Tag: military

On quitting

I’m not great at quitting things.

I realized the other day that I’ve been slightly overcommitted with my time for as long as I can remember. It’s just my way of life, apparently.

Being busy runs in the family – I think we have a hard time saying no to things. Whether we’re busy with jobs, school, nonprofit boards, social action groups, church, advocacy, clubs, you name it – our calendars are packed. Even my grandmother just recently stepped down from her position on the board of a nonprofit.  When I was in college, I was a part of multiple clubs and on the executive boards of two of them, all the while being a double major & working/interning/student teaching. I get exhilarated looking at a full planner. But, also exhausted.

When we moved to Dayton two years ago, I got a job about three weeks after arriving – before we even had a house to actually live in.

Yesterday, I gave my two week’s notice at that job.

I’ve loved that job, I’ve hated that job, but most importantly, I’ve made incredibly close friendships and learned about what it means to adult at that job – to live in the real world, interact with everyday people, deal with intense frustration, share in the joy and sadness of others, and just plain work hard. I didn’t expect to stay in this job longer than a few months, but, here I am.

At the same time that I’ll be leaving this job, I will also be leaving the board of my local Air Force spouses group, of which I have been a part of for a year & a half. I joined the group right when I arrived, and in true Fogarty fashion, joined the board just a few months later.

If it weren’t for this spouses group, I would not have met so many incredible women who inspire me on the daily.

I would not have learned what it really means to be a military spouse.

I’ve learned so dang much about military life in general through this group – this new world that I stepped into when I said my vows would have been a much scarier place without this group. Being on the board meant that I was able to form deeper friendships and, frankly, learn about life from these spouses – both “seasoned” and new.

I won’t be leaving the group itself, but stepping down from a leadership role is something I’m just not used to. Being on the board of a group, something that I’ve done since high school, makes me feel like I’m in control {if only slightly} of the direction of the group that I attach my identity to. Being in groups like this is also how I make most of my friends.

Without being on the board & so closely tied to this group of women, I will have to be more intentional with developing my friendships, or acquaintance-ships. Not a word, not really a phrase, but it feels oddly accurate for military life.

I “know” a lot of people, but would they actually call me a friend? I have my doubts.

Ah. It’s so odd to be leaving two big things at once. It feels scary, it feels so so sad, but it feels freeing. I can take a second to breathe. {and maybe clean the house…} I feel guilty for not being a part of these things, and nervous about having to intentionally seek out social time outside of the realm of meetings & arranged events. I have to figure out my identity as someone who is less involved, less busy. I have to quiet those feelings of guilt for having free time, which is a commodity that many many many folks do not have.

Really though, I need to remind myself to quit explaining & reasoning away my choices.

I am so endlessly grateful to the people that I’ve met at my job & on the spouses board for the impacts they’ve had on my life – great, small, & everything in between.

I may currently have a giant mixing bowl full of feelings sitting in front of me, but I trust that things will turn out just fine in the end.

March madness & military life

March has been a wildly busy month – but I think I say that about every month!

It has been a month filled with learning, new projects, stepping out of my comfort zone, lots of coffee, family visits, & goodbyes to good friends.

Continue reading “March madness & military life”

Feelings on friendship

It’s hard to make friends.

It’s hard to make friends when you’re an introvert, a generally awkward person, a young & childless military spouse in a place that is new to you, and a liberal & not religious military spouse at that.

I have learned so. dang. much. about adulting in the past year since we moved to Ohio. I’m in that post-grad identity crisis stage still, which is weird enough on its own, but pile on the desire to make friends in a completely new environment where you don’t know anyone, and still being a newlywed, and you’ve got a LOT OF FEELINGS ALL THE TIME.

When I say that I’m not great at making friends, I mean long-lasting, deep friendships. I’m the kind of person who has a lot of acquaintances and people that I can talk to, chat with, enjoy spending time with at social events. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting to know people on this level, but sometimes I want something more complete. I often end up with just a few close friends, and unless I’m living near those friends, those friendships tend to be more distant than I’d like. I’m not the best at keeping up communication – just ask my mom when I last called her! 😫

Some people are so lucky to be able to form fast friendships that last and have depth, closeness, and heavy meaning, no matter where they go. I envy religious people who can connect through their faith to people and use that as a basis to form friendships, and develop those deeply through fellowship and study. I think that is a beautiful thing, but I’m not a part of a faith that allows me to have that right now. Mothers also instantly have something in common, a shared experience of giving life & raising children, and that can help form fast friendships. I don’t have kids yet, and understand that having kids majorly changes your life, your focus and your priorities, and that it might be harder to become friends with women that don’t yet share those experiences. I can still keep my fingers crossed that I’m just making up that idea though!!

