What I Need You to Tell Me

Looking over my calendar for the next few months, I have some exciting things planned. Our spouses’ club is hosting a huge fundraiser that will help raise money for community grants and non-profits in the area. We’ve been planning for months, and I can’t wait to see it executed for a good cause. My two workout besties and I have committed to a different hike each month, with our final hike being Rattlesnake Ridge (Google it…it’s unbelievable). I can’t wait to get to the top, take a ridiculous amount of selfies, then celebrate by gorging at our favorite taco truck.

With so many events, milestones, and general life stuff, it can be easy for me to forget the most important thing of all…

While I am busy living my fast and hard military life, so are my three best friends. They have the same exciting things planned, birthday parties to throw, and functions to attend, but they’ll be doing it with a deployed partner.

As their friend, I want to make them all coffee cakes every morning, take them out for coffee, and have hour-long conversations about our kids.

As their military spouse sister, I know that isn’t realistic. We all have needs throughout the course of the deployment, but they will vary as time passes. What is needed at the beginning isn’t the same as at the end. Rather than assume, I need you to tell me when you need, and I’ll gladly be there with all the help I can muster.

Military spouse, here is I need you to tell me:

1. I need you to tell me when you need advice.

Is your car making a funny noise? Struggling for new strategies when it comes to your toddler’s temper tantrum? Need an idea for a cool gift to send your partner that isn’t going to melt on the way to Afghanistan? I’m your girl. I know a good mechanic, have raised two cranky toddlers, and sent my fair share of care packages. Bring it on.

2. I need you to tell me when you need a workout partner.

Don’t feel like working out this week? Totally fine. (Me either, honestly.) But on those days when you wake up and want to punish yourself with a good CrossFit AMRAP or a run around the parade field, I’m happy to accompany you. Want to stretch that run into three laps around the parade field? Bring it on.

3. I need you to tell me when you’re lonely.

Listen, some of us delight in the whole bed to ourselves those first few weeks. And who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner three nights in a row? But after that initial honeymoon phase of deployment wears off, it can get downright lonely.

Text me. Show up at my door. Wave me down in the commissary parking lot. I don’t want to assume you’re lonely. What if you just want to sit and watch Netflix in peace? What if you’re reading that book you’ve wanted to read for the last year?

But what if you aren’t? I won’t know unless you tell me. And if you think you’re bothering me, you’re wrong. It will bother me more if you’re lonely and don’t tell me. Bring it on.

4. I need you to tell me when your kids are driving you crazy.

It will happen. And you can bet it will happen sooner than later. It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday and you’ve already fixed breakfast, “second breakfast” (because they are always hungry), and broken up three fights about the LEGO man with the sword that turns into a light saber.

Ring the doorbell, drop them off, hand me a bag of their favorite snacks and a change of clothes, and leave. I promise I won’t care. I promise I won’t judge. Need to leave them and the cat? Bring it on.

 

 

My three friends are just three of thousands facing the same future this season. What about them? I can’t watch all their kids. And there is no way I can run that many laps around the parade field. Thankfully, military spouses are in plentiful supply and we tend to think alike on these matters.

So ,to you other ladies reading this, no one knows you and your circumstances better than we do. Your parents and friends at home will support you, but the’re probably hundreds of miles away.

We are here. We are now.

You’re never alone. All you have to do is tell us what you need, and we’ll be there. I think I speak for all of us when I say, I need you to tell me. Bring it on.