Finding One

C.S. Lewis once said, “​Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” Truer words have never been spoken when referring to a military spouse. With family living so far away in most cases, friends (or framily, as they are often called), become our everything. Friends serve as our stabilizers, our comfort, our balance... they fill the void vacated by the other friends we left behind and the friends who left us​.

Oftentimes in a military community, spouses befriend others by mere convenience and opportunity rather than by common interests and similarities alone. For instance, more times than not, we instantly try to click or bond with our neighbors. We peek out our living room or bedroom windows to see what family is moving in next door or across the street, and we jump at the opportunity to meet them. We find ourselves suddenly having to check our mail, walk the dog, or retrieve something small we must have left in the car “by accident.” While we’re out there, we just happen to see them, talk to them, introduce ourselves, scan their children for approximate ages and genders, and run back inside to text another neighbor down the street all about them. Then we sit and ponder if that new spouse next door is ​the one​. ​Will we have coffee dates? Play dates? Game nights? Will we sit outside and chat while the kids play? Will our husbands get along? Did I come on too strong?? I​t all gives a whole new meaning to “love thy neighbor.”

In all the excitement, there is hope... hope that the new woman next door ​is ​the one... Correction: hope that she will be the ​next one, ​because we all know that other ​ones ​pre-dated her. We lose sight, however, of the fact that this woman who just moved in next door is also wondering who lives in the other houses around her and how long they will be staying. When you’re the new spouse on the block, you’re eventually the one left behind, and the cycle continues.

The late Leo Buscaglia, an American author and motivational speaker, was quoted as saying, “A single rose can be my garden; a single friend, my world.” One real, true friend can be the world to a military spouse, especially during times of deployment. Even when the service members are not deployed, they may spend days, weeks, or months in the field, TDY, or engaged in various training exercises. The military spouse, therefore, is home holding down the fort... literally. Day in and day out we singlehandedly fulfill all the parental duties, housework, grocery shopping, cooking, errands, bills, etc. Without a friend to lean on who can provide an escape, an out, or a distraction for a little bit of time, our worlds would unravel. The realization that we are not alone and can and should lean on our friends reciprocally is a huge step for a military spouse. Some spouses play tough and are determined to handle it all alone. Some head in the opposite direction and actually lean too much. Somewhere in the middle there is a balance that we all must learn as we live cohesively together in this crazy thing called a military community.

This partnership of leaning on each other reminds me of a scene in the movie “Forrest Gump” when Bubba and Forrest find themselves in the combat-ridden, rainy Vietnam. As they lean their
backs against each other and attempt to sleep, Bubba says to Forrest, “I’m gonna lean up against you. You just lean right back against me. This way we don’t have to sleep with our heads in the mud.” Here we are as military spouses, leaning against each other (and ​with​ each other) to keep our heads out of the mud.

​So what happens when​ One​ leaves? Do we fall? Do our heads hit the mud? To some extent, yes. Initially, we are hit with a bout of loneliness. We cry. We mourn the “loss” of our friend. We convince ourselves that no one will ever replace her or fill her shoes. We feel alone. Eventually, however, we start to dig ourselves out of the mud. We emerge from our hole of pity and sadness and look out the window to see a moving truck parked outside the house across the street. We wonder, ​Could it be another One? What are the chances? Do I dare engage? Is it worth the inevitable heartbreak? ​Inexplicably, undoubtedly, unquestionably, yes!