At night, when the house finally settles into silence, Sierra often finds herself wide awake, listening to the steady hum of the air conditioner. Her daughter sleeps beside her, tucked into the curve of her arm, and her fingers hover over the keyboard as if the words will appear on their own. They never do. Telling her family’s story feels heavy and light simultaneously, because she knows the truth already. She and her husband love the life they have built, even though it is far from ordinary. They are both active duty soldiers, meaning they spend more time apart than together, and they have learned to survive on the small, stolen, and quiet moments.
Sierra wears many names: mother, nurse, wife, soldier, daughter, and friend. The list is not unique, and that’s the point. She knows countless women who could introduce themselves with the duplicate titles, women serving beside her with parallel stories. What makes hers different, if anything, is simply that she puts it into words.
She knows every mile of a particular drive belongs to her marriage. The I-95 and I-20 corridor is stitched into their love story like a stubborn seam. She could map it blindfolded, pointing out where the fields look golden at sunset, where the road dips into potholes, and even where the cleanest gas station bathrooms are hiding. Her husband has his own expertise—cheap fuel, shortcuts, all the practical things. Together, they have turned that endless stretch of highway into a ritual. Hours on the road for twelve stolen hours together. And every time she presses the same song on repeat, every time she swears she will not cry, she ends up doing it anyway because leaving him always feels like leaving half her soul behind.
Their marriage hasn’t been all tidy pictures and neat storylines. Before him, Sierra had been through what she calls her “algae-lickin’ rock bottom.” At 25, divorced from the man she had been with since she was a teenager, she found herself eight hundred miles from home, nearly broke, raising a toddler while stumbling through nursing school. She jokes about it now, but at the time it was nothing short of brutal. Divorce papers in one hand, the last of her dignity in the other, she landed at the airport after a grueling overseas assignment, saw her face in the Customs photo, and barely recognized herself. Most people in that state would crawl into bed. She decided to go for a run.
That was when fate did its sneaky thing. She had known of him back in ROTC, but on that particular spring day, she noticed him in a way she hadn’t before. Maybe it was the obnoxiously neon shirt he wore—bright enough that NASA could have used it to land a shuttle, or perhaps it was how her heart thudded louder when he smiled. Whatever it was, something shifted. And from that run on, they were no longer just acquaintances. They were each other’s person.
He loved her daughter as his own, which sealed the deal. They became a messy and beautiful family, stitched together by blood and choice. In 2017, they both commissioned into the Army, she into the Nurse Corps, he into the Infantry. Yin and yang, calm and fiery, steady and restless; it fit them perfectly. They were “babies” in the military world, learning the ropes while already learning how to say goodbye repeatedly.
Sierra will be the first to admit that they are not special. Thousands of couples live this same rhythm, saying goodbye at airports, counting down until the next leave, raising children who are stronger than they should have to be. Some families lose more than time. Some lose their partners entirely. Sierra carries those stories with her, knowing any of them could become her own. Sierra believes it. They will not quit. They will not leave each other behind. They will carry on, zigging and zagging through the waves of this life, always finding their way back for those quiet moments that keep them going.
