Lonely Marine Wife...No, this isn't a personal ad!

I am just going to say it, "Being a military spouse can be a rotten job at times!"

There, it is in the open for all my bloggers to read. It may make me sound whiny, or bratty, but it is just the honest to goodness truth!

I never thought I'd be living this life to begin with. In fact, Mr. Marine's and my "courtship" took a little hiatus when he informed me he would be joining the Marine Corps while at the University of Georgia. I said, "it is honorable that you want to serve your country, but I will NEVER be a military wife...especially not a MARINE wife."

Well, our story picked up a few years later (save for another post) and here I am...traveling the country, uprooting my life every time his life beckons, leaving friends behind and spending many a lonely night all in support of the Good Ol' USA.

I struggle with this emotion "bitterness" because I know many wives make this sacrifice without complaint. I am proud to be a military wife. My husband leads some of the bravest men and women for a greater cause and all I can do is whine that I don't have a shopping buddy? As one of my dearest friends said to me one day, "I (my friend) can't complain because all I do is shop, drink, raise our kids and hang out with the girls while he is gone. He risks his life and I don't."

That is Soooooo not my philosophy! Mr. Marine and I did not pick-up until he had graduated from UGA and was in Office Candidate School (or OCS to my fellow spouses.) So I already had an established job in Houston, I was living by family and prepared to spend my years on a front porch swatting mosquitoes off my citronella drenched skin!

Then I got married and relocated to po-dunk North Carolina. I cried every night. Then I met wives who cried too. We learned that coffee in the morning, margaritas at lunch and wine in the evening made the crappy times better! Now, I am not a drunk...but any wife who has gone through a deployment will agree that there are times when a stiff drink is all you want! 

Now we are living in the Midwest. I was thinking heartland of the US, down-to-earth ladies that I will make friends with immediately. Ummm...no. Now, I know some of my blog readers are from the Midwest so I must ask, "Is everyone this hard to get to know?" 

I feel like I am the new kid in school and the cheerleaders don't like me and I am foreign to the computer nerds (which I guess us Southerners are foreign to most people). Everyone is so clique-ish here. 

I am used to bangin' down the neighbor's door with food, drinks, housewarming gift...something. Here, no one cares who moves in because they already have their friends! 

I am just asking for some advice from any Midwesterners that might read this. Please help!

The Midwest is like another country to me and I just need someone who has traveled these roads before to give me a roadmap. 

I am all to familiar with the Southern way of life...but I am at a loss when it comes to the middle of this great country!