<![CDATA[Her War-Her Voice - Val\'s Memories]]>

<![CDATA[Her War-Her Voice - Val\'s Memories]]>Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:20:02 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[What If I Don't?]]>Wed, 10 Oct 2018 22:14:45 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/what-if-i-dontWhile looking through old blogs, I ran across this one, from Val and Devin's "What If?" series.
And it reminded me, once again, that sometimes, what we need is not to keep powering through no matter what.
Sometimes, we need to accept that it's time to be still and stop trying to fulfill the expectations and wants of others.
Sometimes, we need to just be still within ourselves.
And that is more than okay.

I know I’m not alone in experiencing a state of low-level anxiety when walking through a deployment. I worry about the man I love. I hand-wring about my kids’ coping skills. I angst over car repairs, home repairs, and business transactions that are all on my shoulders.
For the last month or so, that anxiety has been a constant companion. Orders we thought were locked in ended up being up in the air. “Current events” caused our military affiliated population to have a collective rise in blood pressure. And I kept asking myself why I couldn’t be better at thriving during a deployment.
Yes, you could say there has been some anxiety here.

I’m supposed to be kayaking today, but I’m not.
One of the things our What If projects have had at their core was kicking back at fear and anxiety.
I’ve wanted to do a What-If Kayaking adventure for a long time. A few years back I found myself longing for a “thing” that was mine. My husband loved art and woodworking and biking and took time out to do those things when he was home. I wanted something that was mine. I wanted it to be a little bit unique and something that would push my limits. We happen to live in the Pacific Northwest and this truly is the Outdoorsman’s Mecca. Kayaking looked like a great way to take advantage of ALL that the area has to offer.
I’d taken a canoeing class in college which I’d enjoyed when I wasn’t feeling terrified and overwhelmed by figuring out how to steer and desperately wanting to avoid being the student who landed in the lake (especially with the guy who would one day be my husband right there to witness my potential humiliation).
So here I was 12 or 13 years later wondering if kayaking could be my thing. I looked into it and even found classes offered on base. But there was childcare to figure out and then… I got pregnant. I couldn’t really imagine shoving my pregnant body into a kayak—at least not as a relative newbie. So I decided kayaking wouldn’t be my thing at that point and put it on the back burner.
Until…. What If Wednesday. And then I put it on the top of my list. Maybe with Devin there I could finally follow through. Maybe with Devin there being new with me it wouldn’t be so scary to try.
So we waited for the weather to change and our schedules to mesh to make it a possibility.
Today was supposed to be that day. And I’m not on the water.

I’m not on the water because as this weekend drew closer and closer I noticed that instead of a feeling of butterflies and excitement I felt dread. As much as I’ve longed for this thing to try, I’ve also always been intimidated at the prospect. When I thought about doing something with Devin this weekend what I found I really wanted was to just sit with her and talk.. Talk about the little stuff and the big… Our kids and our husbands and our frustrations and worries.
I take our What If projects pretty seriously.
Part of me feels like I am letting you all down by not being in that tiny boat and out on the water today. Couldn’t I be showing myself that I’m bigger than the anxiety monster and going out there and having a great time? Shouldn’t I be doing that? Isn’t that one of the ‘consolation prizes’ we give ourselves during a deployment—trying new things and learning to be independent.
I don’t want to let you all down. I don’t want to let myself down. I don’t want to run away from a challenge.

But a bigger part of me feels like I have done right by myself. I can’t get out from under this deployment no matter how much I want to. I can’t control the X factors of life or the gremlins that land on my doorstep when he’s gone.
But I can control some of the things I have anxiety over.
I am grateful that Devin will wait for me. I’m grateful that she gets it. That she knows that there are times to push yourself (or your friend) to step into the unknown and meet it bravely and there are times when the best thing to do is to step back and instead do things that nourish your soul without raising your heart rate.

Right now doing what’s best for me… Taking care of me… Doesn’t look like stepping out on a limb. It looks like taking a weekend and choosing to be quiet with my kids. We’re going to go hiking or to the beach later, so we won’t be sitting here not experiencing the world. But it feels foolhardy to me to take the squeezing feeling that never leaves my chest and increase it today.
I WILL do this What If challenge, but I will do it at a time when I can approach it with anticipation and excited butterflies in my stomach rather than this feeling of dread. Devin has promised that when I’m ready… When adventure and the stamping out of fear is what I need, we’re going to take on some kayaks together. Stay tuned… THAT blog post is coming.

