This Is My Wife

The last week here has been fairly mundane; Bryony and I get up with Adam in the mornings and are together, just the two of us, until he gets home around 8:30-9:00pm. These are long, somewhat lonely days, especially since the extreme heat (mid to upper 90s) keeps us inside so much. However, I have remained a true and faithful fan of Michigan Public Radio, whose livestream I tap into first thing in the morning and listen to all day long. So comforting to have a little piece of home with me, especially since there is no access to public radio here.

On the upside, I have been trying to make some connections and reach out to the community here, so as to meet some people and try to alleviate some of the loneliness and doldrums. I've gone onto Meetup.com and joined a knitting group that meets on Wednesday mornings, and I have also lined up a volunteer position with the Nature Conservancy which will start at the end of June. Both of these situations are good, in theory, but...I can't actually attend the knitting group because children aren't allowed, and I haven't yet lined up any type of daycare; and, the Nature Conservancy position is one that I applied to several months ago without so much as a phone call or e-mail back, and now I am going to be working for no pay at a job that I am vastly overqualified for. This is not to imply that I think I am too good for the position, but rather to explain that I am afraid of losing the knowledge and skills I acquired in grad school by accepting job after job that does not put those skills to use. But, my choices are few right now, so I am doing what I can to put myself out there. I have also applied to an environmental consulting firm in Austin; this job I feel pretty qualified for, but with the market being what it is, I know that my qualifications don't mean very much. There are likely hundreds of people who have applied to the very same position, so I will be very lucky to hear anything positive back from them.

Yesterday evening, we all went to a military promotion party for some of Adam's colleagues. I was a little bit nervous about going into such a professionally charged situation--several of Adam's "higher ups" were there--since I didn't feel I had much to add to conversation. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I know very much about the law or legal procedure. And it's not like anyone would know that I'm a wildlife biologist to instigate conversation about my career, and I find that very few people are comfortable or interested in asking about my life as a stay-at-home mother. Most of the evening was spent with a squirming Bryony on my lap as Adam shook hands and introduced "the wife" to various colleagues and bosses; I did the requisite nodding and smiling and "nice to meet you!" as I tried to remember names, factoids and "who was whose boss or right-hand man." The most interesting moment of the evening (for me, at least) came when a young guy walked up and started talking to Adam. I was introduced to him and the first thing he said was, "Lauren, my wife Mary Jo is right outside," pointedly nodding in the direction of the backyard, clearly indicating he expected me to excuse myself and go find his wife amongst the throng of fifty-some guests milling about in the yard. Surprised, I just nodded, smiled and thanked him, and remained in my seat. I was eating, had my child on my lap, and knew no one at this professional party; and I wasn't about to let some 20-something puke excuse my presence and make me feel unwelcome. Now, it would have been a totally different story if this had been a kegger, in which case I would have asked him to point his wife out to me so she and I could bump our frosted mugs under the tap...

I asked Adam later if he had gotten the same impression from the guy that I had...at first he was surprised that I mentioned it, but after some reflection, he did remember the undertone of "go join my wife, Adam's wife." It's moments like these that make me realize that while I am happily and proudly married to an Army soldier, I am no Army wife.