February 24, 2010
By Jacey Eckhart
 
I admit the first few days of the snowstorm of the century were lovely, white, and silent.  I wrapped our house around us and filled it with the fragrance of oatmeal cookies and beef burgundy. We read and played games and watched movies. Brad called from California to make sure we left faucets dripping and knew where the backup battery was. All good things.

Yet by midweek I realized I hadn’t felt this trapped since I was alone in Rhode Island with two kids under four years old and no car. I hadn’t felt this trapped since those Friday nights during deployment when I wanted to gnaw my own arm off (as a Coyote Ugly preventative measure) and hit the clubs. 

You would think that after years as a military spouse I would handle that lonely, frustrated, trapped-in-the-house feeling.  Better still, that somehow I would never, ever have that feeling.

But that expectation would be dumb.  Think about it.  If you are planning to build a life with someone in the military, that means the two of you will have plenty of time alone.  Put that much aloneness in a geographic location where every day seems like the next and Boredom and his little buddy Loneliness are bound to come to visit.

We military folks should know this already.  Our soldiers and Marines in Iraq report that the same thing happens to them all the time.   In his book American Soldiers in Iraq, military sociologist Morton Ender noted that the open spaces, the desert orientation and the lack of weekly rhythms like weekends and holidays disorient soldiers until one day seems very much like the next.  The soldiers themselves referred to it as Groundhog Day—like the Bill Murray movie in which the selfish weatherman has to live the same day over and over for maybe 10,000 years.  Feeling lonely/bored/trapped during military life doesn’t make you abnormal.  It just makes you military.

I know my husband deals with those times by working 18 hour days when deployed, watching basketball, and maybe playing video games.  I think a lot of our service members do.  At home, losing ourselves in work and video games isn’t always an option, especially if the kids keep taking the nunchucks.  The thing is, what are we supposed to do about it?  Suffering through is very unappealing.  And merely recognizing that I’m having a Groundhog Day doesn’t stop it.

I’m pretty sure that’s why my professional coach Lisa Nabors points out to me (endlessly) that we have to plan to encounter this kind of situation in advance.  We know its coming.  It always comes.  Thus, we need a plan.

Which I think is kind of counterintuitive.  I want to plan not to be in that situation and not ever to have those feelings. 

Which is why Lisa sighs a lot.  Then asks me to think of what else I can do.  I already know that Sunday afternoons are hard for me during deployment so I always have a plan to have the kids out of the house.  I plan midweek to deal with Friday night activities that do not involve a club or any gnawing whatsoever. The next time I know that weather will keep me in the house for 48 hours, I will….I don’t know…strap on my weather gear?  Dig an underground tunnel to Starbucks?  IChat my entire high school class alphabetically?  Strap the boys to a sled and train for the Iditarod???

What the plan is doesn’t seem to matter that much.  Having the plan, executing the plan is everything.  If you are still digging out from Blizzard 2010, practice for your future Groundhog Days by thinking about what you wish you had done.  If you didn’t get Blizzard 2010, stop gloating.  Start planning.  In one way or another, you’re next.

Jacey Eckhart is a military/life consultant based in Washington DC.  She is the author of The Homefront Club:  The Hardheaded Woman’s Guide to Raising a Military Family" and the voice behind “These Boots.”  Check out more columns and her speaking schedule at www.jaceyeckhart.com.  Write her at Jacey@jaceyeckhart.com