One week, during our last deployment, the dreaded “F” word reared its ugly head:  Finals. 

My (then) three-year-old son was bouncing off the walls. The weather was blizzard-like. I’d subsisted on coffee and string cheese for a week and I still had several papers due that, well … weren’t short. To decompress, I called a friend and fellow military wife and sobbed my story into the phone. 

And then the most beautiful thing happened. Inside an hour, she had picked up my son and taken him to her house and I was sitting at Starbucks, typing along with all of the other extremely studious looking, headphone-wearing kids. 

Over the course of that day, a few things happened. I wrote several papers, drank more coffee than I really should have and was able to recharge my batteries a bit. Not my student batteries, of course, because finals had drained them like a Leap Pad that has been left on under the back seat of the car. My personal batteries, however, now had a lot more energy. Because not only did I get my work done, I got to be alone for a few hours. 

Want to know a dirty little secret? During that deployment, that friend probably saved my GPA and a decent chunk of my sanity.

There are days when I wonder how we do it all. We are students. We are military spouses. We are mothers. We are friends, colleagues, housekeepers, personal chefs and chauffeurs. 

And then there are days that I can barely get my life together enough to brush my teeth and feed the dog. The constant balance of home, school, work and family is a sensitive one. But, there is a crucial key to success: having a support system. 

And if there is anyone who needs a good support system, it’s a military spouse. Build each other up. Reach out. Hold each other close. You will receive as much as you give and it will be good. I promise.