Chapter Twenty-Two #2
She shook it off, returning to the conversation.
Sure, she admired these women for their positive perspectives on things.
Still, she wondered how much of it was authentic.
Maybe they had all simply drunk the Kool-Aid, and their job was to recruit new unsuspecting spouses into their club.
Or perhaps this was the stuff they told themselves to feel better about their life choices. Either way, Clara still had her doubts.
She decided to dig a little deeper, careful not to appear judgmental. She tried to keep her line of questioning casual. She didn’t want to come across as intrusive, but she wanted to know more—so much more. The desire surprised her.
“So how do you take care of the kids and the house, everything, all on your own? Especially when you’re always living in a new place, without your family around. That has to be tough.”
“Well, it is,” Ava said. “In fact, anything that’s going to break or go wrong will happen right after he leaves for his deployment. The kids get sick, the car breaks down, the air conditioning stops working.” She looked over at Laura with a smile.
Laura dissolved into giggles as she grabbed a tray from behind her. “They call it the Murphy’s law of deployments and I’ve seen enough of them to know this tends to be true. Every. Single. Time.”
The two women laughed.
Clara thought that sounded awful and wondered how Laura and Ava kept their humor through it all. “Wow, you two have really gone through some stuff.”
“Sure. We all have,” Laura said. “And sometimes life’s circumstances are more challenging than other times, no matter how you spin it. But it’s not like we’re single parents either. Although our husbands may be gone a lot, they’re still there, and the support goes both ways.”
Clara shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.”
Laura continued. “Besides, once you get to the other side of a long deployment, there’s no better feeling.”
Clara shook her head, not understanding.
Laura let out a long breath, and her shoulders rolled back.
“There’s a confidence, a feeling of independence, that is gained by going through it.
You learn in these times that you can do more on your own than you may have realized.
That doesn’t mean that you want to or that it’s better that way.
But just knowing that you can is really an important part of life. ”
Laura glanced at some of the other spouses in the room. She raised her chin. “They call us dependents, but the truth is, we are actually incredibly independent, more so than most. And we have the battle scars to prove it.”
Ava smiled as she waved to someone across the room.
She turned back to Clara with a grin as if she were letting her in on a secret.
“But at the same time, we are never truly on our own. I have always found military spouses to be the most supportive group of women I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.
They will drop everything to help another in a pinch. ”
Clara let out a scoff before she could stop herself and hoped they didn’t notice.
She didn’t want to insult them—it was just that she was usually skeptical of that sort of thing.
Maybe it was because she’d had the same best friend since kindergarten.
She’d always had someone—the same someone—by her side to do life with.
She never needed to branch out for friendships much beyond that.
Clara didn’t really trust other women the way she did Lily.
She couldn’t imagine forming these types of bonds at her age.
She certainly couldn’t imagine doing it over and over again, with all new people, every few years.
This sisterhood of spouses thing sounded nice enough—for these ladies. But the truth was, Clara thought these women all seemed a little too good to be true.
“Wow, you guys are so positive about everything. Where’s the bitterness? The resentment? Don’t military spouses ever complain?”
Ava let out a cackle. “Oh, yeah, we do,” she said.
She and Laura exchanged a knowing smile.
“Some of us more than others,” Laura added. “We have so many different personalities in this group.”
Ava pointed across the room to where a thin woman with a frown was wiping down tables.
“Take Allison, for example. She will criticize just about anything. She’s probably whining right now about how the cookies are too crumbly, or the hangar is too cold, or that the people around her are too annoying.
But she still shows up to this stuff even though she doesn’t have to.
I suspect she loves it all; she’ll just never admit it.
I wouldn’t exactly call her delightful to be around, but still, she’s truly a caring and nurturing person.
But don’t tell her that, or she’ll make fun of you. ”
Clara stifled a laugh.
Ava pointed out another woman with short, silvering hair.
“Then there’s Charlotte, our very own Pollyanna, who sees only the good in everyone and everything.
You’ll never hear her complain, no matter how many canceled plans or changed orders she puts up with.
We suspect it’s all just to torture Allison. ”
Laura and Clara both laughed.
Ava pointed out another woman across the room with perfect waves falling down her back.
