Drill Weekend

So here I am at 1:00 am  sitting in my bed alone. This weekend is drill weekend which means my husband is owned by the Marine Corps for the time being. It still surprises me that even though we have built our relationship on distance, I still cannot sleep when he is not laying next to me. 


I thought that since I have nothing else to do that I would tell everyone about me and my life. I guess I am not sure what everyone says about being young and in love.. mostly because my family has always been supportive and I have never cared about anyone who jumped to put a label on my relationship. I always knew that the military would jump start my relationship. And I know it sounds crazy, but I truly did fall in Love with Andy within two weeks of knowing him. I didn't know I had the capability of giving myself completely to someone so quickly. It wasn't just his great smile, ability to make me forget everything bad in my life, or the way he opened the door for me. It was also the way he looked at me and the way he held my hand. It was the random dances in the middle of the street and the way he told me he loved me that made me want to be with him forever. 


So here I am... Married, young, and still completely in love. My life is sometimes crazy, unpredictable, and composed of nights alone in my house. But I wouldn't change what I have for the world. 


Goodnight everyone. Hope your not sleeping alone tonight. 

My story

My life, like any life, has its ups and downs. No one is perfect. Especially me. I get stressed to easily, I try to control things that are out of my control, and I tend to not forget as quickly as I forgive. However I am a loyal wife and friend, I try to support those around me, and most of all I am who I want to be. I may have flaws, but overall I am a person I can be proud of.

I just wanted to let everyone know that there will be some good days and some bad days. And you will most likely see both. I don’t know exactly where I am going with this blog. But I do know that I want to know more of people’s stories. Their struggles, their fears, their love… I am not so concerned with what individuals are doing or thinking at various moments of their day (like what facebook allows us to see). I am searching for meaning. So I will try my best to give you my story…


Disclaimer: While my daily life does not revolve around the military....most of my struggles, knowledge, and fears have come from those times where I had no other choice but to be strong and I was defined by being a Marine wife. I have gained a large group of girls who would have my back in a heartbeat. We truly are a family like no other. Therefore I will most likely write a lot about my feelings and any tidbits of advice that the military has left me with. 

Our story- Definition of us.

Andy and I met some time ago. At the time he was working at the same company my mom was. She would come home every day and tell me about this amazing guy whom I just had to meet. When I finally got the chance to get to meet him he stood across the room from me and said no more than three words. Come to find out he thought that I was too “stuck up” for him. Needless to say it was not love at first sight. A few days later my high school was having a big football game. Later, after the game had ended and I had dropped my friends off at home, I decided to give Andy a call. When he answered the phone he was with a friend at a bar. I must have been more of his type then he thought because he left the bar and met me at a pizza place just down the road. We got to talking, and I must have said the right thing because his friend decided to leave (later out finding they had a code word). This left me with Andy and only my car. Long story short we spent the night driving around town, having pickle races on the window of McDonalds, and messing up my car with confetti from some party poppers (that I still have wrapped around my mirror to this day).

It didn’t take long after that night for me to realize that I was completely head over heals in love with this guy. And not too long after that he left for our first deployment. Growing up I was always involved with long distance relationships. I knew that this deployment was going to be hard, but I also knew that our love could survive the distance. So with a message on my voicemail that said he loved me and would miss me and a note on an index card that said, “no matter how bad it gets no one can stop time; and that is one thing we will always have going for us” he left. Seven months, many restless nights, four phone calls, many letters, infinite pride, and a diary full of every good, bad, and tearful moment, later… he was home! And we were ready to start our life together.  

Andy and I try to live our life in the best way we know how. We have learned to not take for granted the time we have together. We have built our relationship on the promise of trust and commitment. We promised to always love one another. We promised to always return home to one another’s arms. We promised to keep each other close to one another’s heart… I do so by wearing his dog tags. And most of all we promised to be faithful… this promise we wear on our left hands.

         While Andy is my best friend and my hero, he is most importantly my husband. We have not let the Marine Corps define our life or our relationship. While I wear my dog tags, hundreds of marine t-shirts, and a survival bracelet with extreme pride, we have learned that life will go on after he leaves the Corps. I will always credit the deployments for making our love stronger. We will continue to fly the Marine flag with pride. I will always consider Andy and his fellow marines as my hero’s, and I will never get tired of hearing him called Cliff. However, I will not miss sleeping with my phone instead of him by my side. The USMC will always be a part of our lives. The great thing is that the marines will go on just fine without him…I will not.

-Taylor Cliff. Proud wife of a U.S. Marine! Semper Fi