There are some circles in which I am not a military wife.
My children and I participate in an alternative learning cooperative once a week. It’s located 40 minutes from my house and the base my husband’s command deploys from.
I joined this summer, and I teach a journalism class to high school homeschooling students.
My girls take a preschool science lab, art and sensory classes, plus other fun, play-based educational classes.
We love it there.
I am a teacher and an assistant in my daughters’ classes. I am surrounded by families like mine and different than mine, and though there are a few that are military, none of them are married to a submariner.
Until recently.
A new family joined the co-op; the matriarch’s oldest daughter is in my class, and she asked about my pregnancy.
I smiled, and she asked if my husband and I were getting excited.
I told her we were, though not as much as before, because my husband was going to be gone for the birth.
She cocked her head, questioning, and for the first time in the two months we have been at this co-op, I told her he was in the Navy. And we were stationed on a submarine.
Her face immediately lit up. I knew she was new to the area, and I suddenly realized why.
She excitedly told me her husband was also a submariner, and that they, too, were making the 40-minute drive weekly for this educational opportunity.
And just like that, it snapped.
She asked the questions you ask when you’re new to a Navy base. And I answered. I gave her what scoop I had, and I told her where to go first and who to go see.
And then she asked if we could get together closer to our homes a different day.
I told her we sure could. Because she seemed nice, and community is the bedrock of the Navy wife’s creed.
And yet, I was a little sad.
My cover, in a way, had been blown.
I am a proud military spouse. I always will be. I have skills honed from my husband’s service, and I am thankful and proud of them.
But sometimes, I just don’t want that to be my sole identity. Or even my main one.
I didn’t realize it until I put down the teacher, mom, co-op façade and turned on the Navy wife channel, even if just for five minutes.
It seems silly. I can’t just get rid of that part of my personality, after all.
But sometimes, it’s just nice to be someone else. Even for one day a week.