literally, darling
on sending christmas cards
“I would muster all the quiet energy of my stepmother … and I would produce thirty-something identical, perfectly imperfect little suckers that would put all the smug TinyPrints efforts of my past to shame.”
on opting out of the dating game
“… getting married at a young age fucks you up in infinite infinestemal ways that you can’t understand until you’re on the other side of it. Growing used to growing up with a partner – who, for better or worse, becomes your be-all-end-all all-in-one other half – and then suddenly dismembering the additional limb you’re accustomed to is, in short, a bloody nuisance.”
on the weirdest job of my life
“Unfortunately, when confronted with hardship, one must turn to one’s most marketable assets – and, for a little British woman standing in the ashes of a life punctuated by spontaneous decision-making, the assets with the greatest immediate revenue were my fake boobs and my plummy accent.”
military spouse
unsolicited advice? for the birds
“Raise a hand (or a coffee, or that evening glass of Merlot) if you’ve ever been flabbergasted by the lunacy of all those voices — family members, friends, and fellow military spouses — who just keep on pushing all that *advice* on you which, no, thank you very much, you did not ask for.”
on divorcing oneself
“We do not need emotional cartographers … What we do need are friends, and family, and a little less stigma in the (often small) communities that the military places us in. In the same way we had support networks for the training exercises and the deployments, we just need a group of people on our team as we transition out.”
others
Business Insider
“… truth is, there's a delicate disconnect between the star-spangled blogs and real-life immersion in military culture; the too long/didn't read version is, quite simply, that military life is not real life.”
Elite Daily
“Living in what can only be described as an oversized bachelor pad was eye-opening, to say the least. Among other things, I learned that you can't totally know men until you've lived with a pack of them.”
Huffington Post
“There was no home-brewed cider, no clamoring of children, no jolly Dad clad in a ridiculous apron … I missed my family more than I ever thought I might.”
Matador Network
“Spare your British friend/crush/stranger from accurately describing the world’s most confusing carbohydrate, and do your research instead … crumpets are distressingly hard to come by in your average American supermarket.”