I put such a focus on military spouses because that’s one of the most prominent parts of my identity at the moment. I don’t have a life-defining career, so the main way that I can find and make friends is through the group of Air Force spouses that I am a part of here in Dayton. There’s a shared experience that military spouses have that gives us a way to feel instantly connected to each other, and allows us to explore friendship – but many of us have big differences! I am a liberal, pro-choice feminist, and just by typing those few words, I might instantly alienate a lot of military spouses that I’d hope to be close friends with. I don’t generally have a problem being friends with people who don’t share all of my views, but I know that other people might find it more difficult, and that the closeness I’m looking for sometimes comes from sharing those types of views and ideals. Of course, maybe it’s not “worth it” to pursue friendships with people that would be turned off by big parts of my identity, but it still feels so discouraging to mentally cross more names off the list of potential friends.

Lately, I’ve been putting myself out there a little more, have been more active in these groups, and have been putting more of an effort into the chances that I do have to connect with other women and make friends. And I think it could be starting to pay off! I’m continuing to meet more women that I’m excited to get to know better and to see more often, and I think that feeling is mutual with some of them! I know that building lasting friendships takes work, a spark, effort, and that it won’t always work out the way I might hope – but here’s to hoping.

Also, I am totally aware of how freaking cheesy this whole post sounds, but sometimes my brain just really likes to write cheesy-ass things. #sorrynotsorry

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Our Dayton Bucket List!

My husband, Ben, is an officer in the Air Force, which means we’ll be moving every few years as he gets new assignments. His last base was Hanscom AFB, right outside of Boston, and it was a perfect place for him to be stationed as a young officer when we were first dating. Boston is a city filled with young people and lots to do in the downtown and surrounding areas. We packed so much into those 4 years while he was stationed there and while I was in college at Wheaton. We even made a Boston Bucket List, but not until we had about a year left in the area, and between me finishing up college and us planning our wedding and move, we definitely didn’t check off as many places as we had hoped.

During the winter of 2014, we found out where he would be headed next – or should I say we, since we were engaged and planning our wedding. He had applied to AFIT, the Air Force Institute of Technology, what seemed like AGES ago, and got the call one evening that he had been accepted to a program to get his Masters in Engineering! We were thrilled! But then came the realization that we would be moving to Dayton, Ohio.

I’ve grown up on the East Coast and near big cities my whole life, so when I heard “Ohio” my mind immediately went to: Midwest, cornfields, empty, sad cities past their prime, economically depressed, old houses, no fun, nothing to do!

And while there are plenty of cornfields out here, I could not have been more wrong about Dayton. Continue reading “Our Dayton Bucket List!”

A buttload of nostalgia

I know I’m really lucky to have so many places and experiences I can look back on and miss, but wow, does it suck sometimes.

Moving is hard. Relocating and attempting to start a “career” (whatever that is) and being newly married and trying to make friends are all kind of hard on their own, but throw on top of that a butt-load of nostalgia, and you’ve got yourself a fun mix of emotions!

This is the first September since I was 5 where I have not experienced the start of school. Being a student has been a gigantic part of my life for, well, most of my life, and finding myself missing that piece of my identity is more to grasp than I expected.

I miss the excitement of the first few weeks of school, where you’re beginning new classes and figuring out your workload for the year, getting to know your classmates, planning out your goals for the next months. Daresay I miss the homework and the readings??

I miss Wheaton – I miss the people. It was an amazing thing to be able to walk around campus at any given time of the day and run into at least two people who know who you are and who you can chat with. I miss feeling like a feminist. So much of my feminist identity over the past four to six years has been tied up with my involvement in clubs, with campus activism, with tabling, with event planning, with 2 am common room chats about feminist theory. I don’t totally know how to be a feminist outside of that context, especially in this new world of the military and midwest living.

