Am I Lucky?

The thing that everyone focuses on when you’re a military child, when meeting new people, is always the plethora of places you’ve likely lived—for myself, sprawled across a handful of countries across a handful of continents, I’m doubtlessly familiar with the details of how cool and interesting it was to get the opportunity to live abroad. But the adjective I hated the most was when they would say I was lucky.

Off the bat, I don’t have any problem with the word luck; I’m lucky to have two parents, to live in a nice house, to go to a good school with my friends, etc. And maybe it’s just my natural contrarian teenage instincts, but hearing the word lucky to describe an existence of constant change—one far too nuanced to be placed under a blanket term—only stirred a pot of angst lingering underneath the surface. Obviously, there are benefits to being immersed in countless cultures as a kid, but I had always felt that I had earned it. To me, luck implies that you did nothing to deserve a reward. You simply existed and were fortunate enough to have a good thing bestowed upon you as if it were a gift from the universe.

Not to complain, but I believe that most military kids can agree with me when I make the bold claim that military life doesn’t feel like a life of luck. It has its perks, but in my opinion, they’ve always balanced out the negatives—that you can’t deny, tend to pile up. Yes, I love the military discounts. No, moving continents with a month’s notice was not fun. Yes, I’m happy to have grown up in a variety of different cultures. No, being dropped in a random country whose language I didn’t speak a lick of was not exactly enjoyable.

Not to become all spiritual and speak on such a grand scale, but my perspective has always been that yes, maybe I was lucky for some things; however, that luck canceled out with the costs of living such an adventurous life, and therefore, a positive and a negative nullify each other, resulting in reality. No luck in sight.

I maintain the assertion that moving across the world and having a parent in the Army has not remotely been a life of glitz and glamour. But as my family has begun to leave that life behind and settle in a small town, it’s offered me a broadened scope beyond the life I’ve lived until now. As much as I hate the phrase, “the grass is always greener on the other side” (given I usually have to associate it with familial lectures of my complaining), phrases like that are popular for a reason. Being somewhat confined to a town whose biggest attraction is a Costco has made me glorify the day when I lived in South Korea—one of the biggest cities on Earth—wishing for the freedom of exploring an entire city on my own with just a subway card.

What I mean to say when I write all of this is: it’s impossible to define an entire lifetime of experiences with one single word. When you take an experience as complex as being a military child and try to summarize it under a positive adjective, it can definitely feel offensive toward the work you’ve had to put in to get where you are today. But at the same time, remember the aspects that you do appreciate, the moments and memories you do feel lucky for. Most of the time, the people around you aren’t making a direct attempt to invalidate you. While it’s good for you to stand up for yourself and your strength, sometimes stepping back and taking a breath to notice the good things around you can flip your perspective on your past, and even impact how you carry yourself far into the future.