“And that’s Meg. She always manages to make the ugliest base housing look like a page out of a lifestyle magazine.
She’s potentially a genius with a bunch of degrees but insists on catching up on celebrity gossip when she’s with the group.
She can be rather mysterious, though. One of these days, we’re going to find out she’s been working for the CIA—probably from her perfectly styled patio. ”
Laura and Clara were both doubled over in laughter. Ava was on a roll now, and Clara couldn’t wait to hear more. “Go on,” she said.
Ava pointed to a young lady who couldn’t be any older than twenty-five.
“That’s Abigail. She cracks me up. She’s a ton of fun and finds the humor in most things this Air Force life throws at us.
She’s still new to it, though. We’ll see if she’s still laughing a few deployments and several cross-country moves later. ”
Clara wiped away a tear from laughter herself. She recognized Abigail as the easily amused newlywed from the party the other night.
She loved how Ava had a way of making each one of these unique ladies sound interesting in the most lovable way.
She could tell that Ava truly did like these women despite all their different personalities.
Talking with Laura and Ava felt natural.
It felt like she was having a conversation with Lily.
Laura gave Clara a wink. “The truth is, we have a lot of fun together. I know military life seems sort of sad at times, from movies and books, and it can be. But it’s also a really active community to be a part of.
Sure, it can be hard moving every few years and having to start over with friendships.
But like anything else in life, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
If you invest your time into making connections at each duty station, you’ll be rewarded with friendships that will last a lifetime. ”
Ava nodded. “It’s true. I love this lifestyle. I love the purpose, the community, and the opportunities. I’ve lived all over the country, and we’re hoping our next assignment will take us overseas. How many people get to do that?”
Clara was thoughtful. Maybe these women weren’t simple cookie-cutter wives after all. Perhaps these women were a lot more complex than she’d realized. Perhaps they were all normal, flawed, diverse individuals—just like anyone else. Just like her.
“What about your careers? Did you have to leave that all behind when you got married?”
Ava looked her in the eye. “You’d be surprised what many of these military spouses do. We have doctors, pilots, authors, artists . . . you name it. Some spouses start their own businesses, and some are stay-at-home moms like me. I love that I get to do that right now.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course. Sure, we may have additional challenges when it comes to maintaining a career, but we’re not confined to any one lifestyle.”
Laura nodded in agreement. “She’s right.
And the truth is, not only in the military but everywhere—life is about sacrifices.
You constantly have to prioritize different things at different phases in life.
When you view these choices less as a sacrifice and more as an opportunity—you realize you’re not so restricted after all.
In fact, you may find that you have more freedom than you realized. ”
Clara thought about the hotel and her future there.
She wasn’t sure anymore if hotel management was really her dream.
Maybe it was a profession she sort of fell into, the next logical step in her career.
She wondered what she would do if she could choose anything for her life.
Maybe there was more out there for her to explore.
Perhaps Clara had more freedom in her career than she realized. Perhaps she always had; it was just up to her to decide how to use it. What if marrying into the military wasn’t such a sacrifice? What if it was instead, like life in general, full of endless opportunities?
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ava added. “This life is hard. And there are sacrifices involved. Being a military spouse takes a certain strength. It takes resilience, patience, flexibility, courage. There are a lot of challenges, and not everyone is up for signing on to that. Not everyone enjoys it. It just doesn’t work for some people for many different reasons. ”
Clara nodded, her eyes unblinking.
“But in my experience, it has been extremely rewarding,” she added.
“Same here,” Laura agreed.
Clara let out a long breath that sounded like a whistle. She’d learned more about this lifestyle from this one conversation than she had known about it her entire life.
She watched the other spouses who were boxing, wrapping, and working together.
Seeing all the smiling faces, she felt the return of that all-too-familiar feeling of overwhelming guilt.
These families all made sacrifices for their country—why couldn’t she?
Why did she think she was entitled to skip right over it when so many others had to go through it?
She was inspired by Ava and Laura, by all the spouses in the squadron. Perhaps being a military spouse wasn’t what she’d imagined it to be at all.
Perhaps she was beginning to understand what this lifestyle looked like from another perspective, the real perspective.
For the first time, Clara suddenly felt something she had never thought she ever would—a yearning to be part of this incredible community.