The Big D: It's not end of the world

20 June
Ok. True story. I had written this really long post about how I survived my camping trip with my kids and how miserable I was, missing my husband the whole time--I even included cutesy pictures of my daughter on the beach. And then I deleted it all because I sat there reading it and thinking...naaaahhhh, this isn't really true. This is the same story Army wives hear and tell each other ALL THE TIME. "I miss my hubby so much! He is my other half! I can't do anything but lay around and feel sorry for myself when he's gone!" You don't need another one, right? So I'm just going to tell it like it is. Or was. For me.

First, I have to tell you, this was hard. A few days before we were supposed to leave, we were in the dr's office with pink eye and all my kids were on antibiotics. Being a single mom right now, I barely left the house for ANYTHING much less getting ready for this trip. I had a couple of moments when I thought to myself, "Screw it. This is too hard to do alone. I'll call my friend and tell her I can't go." But their infections started clearing up and I had spent $20 on a tow hitch for the camper so I figured I might as well go for it.

I was so stressed with having everything ready to be loaded up, dropping off the dog at the kennel, picking up the camper, reloading half of it because the bicycles wouldn't fit in the back, parking the camper halfway around the block because I live in a 4-plex and couldn't exactly park in front of my front door, making 17 million trips with sleeping bags, coolers, camping chairs, etc, screaming at my kids because they were underfoot and not helping, that I texted my husband just before getting on the road, drenched with sweat, to tell him that I was never, ever doing this again without him.

But it was definitely too late to back out now so I got on the road. Roughly 350 miles later, I was watching my friend's husband back my camper into its spot (as promised) and thinking, "Thank GOD for men." I know we're supposed to be women, hear us roar, but sometimes you just need a man around. There's no way to get around it. The world will never function properly without men. Once the camper was plugged in and the air conditioner roared to life, I could finally relax and look around me and realize how lucky I was to be there.

Yes, I was tortured with constantly wishing my husband was with me, doing these things for me, especially when we were on the beach and I was seeing all those men on vacations with their families, playing with their kids in the ocean. I tried not to stare like freak at them. It was hard not to feel sorry for myself.

Those moments passed because I allowed them to and I gotta tell you--I had the best time with my friend. I've known her since kindergarten (that was in 1985 so we had to keep in touch via snail mail when she moved away in the 5th grade--I know you youngin's who were born in the mid-90's are going to think that's, like, so old fashioned). She moved to Florida for grad school and now happens to live 2 hours from where we got stationed. How cool is that?!?

At some point during this trip, I came to the conclusion that I might have, in some ways, been able to enjoy myself more because my husband was gone. Is that terrible to say? It is true that the whole dynamic of this trip would have changed if it were "couples," instead of me needing my friend and her husband, not just to do those complicated "manly" things like setting up my pop-up camper, but for simple things like company. And because my husband wasn't there, we could share a car to get around. We could have dinner together every night at their camper (which was much nicer than my little rental). I could visit endlessly with my friend who, before we moved here, I hadn't seen for 5 years.

I love my little family and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love doing things together and going places together and I hope that we can go back to St. Petersburg when my husband comes home so he can see all of the things I saw and it will be a totally different experience when he's there. But I can be glad, in a way, that this trip was "mine" and not "ours." It's ok. It's not the end of the world. Deployment is not the end of the world. Life still goes on and fun still happens and good can be found in the absence of your other half.

And because I just can't resist...here's that cutesy picture of my little princess at the beach.