Operation Homelife

Creating Connections, Creatively

By Krysta Murray As we approach peak PCS (Permanent Change of Duty) season, many military families are once again facing relocation. Though there is a travel ban in place by the Department of Defense bumping many of these moves, June through August is when we see the most moves. Not to gloss over this stressful time of checklists and coordination and attempts to plan, but I’d like to focus on the settling part.

The household goods have arrived, you’ve unpacked most of the boxes, and the craziness eases into making this new and strange place your place. The nice thing about the military is if you’ve been a part of it for awhile, you might actually know some people already stationed here from previous duty stations, or a friend of a friend puts you in contact. For newer families or for those less militarypopulated locations, there may not be a single person you know. You can make life a lot easier by finding your people. So, how do you avoid being an anti-social hermit? Sign up for classes, look up groups in your area of interest to you. Another option for military families is that many commands have a family readiness group (FRG) of families that are also attached to the same command. They usually hold meetings to discuss upcoming events and socialize. You can also reach out to them for emails and potential Facebook groups to get involved virtually.

There are the traditional ways of meeting people, if there isn’t a pandemic with social distancing guidelines in force. These would be hitting up public places in your community, such as the gym, library, parks or coffee shops. Since so much right now is forced to be online, this is a great time to be creative. Search for online groups you can join. For me, I’m an avid reader and at my last duty station I found that there wasn’t currently an

active book club. So I started one. We’d select a place to meet and discuss our book for that month. We’d all chip in to order coffee and donuts or bagels, etc. and gather to chat about books, which often led to other conversations and created some fast friendships.

An alternative to this is setting up a virtual event and logging in to chat at a set time. While I no longer have that book club, internet and cell service for the win on keeping those connections alive.

Maybe crafting is your thing. Find others with similar interests, get the dish on the best deals from local stores for art supplies, share tips and tricks for projects and maybe partner up to create some. Post videos of your work or make a tutorial. Literally anything you enjoy, someone else is likely to also enjoy it and engage with you on it. I often find that I make too much of, well, everything when preparing a meal. I am not alone in that, so set up some food exchanges! Swap meal preps to change up your options.

If there is one thing this social distancing has taught me is just how much, even for a homebody introvert such as myself, that I still wish to meet friends at the beach and let our kids play in the sand. Or grab coffee and catch up with friends, in which we will likely talk about our latest reads.

Don’t let the current situation of the world keep you from settling in and feeling welcome. You are never alone when you are a military family because there are others in this with you, who completely get it and are willing to give you an introduction from six feet away or from your inbox.

My husband and I love strategic, multiplayer resource management-type games so when we found other couples that also loved these kind of games, we held game nights. I’ve also seen many Bunco groups going to online formats so people can still socialize and play from their own home.

Use this to your advantage to meet new people instead of self-isolating. Being anti-social can be lonely and make the transition so much harder. Plus it’ll give you something to look forward to when we finally can go back to normal and have meet-ups in person again! The nice thing is that these unique military life situations create a common connection in and of themselves. No matter what it is that brings us together, move after move, I still have these close friends, just scattered all over the world. I find that incredible and rewarding.

In March, we met up with friends we made in 2005 who were in the area for vacation. It had been ten years since we had last seen them. It felt like no time passed at all. Except now we both have kids and their ages tell us otherwise. We made plans to meet up halfway between their current home and ours for a vacation together in the future.

Don’t miss out on making these connections. You just might make some lifelong friends.