For today my What If is this: What If I listened to the quiet voice within that is whispering ‘take it easy’ instead of ‘kick it up a notch?’. What if I trusted that sometimes it’s ok not to push the limits? What if I believed that my friend will be willing to stand by me when the time IS right? What if sometimes it’s ok to be still and know that meeting the every day challenges of a deployment counts as something courageous too?

]]><![CDATA[The Benefits of Deployment]]>Tue, 04 Sep 2018 19:57:57 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/the-benefits-of-deploymentSometimes, small joys can be found even in the most stressful moments of life.

I know we’re not supposed to say it. Or feel it. Or think it. Even a little.
But there are things… little things… that I sometimes actually almost like a little bit when my husband is out on work-ups or deployment. Am I the only one who has a list of ‘deployment silver-linings?’

I get the T.V. remove to myself after the kids go to bed. I don’t have to watch ‘Male group therapy,’ also known as the reality series featuring the guys who make the Chopper bikes, or any of the boring documentaries my husband loves to choose. “How It’s Made” gets a rest on Netflix in favor of things like Glee, and Grey’s Anatomy.

I can clean when I want and if I want.
When he is gone, sometimes the house stays cleaner—a phenomenon that I haven’t quite figured out how to explain given the belief he has about his own fastidiousness, but even better… I can clean anytime throughout the day. If I feel froggy and want to tackle the kichen at 9:30 in the morning after the kids go off to school, I can do that. If 5:30 in the evening suits my fancy better, that works too. And occasionally, I get the cleaning bug at 10:30 or so at night… Since I’m not aiming for any time in specific—I do the housework when I want to! Some days I *gasp* choose not to clean at all! We step over the dirty socks, the dishes pile up, and the laundry waits a day in favor of us playing or relaxing or just watching t.v. in our jammies.

Though sleep is sometimes hard to come by and there are nights that I stay up too late because I don’t want to go upstairs and meet with an empty bed, when I do get it there are fewer interruptions. When he’s been working on the day shift, and he goes, I am always somewhat relieved to find that the no one hits the snooze button umpty-billion times. I peacefully snooze through the hour of 4:45 a.m to 6:00 a.m. without the alarm going off. In fact, it doesn’t go off until 6:30 or 7:00 when the alarm *I’ve* set beeps (only once thank you). Alternatively, if he’s been working the night shift, I don’t have to wake myself up every hour to do the, “look at the clock and feel the bed…. Is he home yet?” dance. I don’t have to rouse myself at 2:30 or 3:30 or 4:30 to do the “How was work, babe?” niceties? (Of course, there *are* nights that this backfires and I reach to see if he’s there anyway and realize he’s gone like a ton of bricks)
Yes there are things I don’t quite mind about deployments and work-ups…. Not having to stock up on salad dressing (I don’t use any), not being teased about the tooth paste mess I make on the mirror, the quiet me time I get in the evenings after the kiddos go to bed…. These things and more can be almost… enjoyable when he is gone.

But… But…

None of them are enough. Because the flipside of all of them is simply this: My best friend in the whole world is on the other side of the world and I am left incomplete. My marriage is reduced to e-mails letters and every couple of months when he is in port the treat of a few phone calls or maybe even a chance to skype. I miss him so much that I have to start focusing on little pieces of him to really remember what he looks like and what it feels like to be near him. I think of the back of his elbows and the mole underneath his left eye to grasp at what he looks like in three dimensions when he isn’t just a picture on the wall.
Having the kids to myself can be fun sometimes. I try to be more intentional about doing ‘girly fun things’ like painting toe nails and watching age-appropriate chick-flicks, but I happily trade that all in for the ability to not have those sweet babies cry themselves to sleep for the missing of Daddy.
No, I don’t have to clean as much, but I also don’t have help. No one is here to take out the trash late Tuesday night when it suddenly dawns on me that it needs to go out. No one is here to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home from work or to sweep the floors… He’s not as fastidious as he thinks he is but he’s more fastidious than me.
There’s no one to make silly faces at and dance with when we brush teeth before bed, no one to wrap an arm around me and curl around me to help me go to sleep. No one to talk over the highlights and blow by blow of the day with.
When he’s gone I look for the bright side and I find to my surprise that there are some things about him being gone that are a novelty for a week or so…. I realize that I’m pretty independent and can be pretty good company to myself when I need to be if it comes right down to it.
But it doesn’t take long to realize those novelties are really just novelties. And the truth of the matter is I’d trade every one of them in for the feeling of his hand in mine, the sound of his voice filling the silence, and the look in his eyes when he comes home and the girls charge him.
I’d trade any of the miniscule benefits (including the Sea Pay) for the simplicity of having him here breathing next to me, and the feeling of his arms around me.]]><![CDATA[Hands]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 23:14:52 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/hands
It was a somewhat cheesy wedding reading, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. He held his hands out, I put mine in his. And the pastor read a passage that began this way, “These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you. They are holding yours on your wedding day as you promise to love each other…”

