A young child stands with arms outstretched facing a low-flying aircraft over an open desert landscape

Romanticizing Military Life

Written By Lauren Hagee Glintz

Sometime after our PCS this summer, I realized with increasing unease that I occasionally sensed booms in our new North Carolina house. I’d be rocking the baby, and I’d almost hear but definitely feel a deep, vibrating boom, usually several in a row. They weren’t loud enough to wake the baby, just enough to make me look around confused, and then they’d stop.

One day, it started booming while my husband was home. “Do you hear that? Is that something military?” I asked him. We are surrounded by military bases here — within an hour of MCAS Cherry Point, Camp LeJeune and MCAS New River — and I assumed my Marine husband would know about any military things.

He did not know about the booms. In fact, he shared my unease. We looked at each other, wondering if our new house was threatening to explode. My husband even went into the attic to look around. When he didn’t find anything, I texted some of my new neighborhood friends about the booms to see if they were experiencing them as well.

One friend immediately responded, “Oh, that’s the heavy artillery training,” and sent a link to noise advisories from Camp LeJeune.

Reassured that the booms are, in fact, not our house threatening impending disaster, I actually find them amusing. “Oh yes,” I imagine nonchalantly telling my friends and family, “Sometimes it booms at my house,” as if it’s the most charming thing in the world. And that’s because I am a big believer in romanticizing my life.

Romanticizing life is fairly buzzy on social media right now, and honestly, I’m all for it. I love the idea of taking the normal (and not-so-normal) of your everyday life and reframing it as something special. I also like that it’s not about ignoring what’s hard or pretending things are easy, rather noticing what’s already good or interesting in your life, no matter how small, and leaning into it.

It’s not rushing through your morning coffee, or in my case, your morning diet soda, but reveling in the beautiful ritual of popping open the sparkly silver can and pouring it into a glass filled to the brim with ice. It’s hearing artillery fire and finding whimsy.

Despite being a social media trend, I think romanticizing your life is important, particularly when it comes to military life. So many things about being a military spouse are tough. It’s easy to slip so far into survival mode that one day you wake up and realize you’re sort of miserable.

When you romanticize your life, though, you remind yourself you’re the star of your own movie, not just the supporting character to your spouse’s military career. Suddenly, cooking dinner isn’t just cooking dinner: It’s the fun kitchen montage of the leading lady and deserves a soundtrack of your favorite music. With this perspective shift, it’s easier to feel excited about your day-to-day life, even when things are otherwise hard.

A toddler stands in a grassy yard reaching toward oranges on a tree, with a colorful beach ball beside them near a house

Take, for example, PCSing. As military spouses, we do not get to choose our home. While it’s very easy for me to romanticize coastal North Carolina, I cannot say the same about our last duty station, Yuma, Arizona, a remote desert town at the edge of the United States.

When I got off the plane in Yuma for the very first time, my two-month-old in my arms, it was 118 degrees. There is no romanticizing 118 degrees. But! There is romanticizing the fact that Yuma is the sunniest city on earth (this is a true, searchable fact!). And the inherited orange tree in my backyard that was so heavy with fruit in the winter that I taught myself to make marmalade.

And the helicopters and planes that flew low over town, much to the delight of my toddler. And the quirky shops! And the tamale festival! And! And! And! Eventually, I grew to love Yuma, despite the 118-degree days, and we built a beautiful — dare I say romantic? — life there.

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of moving resources and tools tailored to your needs.

A hand holds a coffee mug showing a cartoon dog surrounded by flames with a speech bubble that reads, “This is fine,” in a kitchen setting.

Military Life Fueled My Anxiety, Then Taught Me to Manage It

Written By Kristi Stolzenberg

I’ve wrestled with anxiety my entire life. But growing up in the 80s and 90s, we didn’t label it “anxiety.” We didn’t really label it anything, and as a result, I thought everyone wrestled with the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD.

The night before I started kindergarten, as my mom tells the story, I was “nervous” and didn’t want to go because I wasn’t going to know everything.

So, yeah, I might not be able to credit the military for giving me GAD, but it was known to fan the flames on more than a couple occasions.

Nine Digits

As a newlywed, on my second-ever visit to a military treatment facility, I was given some less-than-ideal test results and was sent to the lab (wherever that was) for bloodwork. When I finally arrived at the lab after an embarrassing number of wrong turns, all the worst-case scenarios running through my head, the lady at the desk asked me (everybody now), “What’s your sponsor’s social?”

I stupidly told her I had no clue what my husband’s Social Security number was.

She yelled at me. I cried, for a lot of reasons, but being on the receiving end of a scolding in public was in my/the top five.

Later that day, I learned what an Interactive Customer Evaluation comment was. And today, while I can quickly recall his social, when I’m asked for my own, it takes me a minute to dig it out of the recesses of my brain. The longer it takes to recall it, the more anxious I get, which only makes it harder to focus and easier to start nervous sweating.

A couch ripped apart with Kristi’s daughter shrugging.

Are We Having “Mandatory Fun” Yet?

The years kept rolling, and my anxiety was thriving in this environment of forced socializing with strangers, unknowns at every turn, pressure to get involved (mostly self-imposed), anticipation (of deployments, homecomings, orders, PCSes), and waves of unemployment, solo parenting, homesickness, postpartum depression and grief.

Over time, my “specialty” when it came to anxiety became social and anticipatory anxieties. And, just to keep things spicy, parenthood unlocked a whole new level of stressors, and each year, the list of “Things I Should Probably Know By Now” grew, which only added new opportunities (in my mind) to embarrass myself or not fit in.

Naming It, Owning It, Doing Something About It

Keep in mind, up to this point, I hadn’t received a diagnosis. I hadn’t seen a mental health professional … ever. I thought everyone faced the same symptoms. I just needed to toughen up, push them down, so I could face challenges (however small) as calmly as anyone else. Pro tip: That doesn’t work.

