The Big D: Our First Skype Fight

Sometimes I love FB. It's my main line of communication with my hubby. It has been a great way to get to know new people at my FDS and I've also been able to keep in touch with friends back home. I can post a pic of my 7 year old with her just-pulled tooth between her fingers instead of having to call all the grandmas individually. It's great. But sometimes I believe that FB is the freaking spawn of Satan and has no earthly business distracting us from our real lives with virtual pseudo-crap that masquerades as real life. But I digress.

 My husband and I fling arguments back and forth for a while on FB chat but he has to go to work and I have to take my daughter to art class so hours go by without responses and a conversation that should have taken 20 minutes and been done with dragged out ALL DAY LONG. That is not good for women--to stew all day on stuff like that. It makes petty little things grow and fester into malignant, all-consuming problems. Yes, it was a horrible, horrible day.

So, here's what I did and why I'm telling you guys about this. I've been around long enough to know the destruction that can be wrought during a fight in which the words you use are typed/written instead of spoken. Once you click "send" he can read your words over and over again. He can read in between the lines and infer things you didn't mean. You can never take the words back, even if you apologize and say you didn't mean it--the words are still THERE, hurting each other for internet eternity. So I thought on that and prayed before every single reply I wrote to him. There were some messages that I typed while my heart was thumping and smoke was pouring out of my ears that I deleted and started over because it was more important to me that he understand why I was ticked than to just know that I was ticked. I could have called him names (and believe me I wanted to) but I didn't. I didn't want to pretend nothing was wrong either, so I kept my words honest and focused on me instead of accusing him (he didn't hurt me intentionally and I always knew that even though it didn't diminish how hurt I was). It wasn't about venting or harping at him either. That's not communication. I tried really, really hard, as mad as I was, to keep an even temper while I was writing and tried to anticipate his reaction to what I was saying. Honestly, I didn't know for sure. He said he thought he was being funny and meant nothing by it. I could have been makings worse but hoped I wasn't.

And you know what? I woke up this morning to a lengthy, apologetic, sappy, romantic message and I wrote him one right back. Can I tell you part of what he said? It makes me smile.  "I'm waiting to come home to you because you are the most beautiful woman I know. You are the mother of my children, the love of my life, my best friend, the person I would die for." I would have rather had hot make-up sex, of course, but this wasn't a bad substitute. And now we have those loving messages full of kind words that we can look at over and over, for all internet eternity.

Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dweling on it separates close friends. Proverbs 17:9.          

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*          

The Big D: And Marriage

26 July
Well, I am back from the longest vacation EVER, and glad to be home. I loved visiting my family and my husband's family but it's nice to wake up to reveille every morning again.

I have learned a little bit more about deployment. For instance, one of the biggest health issues my husband treats is...er...pooping problems. Do your husbands a favor and tell them to eat the fresh fruit that is offered at the dfac every chance they get, lol. That will keep them from knocking on the medic's door and asking all sorts of embarrassing questions while the medic's wife waits patiently on the other end of Skype, snickering quietly and honestly feeling bad for the guy who's never experienced these..."problems" and their side effects before.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet for my husband and his unit. They continue to work at their mission and have nearly completed it. They have begun talking about making preparations to return to kaf, and then to return home even though they're barely more than halfway through the whole deployment. I'm learning that it takes a lot of time to get things put away, packed up, inventoried, and ready to out-process (by the way--helpful tip: "Redeploy" means "come home"). They are even spreading rumors about coming home early but I don't believe them for a second. My husband was given a target date at the beginning and that's what we're looking at as a countdown day but we all understand that everything is fluid and subject to change.

Ironically, things back home have NOT been quiet at all, I discovered as I spent time catching up with old friends. Three families we knew split up. Three. Two of them were not surprising, but one of them was a total shock and it makes me want to cry to think of it.

So many of us in this Army life worry about the separation the Army causes and the toll it takes on marriage and kids but in my little universe, it's living in the real world that is more destructive to a marriage. This family I know...they had it all together.  They had some issues due to job losses but they still got to live in the same house and be parenting partners and figure out how to get through their trial together. I envied them their "togetherness" when my husband was yanked away from us by the army. And yet that family chose to separate.

I felt so bad for the wife, my friend, until she started talking about the therapy she was going to and how it was time for "her" now and she deserved "respect" too and in a way she was relieved by the separation.  A part of me wanted to pull my hair out and scream that she GETS to be with her husband and CHOOSES to do life ALONE!?!? I'm so sick of doing life alone and I long to be with my husband again and no, things are not perfect in our marriage--no one gets to say that. Sometimes he is selfish and sometimes I am selfish. We had a particularly difficult time in our marriage a couple of years ago when I wanted to throttle my husband and was so mad at him I wouldn't speak to him for days. Some might have said that I would have been justified in leaving him but no matter how much my feelings were hurt I couldn't deny that deep down he was a good man, and I picked him, and I considered myself "stuck" with him. Now that we are past that trial we had, I can say it with a smile. And I can tell you what a GIFT it is to be married and to have a partner in life--even when he is on the other side of the world.

