Circumstances

i went out to dinner with some of the other clearly crazy women who took on a role as a military man's counterpart.

i ended up asking pretty much everyone at the table how they met their man. the stories were REALLY interesting!! that's a truly unique thing to military life-- all the moving around gives you the opportunity to encounter a host of experiences and people that you would never otherwise have been exposed to.

and along that road, people often meet their spouses in some unexpected places.

like on a street corner. in fact, after this evening, i know TWO couples who met each other on a street corner. one was dared by a friend to talk to one of the men in those cute sailor uniforms, another decided to make a snide remark to a girl he walked past at an intersection.

the girl accepted the dare and has been married over 20 years.

the snide remark quickly turned into wedding vows.

i know someone who was at a bar with her girlfriends. a guy walked in, and a friend pointed him out and mentioned how cute he was. the (possibly intoxicated) girl said "i'm in love with him". they had never met.

they were married in less than a year.

one girl saw her husband for the first time in a dark theater and even then noticed how good looking he was. oddly, they figured out later, they became a couple on the exact same day as their first encounter, a year later.

there are a lot of horror stories in the military in terms of relationships. but there are so many AMAZING stories too. total chance, right place right time, situations that could never have happened if it weren't for the military's role in the life of one of the partners.

i would never have met my husband if it weren't for the military. and if not for the military, i wouldn't have two healthy little boys, comfortably provided for and cared for by a stay at home mom.

e comes home for 2 weeks pretty soon, his vacation from the deployment. and then he goes back to a slightly different job than he's been doing the last 4 months. where he's been has hindered our communication just a tad. where he's going is going to hinder it quite a bit. it's not going to be easy. and i know i'll curse the military more than once during this time, as i have more than once in the past.

but all in all, at the end of the day, there's a balance. there's joy, laughter, unity, grace, and hope. there are trials too, but that's true in every career, every walk of life, hm?

here's to all of the joy that has arisen because of the armed forces-- every street corner romance, every nourished mouth, every chance meeting of friends around the globe.

and here's to all the people who are showing up, little by little, at just the right time, that are helping me along this journey.

thank you.