Leaving an OCONUS base after a particularly difficult and emotional tour while the raging pandemic threatened to foil our PCS more than once, I was reaching “cry uncle” levels of (what I now know is) anxiety. I didn’t know what to do or what would happen if I answered yes to any of the mental health screening questions scripted into every primary care appointment.

What my stubborn, I-don’t-need-help self was beginning to understand, though, is that this might not be normal, what I was doing on my own wasn’t helping, and it was not fair to dump all my stress and fear onto family and friends.

So, at a virtual primary care appointment (thanks, COVID), I answered those screener questions truthfully for the first time, and I received a mental health referral.

That was it. It was that easy.

I began seeing a therapist. In our first session, I unpacked everything through sobs. She listened. She helped me put a name to my tangled knot of symptoms, and through our sessions, she taught me how to balance the good stress that motivates us to do anything and the bad (which keeps us up at night and makes us worry over things we can’t control).

It’s been almost six years since I was diagnosed, which means I’ve had almost six years to navigate military life (and retirement) knowing what I was working with and confident I could handle it.

As my husband planned his retirement and life post-Marine Corps, my hand was steady (and, more importantly, not sweating).

Armed with what I learned in therapy, I didn’t find myself chasing the what-ifs, stressing about the invitations or cake or losing sleep over changes in income. And while he found himself anxious about the future (understandable, given the transition), I was able to share what I learned with him, and now with you.

Ask yourself: What am I anxious about? Can I do anything about it right now?

The answer is almost always no, and when it is, I do something to ground myself — often through a breathing exercise — and I redirect my energy.

This quieted nearly every stressor in military life because so much is out of our control as spouses, and to its credit, the Marine Corps was very generous with opportunities to practice coping strategies.

Now, even as we’ve put military life in the rearview, I hold onto this perspective — at work, at home, while watching the news and when I’m stuck in traffic.

No, the military didn’t give me anxiety, but it ultimately helped me identify it. It gave me good friends who don’t shy away from discussing mental health honestly and openly and it let me leave feeling empowered to handle challenges ahead. It might not have been the smoothest ride, and I took the long way, but the view from here is spectacular!

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of mental health resources tailored to your needs.

A sunlit playroom where Sydney lies on a rug while her young child and a baby climb and play, surrounded by toys and furniture

The Invisible Labor of Military Spouses

Written By Sydney Smith

As a military spouse it can be common to feel a missing sense of purpose as you jump from place to place, trying to figure out which jigsaw puzzle you just landed on, which puzzle piece you are and where you fit in. You will likely find purpose for a brief time — perhaps, a dream job you worked hard for, or a part in a community where you felt needed, such as at your church or a family readiness group. But inevitably, right after you’ve gotten nestled right in that cozy little puzzle piece-shaped nook you were meant for, you get assigned a new puzzle — and must start the process all over again. It can be hard, to the point of grief, stepping away from these roles and saying goodbye to the fleeting identities that gave you purpose in a foreign place. Wherever we are, we want to feel seen, noticed and needed.

I would argue that the role of a military spouse extends far deeper than the little puzzle pieces of purpose strung together over a lifetime. Fitting inside a jigsaw puzzle seems superficial compared to taking on the role of the backbone of your house and family, as each military spouse does — either consciously or unconsciously. The “invisible” labor of the military spouse runs deeper than any purpose you could possibly find in the outside world — and good news: It can follow you wherever you go. So, what are these “invisible” roles of the military spouse?

  1. Predictability and consistency: As a military spouse, it is a simple fact (whether you like it or not) that you are the one who never changes. You are the one the kids can count on to be there for the sports games, school pickups and the holidays. You are the one who is always there to wipe tears, kiss boo-boos and read bedtime stories — not just sometimes. When your spouse seems to come and go and their schedule is utterly impossible for little minds or big minds to anticipate or predict, you are the one they can depend on for everything. I don’t think it’s stressed enough … the importance of parental predictability. And if you are reading this, my fellow military spouse — you are the gold standard.
  2. Flexibility and understanding: If you’ve been a military spouse for more than a minute, then you know your spouse doesn’t have a typical “nine-to-five job.” In fact, it’s rare that your spouse ever has predictable wake-up and come-home times. To survive the perpetual lack of routine, you must become specialized in the art of “rolling with it” on a daily basis. “Making plans” is the punchline to every joke in your life, and you don’t even try to make them anymore. You have become the master of being flexible and giving the “spousal salute” no matter what, because you’ve learned throwing a pity party does you no good. You say endless goodbyes and make new friends even when you don’t see anything wrong with your old ones. You choose to understand and grow wherever you are planted.
  3. Safety and support: You are the rock, the emotional anchor tying everyone in the house down. When your serving spouse brings home all sorts of stressors and emotions in disguise, you function as the climate setter in your home. This is an honor and a privilege, but it’s also pressure to be the one who sets the temperature. When your kids or your husband brings home lemons, you could simply turn up your nose and walk away, but instead you throw them in the blender with some water and sugar and send everyone off with smiles on their faces. You are the voice of familiarity to your serving spouse calling from overseas. You are the warm arms that embrace them when they return home. You are their family, their soft-landing space, their own personal little slice of heaven they can bring with them wherever duty calls.

These roles might even seem invisible to you some days, but I hope you feel seen in the words above, and even if they don’t all resonate with you — I encourage you to embrace this purpose to the best of your ability.

Look around … at your home, your happy children and this somehow stable life you’ve created amidst instability — and realize this is the puzzle that matters most, because each and every piece belongs to you, and you are the invisible glue that holds them all together.

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of  mental health resources  tailored to your needs.

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