What if...?

There have been so many positive changes in my surrounding the past couple weeks and months. We've had new families move in on our street. My kids have so many people their age to play with outside. I made good friends with my neighbors and they are real and genuine people that I can feel a deep connection with-- the type of people that you can see being friends with for a long, long time. I love their whole family and they welcome my entire family with open arms. It's amazing. I love the feel of our street right now. It's the type of place you want to lean back and enjoy, let some roots grow.

I have spent the past couple weeks and months saying, "What if it had been like this the whole time we lived here?"

For just about the first time since we got here, my physical health hasn't been a problem. I started this duty station with an incredibly bad case of mastitis, swooped into a horrible pregnancy that almost killed me and my daughter, and post-partum complications that required surgery. Now, a little over a year since recovering from my surgery and coming out of my depression fog, I actually feel like me.

My mental health has also been good. I feel competent and capable. I have many challenges on my plate right now, but I have made a mental health plan that has kept me on track. I have a positive outlet for my stress. I don't like some of the challenges on my plate, but I don't feel like they are consuming me.

It's been a little frustrating thinking about where I am now and everything that happened over the past 3 years. I think about so many times where I made the wrong choice or said the wrong thing or basically just struggled. I feel like I tried everything that I could to make this duty station work for me, to try and use and create resources that would meet my needs, and to make the most of our time here with the challenges that we had and it just didn't happen. It feels like most of the time the problem was me and while many situations I can clearly see what I would do differently now, some of them, even now, feel deeply overwhelming and frustrating.

While struggling with the depression, I also felt angry. I couldn't understand why it felt like life kept dealing me bad cards. It was like all my bad karma chips got cashed in at once. While I was going through everything, I didn't realize how bad things were or how bad things would get. I kept thinking, "If I can make it through this, we will be okay." But that didn't happen. Instead, we would get hit with the next bad thing. It happens.

Like most military families, we didn't have support when we moved here. It's hard to build that support when you are dealing with adversity and I know I didn't handle things well. I didn't feel like myself at all over the past 3 years and I so desperately wanted life to throw me a rope, but I never did get pulled out. Instead, the challenges washed over me and I had to slowly, step by step, pull myself to dry land.

I got hit by another challenge at the start of this year. My marriage almost fell apart. It still isn't doing very well, but, for a minute, I felt thrown back to my lowest point at this duty station. I felt everything that everyone has said about me was true. I felt completely worthless.

One day I was at the gym when suddenly I realized something: all of the negativity was in my head. Yes, I've messed up. Who doesn't. Yes, I've handled things wrong. Who doesn't. Yes, I tried to make things better and it didn't work. It happens. Yes, my marriage is on the rocks. I haven't accomplished all the goals that I've wanted to at this point in my life. I'm leaving here with even less friends than I had moving here. All these things were wrong, but the negativity is all in my head. I don't know what my reputation is, but I know what I tell myself my reputation is. I know what I tell myself about even the smallest thing I've messed up on. I know what I tell myself about my marriage. I know what I tell myself about my life goals and my personal accomplishments. None of it was good.

That's when I decided I needed to stop talking to myself like that. I need to start cheering myself on. I need to tell myself the words I want to hear. I need to give myself permission to spend my time doing things that are rewarding to me. I need to stop thinking I love myself and start actually doing it.

I signed up for the classes I've been pushing off. I lined up and committed to childcare during those classes so I will be able to take those classes. I switched from casually hitting the gym and setting small goals, to taking my gym time seriously and setting solid goals that I work towards hitting. I have congratulated myself on each of those goals. I do not let myself worry about if my college degree or my gym time are "good uses" of my time. I shut down any of that negative talk. I do not tell myself that I deserve pursuing my goals and dreams because I supported my family for 11 years. No, I deserve my time because I am an equal member of this family.

There are a few things that still give me a lot of stress. For one, my marriage. The second one is that "what if" question. I felt like that I poured myself into so many things here and nothing refilled me. Nothing poured back into my life. I felt empty. Now, suddenly, when I am about to leave, I have so many outlets and so many places that I find fulfillment. I keep thinking, "What if it had been like this the whole time we lived here?" I can think of several times where I wouldn't have fallen into that desperate spiral I found myself on, seeking those solid connections.

I don't know. I don't know what it would have been like. In some ways, I feel like I've learned a lot about myself through this. I have learned the importance of finding outlets for myself, respecting and honoring my time, and pursuing my dreams. I feel like before I moved here that I would absorb everything for my family, absorb everything I could for my friends, and to bend my energy and time how I could for the people in my life. Now, I have much more structure and I guard my mental health much more carefully, especially now with so many stressors currently in my life. Perhaps this duty station is what I needed to take the plunge and carve out the time to accomplish the goals that I have put off.

In other ways, it really breaks my heart thinking about "what if." It just feels like so many things would have been much less difficult with all the positive changes I have in my life now. I can't say right now that I'm glad for all the challenges and that the lessons we learned were invaluable. Sometimes I think life is just hard, heartbreaking, and tough and maybe there is a reason for it and maybe it is just one of those miserable things about being alive.

With that said, a small lesson I feel the past 3 years have taught me is to see the beauty in every day life, despite the challenges and chaos. I have a lot of stressors and challenges currently but the beauty and humor in every day life have carried me through. I know that is a direct result from getting through much worse in the recent past. I guess that's what's getting me through the small amount of time we have left here at this duty station, the every day beauty. Appreciating the street we live on and appreciating the people who have come into our lives. Appreciating leaving here on a good note, getting that closure after so much hardship. Taking each day as it comes and focusing on my goals. Making sure I'm telling myself good things and not tearing myself down. 

Have you ever really struggled? How did you get through that hard time? Do you feel you learned something from it?