those babies turn into toddlers, then little kids, then teenagers almost overnight.

No one really talks about how much you change, either.

How you can look back after 16 years and realize you've lived so many different lives that you almost don't recognize the person you were at the beginning.

I think I've lived at least six.

Life One: Oklahoma

The first life was simple.

It was just my husband, me, and our dog, Reagan.

We packed up the little things we owned and moved to Oklahoma for my husband's first duty station. We lived in a 500-square-foot apartment and slept on an air mattress with a mattress pad on top. The furniture we had was literal wicker furniture my grandfather let us borrow while we were there.

We didn't have much money.

We ate a lot of Tuna Mac.

Our dog, Reagan, ate Blue Buffalo.

He definitely ate better than we did. 😂

But somehow, we were happy.

We were young, newly married, figuring out adulthood together and building a life from almost nothing.

Life Two: Alaska

Then came Alaska.

For the first time, we were offered a military home. It wasn't huge, but it was ours.

And that's where we brought our baby boy home.

Eventually, we decided we needed more space, so we moved to the Valley and bought a home. That's where we brought our daughter home.

Our family was growing.

So was our circle.

We made friendships that became family. People who weren't related to us but who became the people we called when we needed help, when we needed someone to laugh with, or when life simply felt too far away from home.

Those friendships are one of the greatest gifts military life has given me.

Life Three: Florida

Then came the shift.

The one that changed everything.

My husband applied for officer school.

He got in.

And suddenly, we weren't just moving a couple of hours away.

We were moving across the country.

We packed up our entire life in Alaska, said goodbye to the people who had become our family, loaded our two kids and two dogs into the car, and headed for Florida.

Florida was our third life.

Again, we were put in the tiniest little house.

But somehow, that little house holds some of my biggest memories.

The kids were little.

They were our whole world.

We did everything together.

We spent time with my sister-in-law and her kids. We explored Florida and Alabama. We made memories without realizing they were memories we'd one day desperately want to go back to.

When I think about Florida now, I remember little voices.

I remember tiny arms wrapped around me.

I remember the snuggles.

I remember the laughter.

I remember the pure happiness that lived inside that little house.

Those are the moments I remember the most.

Life Four: Abilene

Then came Abilene, Texas.

We were only there for a year, so compared to the other places, it feels like such a small piece of our story.

But once again, my kids were little.

And once again, they wanted nothing more than to hang out with me and do all the little things.

And somewhere in that short chapter, we lost our first baby.

Our dog.

Reagan.

Right before we left.

I don't think you ever really understand how much a dog can be woven into your life until you have to leave without them.

Life Five: South Dakota

Then came South Dakota.

Six years.

Six years that shaped all of us.

My kids grew and grew.

We made friends.

We made a home.

We built a life that finally started to feel less temporary.

For a while, I think I forgot we were going to have to leave again.

And then, eventually, we were told it was time.

Time to pack everything up.

Again.

This time, we were going back to Abilene—a place we had never really loved the first time around.

And yet here we are.

Six Lives Later

Sometimes I look back at the last 16 years and wonder how it all went by so quickly.

Six lives.

Six versions of me.

Six versions of our family.

So many houses.

So many goodbyes.

So many people we loved and then had to leave behind.

So many friendships that were once an everyday part of my life that now exist mostly in memories, old photographs, Christmas cards, and the occasional message saying, I miss you.

I miss them.

I miss those people.

I miss the versions of our lives where they were just down the street. Where we could call someone and say, "Come over."

I miss the people who knew us during those different chapters.

Because they knew a version of me that doesn't exist anymore.

And maybe that's the part no one talks about.

You spend so much of military life packing up and starting over that you don't realize you're leaving pieces of yourself behind, too.

Somewhere along the way, I've lost me.

I've lost the woman I was before the moves, before the kids, before the constant starting over.

I've lost some of my passions.

Some of my hobbies.

Some of the things that made me feel like me.

And now I'm having to relearn them.

Maybe that's why this season of life feels so reflective.

My son is 14.

My daughter is 11.

And this year, they decided to go to public school.

For the first time in a long time, I'm looking around and realizing how much has changed.

The babies who once needed me for everything are becoming teenagers.

The little voices I remember so clearly are deeper now.

The tiny hands that used to reach for mine don't need me in quite the same way.

And suddenly, I have space to think.

Space to remember.

Space to miss.

Space to wonder who I am now.

Maybe that's what these 16 years have really been about.

Not just moving from place to place.

But becoming someone new every time we did.

I was the young wife in Oklahoma.

The new mom in Alaska.

The mother of two little ones in Florida.

The grieving dog mom in Abilene.

The mom raising growing kids in South Dakota.

And now I'm here again in Abilene, looking back at all of those women and realizing they were all me.

I've lived so many lives.

And I wouldn't trade them.

But I think I'm finally ready to figure out who I am in this next one.