As Time Goes By…

We’ve been deep into the recruiting life for more than six months now, and I’m starting to feel a sense of normalcy coming back to daily life. It’s been a struggle at times to reach this, but now that we’re in a routine with more predictability, things have settled a bit.

The biggest positive has been the amount of time we’ve been able to spend with our family back at our hometown. The drive is a quick hour and a half and easy for everyone. Not only that, our families have also come to visit us more, as it’s easy for them as well. I don’t think I’ve seen my family this much in years. We’re also invited to more family events because we’re actually able to come!

I also love Chicago. Truth be told, I don’t go to the city much, but when we do, it’s for something fun. We’ve gone to the aquarium a few times already, the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo, and are working on plans to visit more places especially now that the city has pretty much ended most of its pandemic restrictions.

So far, one of my favorite places to visit has been the Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Michigan Avenue on the Magnificent Mile. It’s the world’s largest Starbucks and has some amazing food and drinks. It’s four stories of a coffee lover’s dream and even serves alcoholic beverages on the fourth floor! The inside is just beautiful, and it’s such a fun place to visit. The food and drink they serve is unique to the roastery, and they’ll even grind coffee beans for you. Oh, I just love it!

I’m looking forward to exploring more of Chinatown because I love Asian food so much. The South Loop is also pretty cool because of the shopping there, and we’ve been north to Skokie a few times to visit some cool grocery stores that carry food from all over the world.

I’m still struggling with getting referrals taken care of, which I find incredibly frustrating, because I absolutely know this wouldn’t be an issue if I lived on a military installation. Yes, it happens rarely, but I’ve never had so many problems getting referrals taken care of anywhere. I’m currently one month into an issue with getting an extension for a therapy my son is in. It’s been a struggle so far, and currently there’s no end in sight. I’ve found that navigating health care outside of an installation is the biggest issue and I’m considering ways to try and change this for others.

Recruiting has been a struggle for us as a family in many ways. The kids miss their dad a lot, and sometimes he’s gone for more than 12 hours depending on the day. It’s been difficult to plan things during the week, such as appointments for myself, as I have to make sure he can work it into his schedule to keep our kids at home. Being out of his office isn’t always a good thing because there are quotas to make and that requires putting in the effort to do that. There are some stations that have much worse work hours, but I honestly can’t understand why recruiting is a three-year assignment. I know some people reclass to become full-time recruiters, but it isn’t the thing for us. I know my husband misses doing his MOS job, and I miss living in a community that understands what it means to be in a military world.

Though these will likely be struggles as we get through the next two and a half years, I hope the good outweighs the frustrating. Being near our family has been nice, and living near a city like Chicago has been cool, although I do constantly miss being near St. Louis and even Seattle. I hope with more time certain things will become less difficult. The experiences I’ve had over the last 13 years as a military spouse will help us get through the difficult moments and enjoy the great ones even more.

What have you found most difficult about recruiting? What have you found you liked the most? Sound off in the comments below!