Starbucks and other coping skills

Let me just say first that Starbucks is no where near my favorite coffee. I am strictly a Cafe Britt kind of girl (although I have heard about this amazing Cuban Coffee...hmmm...). But the coffee itself isn't really what this blog post is about.
I have a friend who is going through a rough transition and I am in no position to go help out, which sucks. I thought the next best thing would be to talk about some of the things that help me get through it all. Starbucks is at the top of my list.
My husband's job seems to lend itself to even less stability that most people have in the military. We move 4x the yr I gave up on moving 4x/yr and went back to school. I have been at school for 2.5 yrs now and I still haven't really unpacked, because I am just so convinced that if I do, it will be time to move. Moving that many times in a year really makes it difficult to feel grounded, to find friends, to feel like you are connected at all to anything besides the crazy ride that you can't seem to make stop even for a second. It's like the teacups at Disney World...I really hate the teacups.
When Senior Jefe deployed the first time, I started going to Starbucks again. It was my friend Kati's and my thing back in grad school (v. 1.0) and I missed her and him and my life. Starbucks helped me feel close to all of those things again. I had a favorite drink, which is no longer on their menu, so I would go in and ask for them to specially make it for me (I still do). The people at Starbucks got to know me pretty well over that deployment, and in some respects they filled a void that normal social circles normally occupy. (Note: I will never mock old people who go to McDonald's or Wal-Mart everyday ever, cause I so get that we are doing the same thing.) I also do this with hair dressers, massage therapists, the pedicure guy, etc...
Then Senior Jefe came home and the moves that have dominated so much of our marriage commenced. The only tie I could readily establish every new place I went with him (3 mo here, 5 mo there...) was with the good people at Starbucks. It is an artificial community to be sure, but it was all I had. When I came to BIG U, I did the same thing. I realized this week when I went in to Starbucks, that I hadn't been there in a while. There had been turn over in the staff. Other people seemed to have closer relationships with the barristas than I do. It made me realize that sometime in the past 2.5 yrs I transitioned from Starbucks being my support group to actually making friends and having a support group I don't have to pay for.
When did that happen?
I don't know. I'm not even sure I know how it happened. I had several other epiphanies this week that included: I have friends; WTF? I know my way around w/o a GPS; WTF? I know my neighbors; WTF? People I work with actually know me enough to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around work; WTF? And my personal favorite:
I can look up at the sky again and tell what the weather is going to be like. I was very good at this as a kid, but the sky looks different different places and when you move around all the time it is a lot harder to be connected to the rhythms of nature the way that my grandfather or a KS farmer is. I have really missed this skill.
My point is that it is totally okay, IMHO, to use whatever crutch (minus copious amounts of alcohol or drugs) you need in order to fill the natural voids that occur when you move. Moving is exciting and new places are exciting, but all of that is really stressful too (even w/o the military involved). The military often makes things more stressful, because the person closest to you is often off doing other things (deployed, prepping for deployment, etc) and so you don't have the kind of intrinsic nuclear support network many people have when they move. Dealing with that stress and figuring out how to get comfortable and make connections to a new place can feel overwhelming, and while I am not specifically plugging Starbucks, I do think there are lots of things in the local community that you can go and do that get you out of the house for a little bit and create a support network (even an artificial one).
I know this is a lot harder without a car. Senior Jefe and I spent the first few yrs of marriage with one car and it BLOWS and it makes all of this advice harder. That is where blog/text buddies are a huge help. Any relationship that you feel safe taking off line into the real world makes a difference, or at least it does for me. I feel like even online, on my blog I have to be guarded to a certain extent. It's nice to have REAL people I can trust to talk to when I need to vent or just say hi to someone. I also read a lot of books (thousands of them and would post reviews of some of them on Amazon which helped, cause now Amazon sends me books to review and feeds my habit for free). I started a cross-stitch map of the world (which I am still working on) and I made a hydroponic garden in the house out of old water bottles and a shower curtain.  I got a dog, then 2. I think actually in the past few years while I went off-line completely, the milspouse blogosphere has diversified in some really good ways, with postcard swaps, secret santa exchanges, etc...all of which help me feel more connected now.
It does get better and it is okay to be stressed and to feel like your life has been hijacked. It kind of has been. But the good news is that space can still be carved out to make your life yours again. I think the way that works out is different for everyone, but I hope this gives some idea of how I have tried to learn to cope.
The truth is that I really, really suck at being a milspouse, which is why I am at BIG U and Senior Jefe is a geobachelor. I do much better with the Navy's sleights when they are kept at arms length. I also really needed the space and the stability in order to be okay, because nothing makes me more angry than a person or organization that tries to come in and dictate how my life should be. It drives me absolutely insane, and for some reason the Navy threw down the gauntlet with me and decided to make it their business how I live my life and I couldn't deal, so I am here doing my thing. See...I suck at being a milspouse.
I wanted to send this to you in an email, specifically, because I know you have really been there for me this week and I have so appreciated it. I decided to post it instead, even though I know it's a bit more impersonal, because I felt like there are probably lots of people in your position who need to hear that it gets better. I hope you know specifically how grateful I am to you! I really needed your words of comfort and support this week, because I have been an absolute wreck of a human being and I was in a pretty deep tail-spin when you emailed me back and came to the rescue. I love you immensely. You're like a sister to me. I want so much for you to hit your stride and feel comfortable where you are. I want to help, but I feel like the specific combo of coping skills required to make millife work is different for each individual. Anyway, my phone # is on my FB page. If you want to text, I will be available after Tuesday morning.

Love you,


Smurfette