Losing My Identity AKA My I.D. Card

As a right of passage, every BRAT gains an I.D. card at age 10.  It lets everyone you have to show it to that you belong, that you are part of the great Military Family collective.  Age 10 could only get more awesome, if you were actually allowed to carry your card all by yourself...My mother kept mine until I could prove that I wouldn't actually lose it.  We had to show that card everywhere, at the PX, the commissary even at the theaters and pools on Post.  What a glorious year turning 10 was.

Fast forward another 10 years or so and the panic of seeing the expiration date on your card, your identity, basically everything you've ever known is quickly approaching.  The realization that you are no longer part, no longer welcomed in the Military collective family sets in along with the ensuing panic that you belong NO WHERE.  Everything you've ever known is gone.  What do I do next? Where do I fit in or worse, will I ever fit in?  Welcome to Civilian life, now get with the program.

I had considered joining the Army, Air Force or possibly the Navy (the Marines hadn't been much of a draw for me, I wasn't built that tough) after high school.  I had taken the ASVAB in my Junior year and scored very high in communications, so I figured it was a start. *ASVAB* is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and it's pretty much like any other test that you can't really fail, it just lets you know what you're really good at.  My father (and mother) gave their opinions on my joining, and my dad said that I wouldn't last through Basic, my mother agreed and added that I wasn't good at following orders and I constantly bucked the system.  I'd make a hellofa an Military Wife, but to join myself would not be in anyone's best interest.  I had time to figure out my next course of action, after all I wouldn't actually lose my I.D. for another 4 years.  That's plenty of time to think things through, right??  Wrong!  After my father retired and we moved into family civilian life and adapted as best that we could, those years flew. Retirement was hard for my mom too, it meant that she was giving up the Gypsy lifestyle that she had lived and loved for 20 years. My father, was relieved that nearly 23 years he'd be able to have some time with his wife, he was looking forward to no more separations, no more missed birthdays, Holidays or wedding anniversaries, and perhaps doing something for himself.  The only difference between the adjustment into civilian life for retired Army wife and her BRAT's is that they keep their I.D.'s, they know they can always "visit" their former life.  It's still hard but it's different.   My expiration date was quickly approaching and faced with my new options, one that I hadn't really considered, I looked into joining the Coast Guard and then magic happened.  I found where I fit into civilian life, I fell head over heals in love with a Civvie. *Civvie is Military lingo for Civilians*  I was HOME.

I turned in my very last I.D. card and I mourned, I was no longer welcomed by the places I grew up, the most familiar and comforting places I had known and loved.  Once I married my Civvie honey, that took abit of adapting and getting with the program.  Not on his part, but on mine.  My Civvie actually understood and got me, he tried his best to make sure that I was comfortable in my new life but it had it's challenges.  He never knew if when he got home if the furniture would be in the same place or if I had changed the painting on the walls or the drapes.  I knew once we bought our first home, that we'd be there for a looooong while so I was always trying to make it seem new.  My mother always said it's a good thing that my husband never came home drunk, he'd kill himself because the furniture wasn't in the same place as when he left.   That was actually the least of the challenges I (or we) faced,  Language was another issue, I spoke Military and acronyms and he spoke in a normal dialect for the area.  My former Commissary was his Grocery Store, my housing area was his neighborhood, the PX was whatever named Department Store at the time.   Even what we called a carbonated soft drink was different.  I still speak in acronyms and slip up on the others even though I've been a civilian for more years than I care to remember.  My Civvie still gets me and loves me for who I am, who I was and hopefully for what I will be as we grow old together.  My kids kind of understand the BRAT way too. My Civvie and I have uprooted them from their birthplaces and have moved them across country. They've lived in 3 different homes and I can only hope that following in the footsteps of the strongest woman I have ever known, my Mom, that I have made them feel at home wherever they have lived. They have friends and family in different time-zones, they haven't attended the same schools and at the same time, it is different for them too.  They know that they can always move back to the neighborhood where they were born, shop in the same stores and they will be welcomed.  They empathize and commiserate to a certain extent, and they respect and somewhat understand what a BRAT's life is like.

BRATS and Civvies can coexist in life, it takes patience and understanding on both parts. It took a wonderful civvie to show me my way home and to begin to discover who I really am, who I will always be...A BRAT, and now I'm HIS BRAT ♥