Reflections

I have a online ticker for Sean and I's anniversary on my computer and today it reads 1 month and six days. (This would be for our Justice of the Peace wedding, not our ceremony in case anyone is confused) I look back over this past year and marvel at where I was then and where I am now.

This time last year, Sean and I were dating (as best as you can 9 hours apart)talking on the phone all the time, constantly texting each other and talking from time-to-time about marriage. I knew at this point last year that I was going to marry him, although I didn't know that it would be quite so soon. I remember being a little bit scared about how much my life would change, but also being very excited about all the new opportunities that would come with it as well. All I knew at that time was that I loved this man and it didn't matter where he was going, I was going too.

Now, almost a year later I look at the good times and rough times we've had. I am an Army wife, something that I never planned on being as I was growing up. I was never one of those girls that had a thing for those "men in uniform" and I never had a favorite branch of the military. I had some friends like that, but I was never one of those girls. I didn't know anything about the Army before I married Sean. I couldn't tell you what someone's rank was just by looking at their uniform, what unit they were in and forget all those acronyms that come with being in the military lifestyle. I was a newbie and I still am. I still have to ask Sean questions everyday about things he tells me or things I hear.

I love this life. I don't love the deployments that inevitably will come, I don't love the long hours or the whole "hurry up and wait" menality, but I love our life. I love coming home and seeing Sean in his ACU's, looking so handsome and in charge. I enjoy the people that I meet and the opportunities that this lifestyle will provide with me being an Army wife.

I think about this past year and the things Sean and I have gone through, being apart for the first five months of our marriage and how that is going to prepare me for future separations. I think of us as a strong couple, even though we are still growing and learning how to be married. To me that's not something you can learn or even do in just a few months time.

My husband may irritate me and frustrate me at times and sometimes I think I hate the Army and some of the things that they do, but I would never want to be anywhere than where I am right now, with any other man in the world.