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9 years now I’ve been married to my submariner. In a lot of ways, I thought that being married for 9 years would feel… different, maybe better. I thought we would have a lot more of life figured out. I thought that I would really grasp submarine life by now and feel like “an adult.” When I think back to when we first got married and how green I was then—yes, I am an adult and we have grown and, dang, submarine life has a lot of twists and turns, you know? But really this year has left me feeling blah. Returning to life on an active submarine after his break with the STA-21 program was a lot like I thought it would be. However, I thought it would be “crazy, shocking, and a real eye opener.” In all of those ways, it has been. His schedule on the boat is different than what they told us it would be when he got his orders before we moved from South Carolina. I will say that the schedule changes have all been in our favor—more time home, less time at sea—but these changes weren’t all handed to us in a neat little folder that I could mark on my calendar. They’ve slowly unraveled over weeks and months, always uncertain and always unsure of what was coming next, never sure what to tell the children or what to set my hopes on. I’ve now put his boat schedule in a bubble that I let float over my head, never letting it rest too long on the forefront of my mind or else I start stressing about “what it might be,” “what it could be,” “what it will mean,” and “how it will unfold.”
The children in turn have dealt with a return to boat life how you would expect a first grader, preschoolers, and a baby to handle it. They feed off of their parents’ nervous energy and all of the changes that have come their way in the past several months. They have regressed in areas that are normally in their control and have accelerated in areas that have surprised us. They have been resilient and exhausting and full of excitement and worry. “Knowing” or “anticipating” how children will behave in these sort of situations is very different than walking it day in and day out with 4 little faces making demands of you.
Living so far away from family has, again, been close to what I expected it would be. We knew we were putting west coast choices down for our top 4 when our family is on the east coast. We have a strong desire to make the most of his military career, to live in places we wouldn’t live otherwise, to venture out of our comfort zones and really live life to the fullest. But, dang, living life to the fullest is exhausting sometimes. I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near enjoying myself to the fullest here. I love the northwest and feel a peace in it. Our home is beautiful. The area is beyond beautiful. It has been family friendly and I’m met a handful of good friends. Yet, I feel so far away from my family and some of my best friends. I wish that I could compress all the best things from all the places we’ve lived and move all my favorite people there. While I think longingly of North Carolina, when I have that wild fantasy of getting out of the Navy life and moving all of us there, it still doesn’t have all my favorite people there or some of the elements from various states we’ve lived in. I feel like a wanderer, trying to figure out where it is we belong and all the time wishing that the people we loved could take every step of this journey with us.
The military life has left me feeling restless lately. There are so many elements of boat life that are exactly the same as the last time we were on a boat. They were hard then and now we are walking through them all over again. It makes me think, “Really? Again? Will I be facing those exact same things on his next boat tour too??” It is like Groundhog’s Day but in real life. We keep growing and our family is growing yet the boat life is always the same—different boat, different duty station, same old Navy. It hasn’t seemed to phase my hubby much. He’s glad to be back on a boat after so much time spent at school. I have to say, his enthusiasm for his job often leaves me feeling guilty. I am so glad that he has a passion for what he does—obviously—or else this Navy life would be exceptionally pointless and exhausting, but it is hard when he seems to be finding a level of satisfaction right now and I am focused so much on the hard points. He can’t share with me all the “cool” things he does at work and they take so much time—14 hour days, 3 day duty sections. And after hearing all these amazing stories of what “off crew” would be like, I’m left disappointed. I don’t know if we are dealing with a strange schedule or if having 4 children makes it feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, but we haven’t yet had the experience where off crew is this smooth sailing period where he is home before our son’s school lets out.
I know I’m not the only one who has had periods of time where they are disenchanted with the Navy. When we first got married, it was a rough transition from being single and dating to being married to a submariner (all the way across the country from my family). It was rough. I’m not struggling to the same degree as I was then, but I do struggle to find the joy in the midst of all these changes and the new patterns being imposed on our life. I’ve struggled hard with duty days, which surprised me because I didn’t struggle with them so much the first time we were on the boat. They didn’t bother me as much then. We only had one baby then and so I’m not sure if being pregnant with our fifth and having four bouncing boys is what is making it such a struggle, but I miss him. The children and I rely on him. He makes me laugh and makes the bedtime routine fun. The boys miss their dad. I miss his company and clearly his help. With a tight duty rotation it feels like he works, works, works and then is sleeping on the boat only to start work, work, work again.
And there are so many people that I just miss living here. I wish I lived next door to my best friend again. I miss my family and my sisters. I miss the warm beach. I miss his schedule in North Carolina. It was a beast then, but I knew even then that when we left it would be something I looked fondly back on (and here I am! Looking fondly back on it…). I think one of the biggest lessons I have learned being a submarine wife is that I need to be able to find my joy and my heart even if places where it isn’t easily found. It is hard to be upbeat and look at the bright side when you feel lonely and isolated. It is hard to feel involved and supportive when you are left on the sidelines, especially after so much time where it felt like a team effort. One of the hardest things has been that the list of “goals” I made for myself have to materialize since we’ve been here. My time has been stretched and things I planned on doing aren’t going to be possible for the time being. I have to trust God and find the patience to wait(but, God! All I do is wait!). There have been more than a few moments here where I’ve wondered what my place will be over the next couple years we are stationed here. I’m still not sure. I don’t know. Maybe I won’t be sure at all and then when we move from here it will click what I’ve been doing all this time. For now I’m plugging away in all the ways that God has brought to my attention. My family keeps me busy and I’m not sure that there is anything else that God has revealed to me at the moment. I just have to trust.
Have you ever felt disenchanted with the Navy? How did you get through that period in time?
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