Counterbalances to live a hard life well

I am married to a special operations soldier turned Army chaplain in the 82nd Airborne Division. Mere days after my husband returned home from training, I woke up with a scratch in my throat, and by lunchtime I was leveled.

“This happens every time,” I lamented.

The connection between everything fascinates me: at the end of a wild military season, my body waves the white flag, knowing that it’s finally safe to do so. My body remembers shouldering everything alone. It remembers the fear and the news headlines that made tears spring to my eyes. My body remembers how I kept going, even when I had nothing left to give.

My body remembers, and demands I pay attention.

Bearing the load

In this line of work with the military, our spouses often go away for a time, and then they come back home. Yet we all know it’s more than a line of work. It’s a commitment; it’s a life of service that demands our whole, full selves.

There are days where this feels too hard. It can leave us exhausted from goodbyes, heavy with anxiety, longing for belonging and safety.

Yes, this life can feel like adventure, like partnership.

It can also feel like a weight heavier than we can bear. This is a hard life, and we can have feelings about it. However, there comes a point where we also need to accept it: this is our life, so what do we do about it?

We find ways to bear the load anyway.

Balancing the scale

Picture a scale — the old-school version, the scales-of-justice version. When one side holds a heavy thing, to adjust it to level, you place a counterbalance on the other side, too. Filling our own life with counterbalances is how we carry heavy things without falling over.

A counterbalance provides stability, peace, strength.

To find your counterbalance, ask: what is it that makes me feel the most like myself? A workout at the gym, a hobby you love, reading through a book with your child? Tidying up the house, going on a walk, finding your favorite thrift store?

It all counts.

In a life that demands we pay attention to the weights we bear, counterbalances become vital.

Finding your counterbalance with others

What is a counterbalance for me might not be a counterbalance for you, though there are certain ones that steady us all. An example: other military spouses, living this hard life too, cheering each other on as we go. Few others truly understand those middle-of-the-night worries, the bravery it takes to walk into an event as the new girl, or what it’s like to watch the uniform walk away. As it turns out, the ones who bear a heavy load are the ones most able to see the heavy things you carry, too. I have found they are the ones most willing to carry it with you.

To find those friends, we have to show up to where they are. A unit event, a park, the gym, a book club. Turns out carrying heavy things together helps us all feel steadier, more balanced, more whole as we each share the load.

As military spouses, we carry heavy things in this life but they don’t have to tell the full story. We don’t have a say in a lot in this life, but how we carry it — that, we do have a say in. It’s an act of empowerment, of relief, of agency. Heavy things in one hand, counterbalances in the other: joy, strength, belonging and peace, in every way we can find it.

In a life where heavy things vie for our attention, find some counterbalances, and suddenly the load won’t be too heavy to bear.

Sarah Sandifer is married to a Special Operations soldier turned Army Chaplain. As a storyteller who speaks across the country and has written for a variety of publications, she trains the military community in resiliency, grit, and hope. An adventurous and fun-loving girl, her work is found in the intersection of looking for the good life while practicing courage in a hard life. Find more of her work at SarahSandifer.Substack.com. She lives in North Carolina with her family.