We said YES to the address!
For those who know us and our journey, this moment is incredibly special. My husband dedicated over 23 years to the military before retiring in 2023. For almost 20 years of marriage, we’ve chased duty stations and packed up our lives every 1-3 years. We owned houses in so many places, but deep down, none of them ever truly felt like home. Every move felt temporary, every place just another stop along the way.
I never let myself get too comfortable, never planted roots, because I knew the Army’s needs always came first. For almost two decades, our marriage has been a game of “Where to Next?” Being a military spouse meant always putting the Army first. My dreams? My stability? Those took a backseat to Uncle Sam’s ever-changing itinerary. The Army decided where we lived and let me tell you, some of those duty stations? Questionable at best.
Military life was a rollercoaster of emotions—equal parts adventure and chaos (maybe more chaos). It meant saying goodbye to friends who became family, navigating life solo during deployments and making the best of wherever we landed. It meant reinventing myself with every move, mastering the art of finding new doctors, new grocery stores and new hairdressers who wouldn’t turn me into a science experiment. It was constantly juggling goodbyes, hellos and the infamous “hurry up and wait.” It also meant sacrifice—missing birthdays, anniversaries and holidays because duty called. It meant holding down the fort, no matter how hard things got. Military life made me resilient, but let’s be honest—it was also exhausting. You’ve heard the saying, “grow where you’re planted.” That phrase was always thrown around like some kind of motivational slogan, but let’s be real—sometimes we weren’t planted, we were uprooted and dropped into unfamiliar, unwelcoming soil. And somehow, we were expected to thrive. There were times when the “soil” was nothing but sand, when the “roots” had to be replanted so often they barely had time to take hold and when “growth” felt more like sheer survival. Military spouses didn’t just grow where we were planted—we adapted, we endured and we made it work. But that doesn’t mean we enjoyed it!
My dream was always to make it back to Tampa Bay, plant some roots and maybe, just maybe, not have to explain my address history like a fugitive on the run. And while that day did come, the journey wasn’t over. We thought, “Retirement! Freedom! Stability! We’ll just buy a house and be done!” But the universe laughed and said, “Not so fast. ”The past 2.5 years have been a season of transition, of searching, of asking ourselves, “is this really where we belong?” Finding the answer was easy. We fell in love with downtown St. Pete. But finding the right home? That was the hard part. So many unknowns, so many moments of doubt. So many times we stared at each other and said, “maybe we should just live on a boat!” In the past 2.5 years, we moved three times (someone please take away my packing tape!). It’s been exhausting, frustrating and at times, it felt like we’d never find the right place. It turns out, when you’ve been conditioned to live life in a constant state of transition, choosing a “forever-ish home” is terrifying.
They say “good things come to those who wait,” and while I normally roll my eyes at that… this time, they were right. It still doesn’t feel real. No orders. No timelines.
Here’s to this next chapter—one that’s finally written on our own terms. Here’s to finally being home and actually unpacking ALL the boxes!
