A year and a half ago I wouldn't have possibly thought that I, a college student, would be in a relationship with a man serving our country, let alone with him being across the country in a state a lot of people forget about. We (us milsos, AKA military significant other) have a very interesting life, keeping track of two time zones, thinking of what times is it appropriate to call or Skype, have little date nights via Skype or Xbox, and worrying all the time that they're OK, whether or not they are on deployment, and thinking about your future involving packing up and moving all the time or packing up and moving to them.
When I started dating my boyfriend of a year and a half, I thought this would be the easiest task, I would have the perfect balance of friends, my sorority, homework, my other organizations, and sleep.
I was wrong.
We were all probably extremely wrong thinking this, the distance sucks, you're going to want to snuggle up next to them and go on actual dates, when he comes home early you won't want to do your class work, causing you to fall behind slightly (but you'll eventually catch up or just stay up really late), you're going to get aggravated at your friends that have a boyfriend and they say "I haven't seen them in a week" and your first thought will be "Yea, try two months" but you still have to be supportive, you may even lose friends because you spend so much time with him because you're trying to strike that balance and you messed up on that balance, nights of staying up late to talk to them and having no regrets regardless of how much sleep you got because you had to stay up late to study for that exam tomorrow morning anyway, right?
Starting out in the military world while you're in college, you have to learn a bunch of slang both military and college, your swearing gets a hell of a lot worse to where your friends get worried, and you meet friends from your man's career field that give you just as much shit as your new friends from college give you. You have a new approach on life, how politics work, your classes change, because when he comes home, some of your professors will give you a free pass for you to see them (not a lot, but some of mine did). Best piece of advice, find a friend in a milso group on Facebook that's also in college so you can have someone to relate to!
Strike that balance, you may have to tell him you can't talk until you get a certain amount of reading done or that you're going out with your girls, and that's perfectly OK! It's OK to shoot him a text saying hey I'm really tired I'll talk to you tomorrow! Be OK with not always talking to him on Skype everyday, because soon enough he's going to be on an airplane coming home right to you, where you can show him your campus, and drag him along to all your classes and sit in the library at all hours of the night with him and just smile at him while you read about law enforcement.
For anyone talking to, dating, engaged or married to someone about to serve or currently serve in our Armed Forces while in college, whatever branch that may be, you're walking into a whole new world, a whole new group of friends and a whole new perspective.
Walk into it with your arms wide open and your mind even wider.
This isn't a life for everyone, but if you have a pull at your heart about this relationship, go for it, if it doesn't work out for you that's fine, but if it does work out for you like my relationship is, you're in for one hell of an adventure and I wish you all the very best.
