In my opinion (and I know I might be a little biased), military spouses are some of the most resilient humans I have ever met.
You don’t have to be a part of the military community to see how true that statement is. We adapt, we figure it out, we hold down the fort. We make each new place a loving home and fill it with random friends we didn’t know a month ago, celebrate holidays a little differently each year, and learn how to make birthdays feel extra special through a screen.
We rebuild routines…over and over again. Magically, we figure out how to answer our kids when they ask questions we don’t have answers to. We just keep moving!
I know being resilient is meant to feel powerful or come off as a compliment from a stranger, but can I admit something to you all? I just really do not want to be resilient today. My resilience would be fake.
Let me tell you a few things I would rather not do if I wasn’t so resilient:
- Immediately search for the silver lining when plans change at the last minute
- Think “It is what it is” while mentally rearranging the next few weeks of our calendar
- Make the best of it
- Be flexible…like at all.
Personally, I don’t want someone to remind me that I am “so strong” even though I am. But I am also actively trying not to lose my mind. Sometimes I just want to say, man, this stinks, and it just is that. Stinky.
Now, I know that this sounds dramatic, but I don’t mean it forever, and I know I’m not alone. I haven’t suddenly forgotten all of the good that exists alongside the hard parts of this beautiful military lifestyle. My lack of fake resilience is just for today…remember?
I think a lot of us started confusing resilience with the ability to be completely unaffected by the things happening around us. But the reality is that you can be incredibly capable and still be disappointed. You can know that you will figure something out and still wish you didn’t have to. You can understand that the military has a mission and still be frustrated when that mission interferes with your family plans.
We can choose to be incredibly grateful for this life and still grieve pieces of the life we pictured. Two things can exist together.
Maybe true resilience comes later
Resilience is often talked about as if it’s a performance requirement for us to excel at in the middle of hard things.
Orders just dropped -> start making the list
Plans changed -> immediately pivot
Support systems come and go -> shift in and out of survival mode
Help a close friend pack up their moving truck -> try not to become a hermit with them gone
We have become almost unnaturally good at moving forward because military life gives us plenty of practice.
Today, however, I don’t like how resilience makes me feel. What if sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is allow ourselves the time to not move forward quite so quickly. We could spend a little time disappointed before we become optimistic, angry before we problem-solve, longing from missing someone without immediately reminding ourselves that we will, in fact, see them again.
To admit that we didn’t want this particular change before figuring it out can be a bit uncomfortable because we push resilience a step further by making it an expectation that we have to skip over our feelings.
True resilience is what we discover on the other side of actually allowing ourselves to feel all the feels. You actually don’t have to put the added pressure on yourself to figure it out right away or turn everything into a lesson. There’s beauty in being able to look back and recognize how an experience grew you.
I want you to join me today and cry about the changed plans, call the friend who understands, order dinner because you absolutely cannot reach a higher capacity to cook it, and go to bed without having figured out what the experience was supposed to teach you or how you are going to fix it.
It can wait.
Today, we just need to be human
I’m proud of the true resilience that military life has built in us.
There are versions of myself I probably never would have met without it; I know now that I can build a community in unfamiliar places, navigate uncertainty, start over when I need to and carry more than I once thought I could.
I don’t want our ability to carry hard things to become the reason we believe we should always have to carry them gracefully. Some days we will adapt, others we will laugh at the ridiculousness and some days we will choose not to fake resilience at all.
Maybe true resilience is knowing you’re allowed to have that day and trusting that when you’re ready, you’ll find your way forward again.
Then tomorrow, we will figure it out again.
