When I got engaged, I was 18 years old. I lived with my parents and I was in my first year of college.  My fiance and I already shared a bank account and the tiny wage he received as a new recruit in the Canadian Forces was deposited there.  I used it to pay my parents for the outrageous phone bill we racked up with collect calls in a world before cell phones. A year later I was married and I went from being my parent’s dependent to being my husband’s. The internet is full of articles that tell me why I should be more than a ‘dependent’.  Why being a dependent is bad, disenfranchising and demeaning.  I am told that I should be more, that I AM more.  And I am.  I’m a wife.  I’m a parent, and a special needs parent.  A friend.  An advocate. I’m a writer.  An employee.  A student. But I’m also a soldier’s dependent.  This week, that soldier marks 16 years in the military.  Back when the phrase “if the army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one” was far more common, and our community was much quieter.  Now we have a voice, but the sentiment is the same.  ‘Dependent’ is a bad word, used as an insult or a joke. But I feel maybe that’s because we don’t consider what being a dependent means. Being his ‘dependent’ has taught me more about independence than I could have possibly learned on my own. Being a dependent has meant that I moved away from my family and friends as soon as I got…