The reading went on to talk of many stages of marriage from the point of view of our hands. Working together, caressing one another, cradling children, comforting one another. The officiating pastor, one of our Religion Profs from school who probably could have counted marrying students during the summer as a second job, wasn’t thrilled about the reading. I knew he felt it was a little too saccharine and he wished we’d just stick to the script. But I was taken by the concept of those hands. I still am.

I think it’s why these pictures speak to me.

That morning, I pulled on my most comforting sweater and braced myself for the day. For D-day. Deployment day. It had hung over our heads like a dark cloud for weeks. We held each other at every chance. We savored last kisses. He checked and double checked his sea bag. The kids and I tucked 2 dozen little notes in various parts of his luggage.

And then it was time, and we were in the car, and I reached over and grabbed his hand and took a picture. It was the last time I would feel the wiry tendons in his wrist or that warm, steadying grip of his for 7 long months.

Our faces aren’t in the picture. Just our hands… and they tell the story vividly enough. We held hands for that last drive in before we pulled into the air terminal, and he climbed out, slung his sea bag over his shoulder and disappeared in the rearview mirror. I looked at the photo often and missed those hands of his…. I missed them halving the work of the household. Tickling kids. Holding me. I felt the sadness of that ride all over again, and imagined the warmth of his hand entwined with mine.

And then, 7 months later, I took this picture.

He was back and his hand was in mine again. We sat in the sunshine on our porch swing, thighs touching, and we held hands again. This time our hands were saying hello instead of good-bye. He was back, and real, and I didn’t want to let go of him for a second for fear that he’d disappear again, or I’d realize it had all been a dream.

These are the hands of my best friend. Hands that hold mine and then wipe away the tears before he kisses me goodbye for months at a time.

These are the hands that months later, find mine again--hungry for the contours and creases of their beloved. Ready to move from the never-ending work of deployment back to the work of marriage, family, and the household.

These are our hands. And they tell the story of our love today just as surely as they did the day we said our vows.

]]><![CDATA[The Scariest Part]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 23:12:27 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/the-scariest-partI don’t know when it first occurred to me that I could be her….
Somewhere in the pit of my stomach when I heard another military spouse had taken her own life, what gripped me along with the sadness and anger was this tendril of fear snaking through me whispering, “That could be you.”
It still happens every single time.

The worst is when there are children involved. The anger and the blame gets slung back and forth. The furious demands of “How could she do that?”

My heart seizes up and my brain spins because some little piece of me wonders—could I do that too? Could I be the end of these little people that I love? Could I sink that far down the rabbit hole? I can only have compassion for an act so purely evil because I wonder… Could I sink to those depths, too?
Maybe it was while I was slogging through my oldest’s first year with my husband gone more than home, my life turned upside down by grief and my baby colicky and fretful. Maybe the worry first came over me the first time I had the disturbing realization that this helpless creature’s wails weren’t stirring my compassion and motherly instincts, but were instead making me angry.
Or maybe it was when I was battling Postpartum Depression… reeling at the lack of joy I had at a time when I was supposed to be cherishing every moment.

I know for certain it’s whispered at me on those all familiar days of overwhelmedness… of handling it all alone.
Again.
Days like today and yesterday when I felt like a failure as a mother—a screaming banshee or worse… someone who didn’t pay enough attention. The days when I am cleaning up poop and puke around every corner and the laundry has built up and the tired is so deep into my bones. The days when I have to slog through after not enough hours of sleep and all of my resources of calm and put togetherness have vanished.
In these moments the voices have gotten louder… The whisper more persistent—could it be me?

The truth is this life is hard and we all have a breaking point. The truth is that I have had my own moments swirling around the rabbit hole.

Moments when the voices told me, “You are a failure as a mother… They would be better off without you. Better off with someone else.”

The truth is I’ve had my moments when my being has shouted, “I hate this life and I can’t do another day.”
And moments when the pain was so intense that I hoped if it was going to continue I could cease to wake up.

