A long time ago, on a blog I never update anymore [oh, this one!], I wrote a post about deployment advice and why you should shove it. The post discussed all these different… crafts and coping techniques that have been suggested to military spouses in the past, and a lot were touted by people with cricuts and, what I felt at the time, was entirely too much time on their hands.

I’m, as discussed elsewhere, not the crafty type of person. I have a tendency to screw things up. But can I tell you the real reason I’m not into that crafty stuff? Okay. Listen, it’s kind of a secret, so let’s not let this get too far, okay?

Here it is.

I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this.

Or admit to it.

My parents are going to flip their lids… with joy, I mean, that I’ve finally admitted it.

The reason I’m not into crafty type things?

Is because…

I’m lazy.

Yeah, I said it. I’m lazy.

If I tried to make a countdown calendar, **if I even finished making it in the first place**, I would forget to take rings off. Or even to erase a chalkboard and update the number.

The kids would, too. Can I tell you how long my eldest daughter’s wall calendar has said that it’s June? It’s December as I write this and the calendar was on June until last week.

But that’s my big secret. I’m lazy, and I’m just not all that crazy about the idea of having the make a huge mess that I’m just going to have to clean up, with… what to show for it? Something to hang on the wall?

In my opinion, food is more worthwhile. You can taste it while you’re making it. You have a delicious meal to show for it.

When you’re crafting, you know what you can’t taste?

Glue.

But I digress.

The thing is, there’s lots of people for whom crafting is a fabulous outlet for all those emotions we deal with during deployment. And they happen to be *really* good at it, much to my jealousy’s delight. And that?

That’s okay. The fact that they’re good at crafting, I mean, not the fact that I’m jealous of their skill. They’re doing a thing that works for them, and guess what? It’s not going to work for everyone. Folks create these gorgeous crafts and that’s *wonderful*. I create gorgeous pieces of the written word, I play my guitar, I lift weights at the gym and swap workouts with MarvMan… It’s what works for me. Which may or may not work for you. Because we’re all different. And not just in a simplistic way, either. We are these fantastic and complex beings with our own tastes and experience that, as a whole, are unique to us as individuals. Sometimes they overlap with others and we can create a community around that overlap. But even members of those communities are different from each other.

It’s really easy to get caught up in all these do/don’t lists and what you should do, what you shouldn’t do articles from people who’ve been at this awhile. It’s even easier to start measuring yourself and measuring your “success” or “failure” as a military spouse against what they do, whoever “they” happens to be for you.

But I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

Nobody has the answers.

No one person’s advice is going to fit you. No one person’s experience is going to exactly match yours. I have friends whose spouses are on the same ship as my husband – one even works in the same department – and the experiences we are going through are different, except a few commonalities.

No two deployments are the same, either. The things that happened last time may or may not happen this time. The things that break this time will be different, the kids will be different, your job will be different, a myriad of things will have changed. And advice you’ve been given may or may not still apply.

Hell, I’m writing these things because friends of mine read the first few I shared on social media and they encouraged me to continue. I trust their judgment. I trust when they tell me that what I write has a positive effect on them. Which is all I want to do. Provide an opportunity for spouses and families of servicemembers to connect based on things in common. I certainly never intend to preach at people or to say that I have the answers.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last almost thirteen years, it’s that I don’t have the answers. But I’m willing to go find them. I’m willing to share what’s worked for me, what hasn’t worked for me. I’m happy to share the process and my thoughts along the way.

So find yourself a big bag of salt, and combine it with the advice that you’re given.

Combine it with everything I say.

Find what works for you. Take what works and hold it close. The stuff that doesn’t work? I keep those things in reserve, in the back of my mind. They’re not useful right now, but one day they might come in handy. But for now? I’m doing the best I can, with what makes me happy. And that’s all anybody can do, I think.

But that’s just my opinion. 😉

 

 

This work by Lin Clements is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.