Independence While Being a Dependent 

It's been eight months since my husband's military job moved us to our new location. This was the shortest move we've ever made in the thirteen years of being a military spouse. I am not tired of moving; I've gotten used to it at this point. I am tired of all the red tape we must go through to get reimbursed for damaged furniture, but that's a running joke now. I always joke about being the worst type of military wife; maybe it's my California roots, which I'll never apologize for, but the military culture was something I had to learn to adjust to. 

Becoming a military spouse or having any military affiliation was so far from anything I ever planned for my life. In high school, there was a Marine recruiting center right across the street. "How convenient or strategic," I remember thinking as I watched the boys in my senior class make their way over to talk to the recruiter during our lunch break. The recruiting office across the street had our entire school buzzing with the chatter of which boys in our senior class would be joining right after graduation. While some girls swooned and our principal congratulated some students for signing up to serve our country, I was not impressed. My principal noticed this and asked me if I would ever consider marrying a military man. I almost choked; the very thought of leaving everything I knew to follow a man was absurd to me. Well, I am humbled to say that is precisely what I did just a couple of short years later. 

When I met Alex, I had literally no idea what he did or what BAH or Tricare was, so you know it wasn't the amazing healthcare that won me over, nor that he could afford rent. It was that after I got off of work, I would find him parked next to my car leaned up against his motorcycle, with roses waiting to take me to dinner. It was that when I was with him I felt safe; I felt heard and seen in a way that no other man or boy had ever made me feel before. However, I won't deny that maybe, just maybe the uniform might have had something to do with it; I mean, he does look really dang good in that navy blue uniform!

A year after I met him, I learned Alex was to be shipped off to a boat on the other side of the country and be out at sea for months with little to no communication. Though I entered a relationship with him, knowing he would eventually leave, I was caught off guard by desperately not wanting to be without him. With Alex I felt so safe and free to be myself, that all my free-spirited ideals of not following a man around where irrevocably challenged by the budding notion that I truly was willing to follow him anywhere. When he dropped down on one knee, I whole heartily agreed and cursed every fear I had about moving away from the security of my family and friends for an unknown future with him. My wedding day was quite literally the one of happiest days of my life. 

 Our honeymoon was short-lived since Alex shipped out a few days after we moved. The onboarding experience to military life was jarring, as symbolized by a handbook I learned about that covered proper etiquette for spouses. The handbook was said to include instructions such as, "a spouse is supposed to hold an umbrella for the military member when he is in uniform." In all fairness, I was only told about the handbook, I never actually saw this handbook on spouse etiquette. Aside from umbrella holding, I also learned how much of your private life the military has a say in, but what stood out the most was that I was forever to be considered his dependent and needed his authorization to do just about anything. According to Oxford languages and Google, the definition of dependent is "a person who relies on another" ("Oxford Languages And Google - English | Oxford Languages"), yet when the truck arrived at our assigned military housing, I was alone to receive our household goods.

Though I've made peace with a lot of the clashes between military culture and the free spirit that lives inside me have, I still want to buck against the system now and again. For example, I recently emailed a military contact person asking a question about the claim we submitted for the items damaged during this last move. I received a response email telling me that they could not disclose information about HIS personal property to anyone other than my husband. I'll admit I wanted to riot! My husband copied and pasted my exact email added his signature at the bottom, cc. d me, and re-sent it to this same person. I hope the pettiness was not lost on them.  

Despite being labeled dependents, I've met some of the most innovative, resilient, and independent women throughout my time as a military spouse. Women who learn to navigate raising children far from family and long periods without the physical support of a partner, women who find ways to continue careers and their education after countless moves and deployments. Moreover, these women become assets to their immediate communities, serving and leading events for families on base or assisting on the PTA at their kids' schools. Women who balance their own goals and careers, advocate for their children, serve their communities while doing all the other house things while their husbands serve our country.   

I want to highlight the responsibility and burden that military wives experience when we must learn to cope with deployments, the loss of communities when we move, and the pressure to balance independence while being dependent. Military communities often tout our reliance, but I know there have been moments where I've resented the service and held it responsible for how alone I've felt. Like when we were stationed in Key West, and a tropical storm was headed our way, I had to be prepared to evacuate at a moment's notice with a toddler while I was eight months pregnant. Or when there was no one to celebrate with me when my son took his first step or my daughter said her first word. Learning this dance between independence while being dependent requires personal growth and stretching that sometimes brings us to tears. 

I've learned to be grateful for all the experiences, exposure, and challenges the military has given me as a spouse in recent years. So, though I was a naive young girl who fell in love with a military boy, in many ways, military life was the fire that tested that free spirit inside me to make me strong. The challenges military life brought allowed me to find a voice and become part of a community of women who have also been part of this trial by fire and discover their resilience, strength, and true independence despite accepting the military label of spouses dependents.