I have had those moments and if I have had those moments, how far are they from the moments the spouses and mothers who have taken their own lives—and worse—have had?

What terrifies me isn’t the foreignness of these acts and the emotions that I expect are tied to them.
It is the familiarity.

I haven’t been suicidal, but I have been close.
I haven’t neglected my children or accidentally harmed them or willfully hurt them.
But I have felt the tired collide with the white hot anger and had to put myself in another room or call a friend to reset my head space.

Perhaps I am alone in that. But perhaps I’m not.
And maybe this is what needs to be added to the conversation.

We grieve about these suicides and these moments of things going terribly wrong not just because of the loss of our sisters, our mothers, our friends… Or even because of the way they crumble tiny lives (though they do that, and that is the howling wrongness that shakes us most of all)
We grieve because they could be us.
And that shattered mirror is a scary one to look into.

But if we are willing to look into it. To tap into our own darkness. To empathize with someone else in theirs…. Maybe we can reach out. Maybe we can transfer isolation into the words, “You are not alone… How can I help you? How can we make sure you stay safe?”

Maybe what scares us the most is that these women could be us.   But maybe that awareness and the willingness to recognize what we most fear about ourselves in someone else could stave off someone else’s isolation.   Could keep the dark from crowding in and taking over completely. Could keep someone else safe for long enough to get the help that they need.
Maybe we need to look into that mirror, to learn compassion for the reflection staring back at us, and to transfer that compassion to others alone at the edge of an abyss.
Maybe facing the scariest part gives us the strength to push back the dark.

]]><![CDATA[Breaking Free From The Narrative]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 23:11:04 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/breaking-free-from-the-narrativeSo there’s a narrative for a deployment.
It goes something like this:
You spend weeks with the day of his departure looming on the horizon. It stinks. You cry a lot. You get into at least one big blow up fight, but you get over it. Then you go with him to the place of his departure. And you cry the ugly cry. You kiss him good-bye and you drive home.
You go into your immediate deployment funk. You mope around the house. Eat chocolate. Carry tissues. If you look over the paperwork that goes through the ‘deployment’ cycle you get a clue about the narrative: Frequent ugly crying and bunny slipper wearing normal for the first month (the disorganization phase I think?).
The paperwork says this phase lasts a month…   A month where it’s acceptable to wear the yoga pants and bunny slippers and cry and eat chocolate.
Then comes ‘sustainment.’ Which sounds like a military version of a Zen state, right?
That’s when you’re supposed to hit your stride and realize that you got this and everything is going to be alright.
Because that’s the narrative. The story we’re told about how it works.
He goes. You cry. You get on with living. You realize that you can overcome obstacles. You can fix cars and deal with washers that break and kids who go to the ER.
And don’t forget the bonus features. The evidence of having thrived: The new hobby you picked up. The new language that you learned. The new sweater you finally got knitted. The lessons learned. The silver linings.

That’s the expected story development. That’s how it was told to me the first time my husband deployed, and every time sicne. That’s even how I’ve told it to others. He leaves. I cry for a month. I get on with life. I learn a lesson. He comes home.

But what if it doesn’t look like that?
I’m three months into this deployment and I can’t tell you what I’m sustaining? Maybe a bad attitude? This past weekend whenever I thought about how much longer we still had to go, I cried. We’re talking multiple teary episodes and chocolate at the ready.
I find that I’m angry much more than I expected. I’m angry at times I don’t expect, like in the moment that we finally get to Skype. I checked the expected storyline on that moment and you’re supposed to feel happy about the connection. A little bit gooey-eyed. At the very least grateful.    Not anger. But anger I felt… Anger about it all being out of my control. About the tears I knew my girls and I would shed when he left port and the Skype calls went away for another 4-6 weeks or longer. Anger at the inability to really feel like we could talk and connect. Heck—Anger at the way my kids go crazy watching themselves in the corner of the screen and wiggling all around the room (and on my lap!) while finding random things like one armed teddy-bears and ABC gum to “Show Daddy.”
What if…. What if I never hit the sustainment phase? What if I don’t find my silver lining… What if my ‘steady’ looks like vacillating in and out of anger and sadness at times that feel random for the rest of the deployment…. What if I never pick up a new hobby or get that sweater knitted?   Does that mean I’ve failed? If the only emotions I end up sustaining are resentment towards the deployment, the Navy, or myself by turns… Does that mean that I’m not a “good enough?” Navy wife?
What if the closest I get to steady is having some good days interspersed in and amongst the tough days?
I took all of this to a friend of mine tonight. She listened to my diatribe and simply said: I give you permission to break free from the narrative.
I needed to hear that.
Now, I need you to know that doesn’t mean that I want to choose to have a bad attitude for the duration of this deployment. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to seek out the suck of it or that I will ruminate on the morose and sad and anxiety producing.
For me it just means that I get to do this the way I do this without the pressure of the narrative constricting me and serving as a measuring stick. It means I don’t flagellate myself for the bad days…. I might even expect them and give myself grace to have them and move on (which might actually shorten their duration).
It means I get to feel my feelings. Even if they aren’t the feelings I think I “should” have.
The “sustainment” may come. It may come next week and stay until the last few weeks of this deployment. Or it may not come. The only thing I may sustain are the elastic band of my yoga pants.
I may not ever fit the parameters of “The Deployment Cycle” paperwork or of any of the narratives I’ve ever heard about how we are supposed to do this. After all, I’ve often been the square peg in round holes
But I will get to the other side. My own way. And that will still be a story worth telling.

