Upon talking to a friend recently I was
asked THE most common question I've ever been asked regarding having
my husband deployed; “How do you do it?” Well I have decided to
answer that question so that anyone who really wants my answer can
have it. I don't mean for this to be an “in your face, leave me
alone” post. I mean for this to simply be a longer explanation than
I can explain in the short period of time in which I have these
conversations with friends and family. I'm sharing my heart here and
I hope that comes across. Men and women go through separation through
deployment every day of every year and we all deal with it
differently. This is how I deal.
Deployments are hard, let no one ever
tell you differently. Every time my husband leaves it seems as though
my heart will never feel whole again and things will never get
better. The first night he leaves I always find myself sobbing on the
couch wondering why it happens to me. This deployment was our first
as a married couple so the night he left I honestly felt so empty and
incomplete. They say your spouse is your other half and I now
understand what it feels like to not have your other half with you –
it's horrible. But all you can do is pray and count down the days
until he returns home; you're heart only growing fonder.
One of the best ways I have found to
deal with deployment is stay busy. This seems like simple science but
sometimes it can be harder to fill up every day with something to do
especially when you are between jobs. It also means that when I do
have things to do I'm always wishing my husband was there sharing in
them with me. For every party, wedding, celebration, festival etc. I
always have a hard time going solo. That part never gets easier. But
if you stay busy most of the time it's easier to not focus on him
being gone. I count my blessings that I get to hear from my husband
everyday. Our first deployment I was not so lucky so this is a huge
blessing even though there are days when communicating through
Facebook seems incredibly hard. I know we have it easy compared to
the days of letter writing.
Now for every 2 weeks or so of easy
days there is always a hard day. The hard days are when you rise in
the morning and cry before the coffee is done brewing. You save putting on your mascara until you've convinced yourself you're not
going to cry for the rest of the day only setting yourself up for
failure. When you hear your wedding song on the radio only adding to
the heartache you feel. These are the days when friends, family,
bosses, and the occasional bank teller have to either understand or
not ask questions. Friends, I have had my fair share of sobbing on
the way to work and trying to get enough courage up before going in
the building only to loose it again in the bathroom. But I learned
early on when you have a hard day you cry it out. You cry your tear
ducts dry and you clean yourself up and you continue on. Swallowing
the tears only makes it come on stronger later on. I once became
really good and swallowing my sadness and let me tell you in the long
run it didn't help anything. If you've ever been near me after a
phone call with my husband you can attest to some tears being shed. I
am still amazed at how the body can go from being so happy to hear my
husbands voice to being completely upset the moment we hang up. It
gets me every single time.
I'm going to wrap up this answering
session by saying I'm not superwoman. I'm not a great Christian
example of a strong military wife who isn't bothered daily by this
deployment. I am not as strong as you think. I'm not OK with being
separated from my husband for a really long period of time. But this
is the life I signed up for and I have an amazing husband who is
counting down daily with me until we are re-united. We have a God who
is binding us together through such a vast distance. We have a love
that is only growing stronger for each other every day.
We are less than 300 days away from being done with military life and I'm so excited to begin a normal life!