I miss being able to travel all over New England any given weekend. Ben and I had so much fun exploring Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Maine, Newport, and lots of little towns right around us. There’s so much to see and do in Massachusetts and the surrounding states. I know there’s plenty to see and do in Ohio, but with new jobs and the move, we aren’t as able to get out there and find it all. We were so lucky to be able to travel as much as we did.

I miss feeling organized and put together and feeling like I have a plan. When I was in college, I felt like I knew what I was doing. I knew what my major was, when I would graduate, and by the time senior year rolled around, I knew that after graduation, I would get married and move. It all seemed so straight-forward and comfortably challenging. Now here I am in Ohio, so happy to be married and with Ben and in a new place to start post-grad life, but post-grad life is a little scarier than I thought it would be! I just started a new job, but it’s part-time and not in the career field I spent the last four years preparing for. I’m glad to be employed and to be meeting new people through it and to learn lots of new things, but I always had a picture in my mind that after college, I would easily find a non-profit or teaching job that I could settle into comfortably and feel successful in.

Heck, it’s only September, so all those things can still come. I’m sure in a few months I’ll feel more settled and happy with Ohio living. I’m also sure I’ll always miss the past, since I’m prone to getting hit by waves of nostalgia more often than I’d like. I am so so lucky to have this much to miss.

I’ve just got to learn to be patient and keep an eye towards the future but my mind in the present.

Thanks for reading! ~Margaret

Today’s thoughts: I can’t wait to move

This evening, I learned the hard way that you cannot turn on the faucet in the kitchen and take a hot shower at the same time.

I can’t wait to move.

I’m quickly learning that as a military spouse, there’s a lot of jargon and acronyms to learn and remember – TLF being one of those. TLF stands for Temporary Living Facility, which is where Ben and I have been living since we got to Dayton. When you’re PCSing (moving to a different base) you usually get to stay in the TLF for a few days on the military’s dime, which is what we’re doing for a few more days. Since we can’t move into our house until September 4th, we’re extending our stay until then.


At Wright-Patt, the TLF for us (married couple, no kids) ended up being a duplex which used to be base housing. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a full kitchen, and laundry. It also comes with a heat lamp in the bathroom that glows red and makes the room look like a murder room! Doesn’t every house need one of those?

It’s been really great to have a home base while we’ve been exploring the area, and it feels super safe here. It’s nice to have the kitchen even though the pots and pans they provide are ooooold and kinda crusty. Ben is awesome at making it work, and even cooked us some insanely delicious pan roasted brussel sprouts with garlic and bacon. He’s an amazing chef!!

Anyways, while we are so lucky to have this space while we wait for our house, some parts of it are getting a little frustrating!! For one, I’m really looking forward to being able to shower and do dishes at the same time.

Also, there’s no wifi. Boo.

 

Thanks for reading! ~Margaret

HEY THIS HAPPENED

The first look!
Noticing my awesome shoes
Welcome to the Air Force, ma’am!
Post-wedding dance party
One of my FAVES!
First dance dip
During my dad’s toast – “IT’S THE LAW”
Casual barn pic

WE GOT MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 9, 2015 ranks pretty damn high as one of the best days of my life. Ben and I exchanged vows (that we wrote ourselves) in front of 100 of our closest friends and family members. We got married and had the reception at Whitehall Manor in Bluemont, Virginia. Everything came together wonderfully and we are so happy – it’s been a week and a half and we still can’t stop grinning ear-to-ear!

Four days after the wedding, we moved out to Dayton, Ohio, which is where we will be for the next few years. Ben is currently stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and is attending graduate school with the Air Force Institute of Technology here for a year and a half. His next assignment might be here in Ohio as well, so we’re excited to start putting down some roots. We’re staying in temporary housing on base (and counting the days) until we can move into the perfectawesomebeautifulamazing house in Kettering, Ohio that we just signed the lease on yesterday! I’m still looking for a job, but I know I’ll find something I enjoy doing soon enough. We are quickly finding our favorite parts of Dayton and already have coffee shops we’re planning on being regulars at. Before we moved here, people kept mentioning how nice Ohioans (Buckeyes?? I don’t know what to call them) are, and that is definitely true so far. We are being welcomed with open arms and I’m really looking forward to the next few years here!

I’ll write a more in-depth post about the details of our wedding and the vendors we worked with when we get the rest of the pictures back from our photographer! By the way, our photographer is the best photographer in the world and everyone should hire her. All photo credit goes to her!

Thanks for reading! ~Margaret