]]><![CDATA[Speaking of Deployment Gremlins]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 23:09:38 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/speaking-of-deployment-gremlinsSpeaking of Deployment Gremlins…

The last day of his POM leave—the leave period given right before a deployment—the bathtub flooded. My daughter went up to get a bath, turned on the water, went back to her room while it ran, and fell asleep.
By the time we realized what was happening, we looked into the kitchen and saw water pouring out of the light fixtures. It was also running down the back window, pouring into cabinets, and dripping down the back interior and exterior wall.
The last few weeks he was home we spent making calls to home insurance, getting to know our new friends with the water mitigation and contracting company, and buying new cabinets, a new counter top, a new bathtub, and the other materials that would be needed for the repair.
Less than a week after he left for the deployment the water mitigation company came and pulled out my entire kitchen and upstairs bathroom. They were stripped down to the studs.
And here we are now, a month later, and not much further into the process. The kitchen is still stripped down, the bathroom is stripped down, and I have been learning the art of managing a project of this scope and magnitude.
I know that some people take on home improvement projects during a deployment, but this is kind of ridiculous.
These are just a few of the things I’ve learned so from the experience…

Paper Plates, cups, bowls, and plastic silverware are perfectly valid options. Also they make for very light trash bags.
There is a surprisingly large variety of microwave meals—and I have no shame in eating them.
Never turn down an invitation to eat dinner at someone else’s house
Friends will keep you going on the hard days
There is an art to staying on top of a project. It’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page and that items that are supposed to be torn out at the appropriate time are torn out.
Most things really are fixable.
It is possible for one room to serve as a dining room, kitchen, school room, living room all at the same time.
If you ask friends for Crockpot meal ideas you’ll get so may ideas you won’t know where to start
That said cleaning a crock pot without the benefit of a deep kitchen sink is a challenge
Doing dishes by hand can be relaxing
It’s less relaxing when you have to do them by filling up bins of water and lugging them to your table.
Just because you have one major home emergency doesn’t mean that you are immune from others. Just in the span of the first 3 weeks of deployment I called a plumber 3 times for 2 separate issues that had nothing to do with the flooding incident.
Having a smaller space to occupy doesn’t necessarily mean less cleaning if you have doubled the amount of stuff in the smaller space.
People can be immensely kind as you figure out how to put your world back together.
Never base your deployment story on a Lemony Snicket Book. “A Series of Unfortunate Events” can really happen to you.
You can make a lot of really fun toilet humor when your toilet is broken
Water is powerful
I am someone who misses baking more than cooking
I actually find peace in cooking, and miss the peace I get from the ability to do it normally
You can make a lot of meals with an electric skillet, crockpot, and griddle
Incredibly abnormal circumstances can begin to feel normal
It is possible for my husband to micromanage a project from an ocean away
A hot shower can be the difference between a good day and a bad day
Take-out food and pizza delivery can get old fast.
Creativity, adaptability, and a sense of humor can get you through almost anything

The going is slow, and I have no idea how long we’ll be living in this crazy limbo or how many other deployment gremlins may come out to play, but I have no that the lessons we’re learning will stick with us forever!