I've said it before I feel so strongly about it, I'll say it again. Deployment is NOT the end of the world. It is not the worst thing that could happen to a marriage. There are ways to stay close and connected and we are SO BLESSED with technology that keeps us in contact every single day. It is hard work, yes. It's not the same as having him here with me. It's not what I would choose. And I have no idea what it's going to be like when he's actually home and we have to relearn how to do life together after being apart for essentially a year and a half (with a few hectic weeks thrown in there between training and deployment). But life rarely turns out how you plan it. It just doesn't. You don't always get to choose how things will be and even if you did, there is a limit to what you can know about the future so your choices will be flawed and leave you with a feeling of discontent. All you can do is to learn to be content in every circumstance--whether you have a little or a lot, whether your stomach is full or empty, whether you wanted things to be this way or that. This is not some kind of phony "positive thinking" mind game you play with yourself. It can sometimes only be accomplished through prayer and dependence on something you believe is in control when you realize you are not.

If your husband is near you right now, do me a favor and give him a big hug and tell him you're thankful for him. If he's not, write him a love letter and tell him you're doing ok and that and you're thankful for him. And if you're a praying person, toss one up north and tell God you're thankful for your husband even when things aren't exactly as you thought they'd be.


 "It would be the greatest of tragedies to sacrifice others in the effort to find ourselves." Erwin McManus    

The Big D: A Hard Week

02 August
I tried to update you all on this past week last night but it turned into a boring rant (this has kinda been the week from hell) so I deleted it. You don't need to know all the details about how much my husband and I are missing each other, or how down in the dumps he is about a few specific things that will probably be of little or no benefit for me to share so I'm just going to let you know that even though I put on a brave face and smile through my hard weeks, all is not well all the time over here in ArmyWifeLand.

I do want to share with you this image:


I believe in this with every single cell in my body so I'm going to list a handful of things I am thankful for.

-I am thankful for the Word of God, which reminds me to focus on things that are lovely, and admirable, and excellent, and worthy of praise, instead of things that irritate the living crap out of me.

 -I am thankful for the calendar, which tells me that this deployment is more than half over because in my heart the end feels about as far away as it's ever felt.

 -I am thankful for the Army and all it's given us even though it feels like it's causing a lot of heartache right now. I have only to close my eyes and remember what our lives were like the day before we got the news that our waiver was approved and he could swear in--how much we hoped that it would happen and feared that it might not! We had reasons--good reasons, and it's easy to forget them a year down the road when the struggles we faced back then are now a distant memory and are replaced by new, different struggles that we kind of knew were coming but had no way of really being able to prepare for.

 -I am thankful that this week will pass because that's the thing about time--it's always moving forward even when it feels like it's not.

You guys have a BLESSED week and feel free to list things you are thankful for too

The Big D: Convoy

I am very relieved and happy to report that my husband texted me at 7:30 this morning with the words, "Made it."


 I like to say I'm not a worrier (and usually I'm not) but I would be lying if I told you I didn't go to bed last night with images of him, sweating in the heat of the day, in full gear, rattling around in an armored vehicle, down some awful, dusty, dangerous road, and WORRYING about what could happen. I mean...HOW COULD I NOT?!?!

So I did what I do and I opened my bible. I could not have fixed dinner for my kids, or helped them with their homework, or bathed them, read to them, and tucked them into bed with a kiss goodnight, or found sleep for myself, if I did not have a source of comfort and security to turn to.

Every single person alive has to put their trust in something just to get through their day. During that difficult day, I could have put my trust in my husband's training but it can only carry him so far. I could have put my trust in the leadership of our country and of the Army but they are human and fallible. I could have put my trust in body armor and vehicle armor but that is penetrable. So I chose to put my trust in God, not only to protect my husband, but to protect my heart if the bad guys got their way.

It's the only way I know how to have peace during a time of unrest. I sincerely don't know how people who do not believe in SOMETHING can get through times like this. 


This is my favorite "worry Psalm."


I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
he saved me from all my troubles.
For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
he surrounds and defends all who fear him.
                                                Psalm 34:4-7


I read once that the word "surrounds" is translated from a Hebrew word which means, "encamped."  That's particularly helpful to one who's praying for a soldier, don't you think?