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.

The Big D: Passed the 100 Day Mark

09 July
Ok, the kids are in bed and it's late but I'm going to crank this out while it's on my mind.

A while back someone asked me why I moved to our FDS when my husband deployed so quickly. I responded hastily and without much thought that I am 33 and too old to be living with my parents and gave her a little smiley face. This is all true, but after spending a LOT of time with my family on a little "vacation" (that's only half over--ugh!) I kinda feel like I owe it to her to find that thread and let her know that my reasons really go much deeper than that.

I love spending time with my family. They spoil me in some ways--not in others--but generally, we are a happy, healthy, functional bunch.

At an amusement park over the weekend after the 4th, my sister and I are in this little boutique that sells bath salts and body lotions and stuff. I'm sniffing bath salts and there's this one I keep going back to. I nudge my sister and tell her she needs to smell it too because I really like it. She takes a sniff and says, "Ew. It smells like a man." I tip back the container and see that it is called "American Cowboy," and is, in fact, a man's scent. Oops. I sheepishly put the lid back on and tell her I guess it's because I haven't smelled a man for so long. She quirks her eyebrows and shudders a little bit like she doesn't know if she should be amused or grossed out and leaves the shop but I steal another sniff because I realize that it faintly reminds me of my husband and I'm not ready to pull myself away from it yet.

I consider buying a little package of it but don't feel like explaining to my family why I'm buying men's bath salts so I just let it go.

When our day is nearly over there's a free concert when the park closes. They do this big patriotic tribute and ask the veterans to stand up and be recognized and there's the usual smattering of gray-headed old guys in leather vests from Vietnam who stand.   No big deal. But then the guy on stage says that last year a soldier who had just come home from Afghanistan personally requested that he also thank the families of those deployed, specifically, the wives and children who are left behind. I just about lost it. I'm shrinking in my seat, trying to hold back tears and my 7 year old spins around to flash me a big smile because she knows that guy is talking about us. I give her a watery grin and hope she doesn't notice and ask me why I'm crying. I wouldn't be able to speak if I had to and even if I could, I wouldn't because there isn't anyone here who understands.

That, friends, is why I couldn't stay home, 120 miles from the nearest Army post, 1000 miles from where the home is that I will share with my husband. He may not be there with me right now but the promise of him is. His things are there: his uniforms hang in the closet, his tool box is in the garage, his soap is under the bathroom sink. The office where he will work when he gets home is down the street. And there are thousands of people there who have been right where I am. They're living it right now. They know. You don't have to put words to what you're feeling when you are so lonesome for your husband you could cry. They don't baby you and they don't need to because in the presence of those who've gone before you and endured one or two (or more) deployments, you feel a little stronger and you know you'll survive it too.

I am here tonight in my parent's living room, surrounded by people who know me and love me and feeling a little bit lonely. I am actually sitting on the same old hard blue couch that I grew up with and finding myself homesick for our duty station, where I now feel that I belong, even though I had never stepped foot in the state prior to moving there in January. It makes me marvel at how wonderfully, miraculously adaptive we human beings are. We can pretty much get used to anything that's thrown at us and have the capacity to make the best of anything. Everyone has this capacity, I think, but most people are so afraid of pain that they avoid change in order to cling to a thin thread of comfort (which is really only just a facade, isn't it?). Those people really sell themselves short. We Army families are lucky in a way to be forced into big life changes without being asked. I would have never said to my husband, "Let's move to another state and start over," but here we are, happily adapted to it, calling it "home," and craving the new comforts of it.

Night, all. *Yaaawwwnnnn*