My Mostly Happy State of Not-As-Good-As

An Army woman came to yoga class once. After class, me and her and the teacher were chatting as we packed up. Actually, it was mostly just those two chatting, because Ms. Yoga Teacher had been in the Army and so they were talking about Army stuff. I just listened and felt like a pampered and pointless lapdog wife. On the way out of class, the Army woman asked me if I was thinking about enlisting. "Nah," I said, "I'm more the stay at home and have babies type." You know, ambitious.

Most of the time, over 99% of the time, taking care of the home front and writing and doing some light long-distance office work makes me really happy. Except when I'm around a big group of Army people, everyone in uniform and talking and laughing and comfortable, and I'm in my normal clothes feeling awkward with my arms crossed. Or when I'm talking to a woman who joined up at 18 and put in six good years of hard work and now does civilian work while she supports her spouse. These are ladies who have husbands, homes, kids, careers, and can run for ten miles without stopping. I'm the girl who, when I was 17 or 18 and it was time to choose a career, took one look at all the college admission paperwork and instead chose hurry-up-and-get-married-and-have-kids. Also, I can run a quarter of a mile. On a good day.

So. A lot of Army women are pretty awesome, compared to me. But a couple of years ago, I thought that most college girls were pretty awesome, compared to me, and I felt like I was wasting my life 'cause I didn't live in a dorm and have things to study and finals to take. I know there'll always be people who make me feel like a failure.

What matters, I guess, is that I'm pretty awesome compared to who I was six months ago. Then, I just cleaned a lot and paid bills. These days, I clean a lot, pay bills, and "practice writing."

Slightly depressing, but that's all I have today. We're low on groceries, so I have to get creative, and dinnertime approacheth fastly!