Reflecting on my life as an Air Force "Brat"

Independent filmmaker Donna Musil has created a documentary about military brats. I was moved to tears watching just a minute of the clip. The description of the film alone makes me cry. Those of us who can't answer the question, "So, where are you from?" get it. Boy, do we get it. Our lives growing up were inexplicably different from those of the friends we developed later in life, after our military parent(s) retired from the service. Even civilian kids that move frequently can't relate to the lives we experienced. I remember so clearly the tension and quiet panic when living in Manila when President Marcos declared martial law. We were prisoners in our homes, unable to even go out in the small yard for days. I remember when my best friend and I realized that our phone was tapped and we could hear the "observers" on the other end before placing a call. We were wicked and had some fun at their expense. Our relationship with extended family gradually waned with longer stretches of time between personal contact. Our home was run in a very dictatorial, military fashion. It was not happy. I remember coming back to the states and being terrified to speak to civilian kids. Everything about them was different - the way they spoke to each other, the slang they used, their music, their clothes...it was terrifying. I was teased because of my perceived accent, having lived in the deep south, followed by Southeast Asia, then New York. I assumed I would eventually marry someone in the service so that I could return to my life the way I knew it and was comfortable.

I've been in my current home now for 18 years. There are times that I can't believe it and want to run anywhere else. I rearrange furniture, paint rooms wildly different colours, even rearrange art between rooms to give me the sense of change. I find it odd that my children will have gone to school with the same kids for their entire academic lives. What must that feel like?

Rambling again. Sigh. In the meantime, I will enjoy running into friends at the grocery store. I will work at developing friendships, harder now that I don't have a job outside the home, but critical to my sanity! Perhaps I will find a way to include some of this renewed sense of my earlier years into a piece of art. That would be good.