Living with the “New Normal”

Another blogger was brought to my attention through a military e-mail that I received.  Her name is Rebekah Sanderlin.  She blogs for the Fayetteville Observer, is married to a soldier that has completed 3 tours in Afghanistan and is a mom of two.  Her commentary “Military Families Learning to Live With ‘New Normal’” hit the NPR airwaves this week and, for me, she hit the nail on the head!

For those of you that don’t know, I am living at my parents’ house in NY, while my husband is already at his next duty station in the United Kingdom.  We are waiting on our visas so that the kids and I can join him.  Well, after dropping off my son at pre-school, my little girl wanted to go get bagels (we are really hoping they have bagels in the UK, but I fear she will be very disappointed!)  At the bagel shop, we ran into my cousin, Billy.  Billy is a dying breed — he is a farmer on eastern Long Island.  Just like his father and both of his grandfathers before him.  Being surprised to see me, he asked what we were doing in town.  I explained to him briefly what was happening and his response was, “Moving around must be so hard on the kids”.   For Billy, the idea of relocating your family multiple times (let alone just once) is foreign.  Billy and I grew up on the same street; amidst the farmland that was our families.  I left for college at 18 and only come back to visit.  Billy moved from his parents’ home to his home with his bride.  For Billy, my life is anything but normal!

After parting ways, I thought about what he said and realized that moving is normal for my children.  They know that we change houses and make new friends all the time.  Then I listened to Mrs. Sanderlin’s NPR commentary and realized what is normal for us, goes much farther then relocation. 

Military families face new issues with the repeated deployments.  And, taking from what Mrs. Sanderlin said, this is our normal.  We are use to our loved ones going on year long deployments and not knowing if/when they will be back.  Our younger children are unsure when daddy/mommy is home if he/she will be at the dinner table that evening or if it will be months before we see each other again.  Personally, the one comment that hit me the hardest was when she said, “we don’t know the long term effects” that our lifestyle will have on our children.  We are the first generation that has had to deal with repeated and lengthy deployments. 

But our children do have the so called “normal” life too.  We have little league, dance lessons, school plays, etc.  It’s just that sometimes, it is only one parent that can be there — that is different then “one parent that could be there” or “one parent that choose to be there”.  As military parents, we try hard to give our children all of those fun things, regardless of the uncertainty that our lives have.