]]><![CDATA[Sometimes Brave Chooses You]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:35:21 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/sometimes-brave-chooses-youMy Mother named me Valerie--from the same root word as “Valour.” My name means, “Strong Woman.”
Which is funny because I’ve always felt so timid, so easily overwhelmed. I’d much prefer staying in my house not rocking the boat too much than blazing out anywhere in pomp and circumstance. When big hard things happen, I want to cower in the corner.
There was this cat that lived at a friend’s house when my husband and I went to visit back when we weren’t yet husband and wife… The cat was the kind that is terrified of people, and crouched and cowered especially when people were around, but when the cat’s person would get out this stick toy and fling around a birdie, the cat would tentatively peek out. He just couldn’t help himself. He mustered up all the bravery he could find and came out and attacked that bird. The cat’s name was, “Tiger.” Husband sensing in me a tendency to cower, and then peek out and adapt and overcome, deemed it my nickname soon after meeting the fuzzy creature.
Somehow, I ended up being the wife of a man who serves our country in the Navy. And this lifestyle takes some bravery. You might think that the brave moments are the ones that happen when I take him to the air terminal and kiss him goodbye and drive away trying to stifle the sobs. But those moments are unavoidable and they aren’t chosen. They happen whether I am brave or not.
What I find with every twist and turn this lifestyle brings us, and with every spell of time that we’re apart is that bravery isn’t just worn like a metal on a uniform or a suit of armor. Often it’s an everyday thing. It’s waking up in the morning exhausted because you don’t sleep well when he’s gone, and putting a smile on your face for your kids even though you miss him right down to your core still on the 90th day of deployment, and the missing is every bit as acute on the 90th day as on the 9th.
It’s having the Internet and Cable and Phone go out and figuring out what it’s going to take to get it back up and running. It’s taking on the maintenance of two vehicles and figuring out how to mow the lawn during nap time. It’s not flinching in the face of the myriad daily tasks that you normally leave safely in ‘his domain.’ It’s hearing the doorbell ring at an odd hour of the day and forcing yourself to know that it’s probably not the uniformed men that you fear.
I never would have chosen a life that proved my name so thoroughly, but it seems this life has chosen me and for the love of this incredible man, I creep out from my corner and chase it with gusto.
How have you been brave lately?

]]><![CDATA[Pre-emptive disappointment Part 2—Where the Hope Lives]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:32:50 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/pre-emptive-disappointment-part-2-where-the-hope-lives“Cynicism and fatigue—knowing that we are at 5 deployments and have several more to go before retirement.
My heart feels colder and colder.
My hope dwindles because I know the reality—even if it WAS possible to shore our marriage up in the precious few months that we have before the next deployment, we will still have the next deployment, and the one after that, and the one after that will strike new blows of their own for us to recover from.
So you see I find myself living in this world of preemptive disappointment—and as a person who wants to hang on to light and hope even in the thickest darkness, to find my heart sinking into this cynicism scares me and sours my stomach.
And it makes me sad…. Because I don’t even get the fleeting moments of hoping for the happily ever after to come after each deployment anymore…
Instead I live in the land of pre-emptive disappointment, never quite sure of how, when, or if we might be pieced back together.”

I wrote those words. In another blog, I wrote these words. And I meant them.
They feel jagged, and raw… like the edge of them might actually cut me.
Every word feels true.
But.
Even as I wrote them I realized…
I believe those words are not all that is true.

I wrote about how I feel hopeless, and I have… But I will not stay in that place forever.
I know this because I know another true thing about me: I do believe in hope. In light. Even in the darkness, I believe in the power of a pinprick of light.
So after I wrote those words, I had to ask myself the question…. Is there a way out of this? Is there a way to find hope even with the cycle of deployments continuing for who knows how much longer…
Even with the pain that we’ve endured so far…
Even with the damage that has been done to our hearts…

I believe there is always, always hope.
And with this man, especially, I have always found hope.

Hope: when I said good-bye to my mother and he held me up… He’d been catapulted form an aircraft carrier and wrestled with airlines to get there in time. She waited because she knew if she couldn’t walk me into the future, that he could. She trusted him to.
He told my mother he would see her tomorrow…
But she was gone before morning.
And he was there…. To hold me and to support me.
He was there to help me find my way through the feelings…
And he kept being there, even a month later when he had to leave for deployment. I knew he had me. That I was not alone in my grief. That I was loved in it.
I look back on the light he was to me in that darkness, and it gives me hope.

Hope: when we sat on our bed hours after I was diagnosed with a rare tumor. We were stunned and afraid and pregnant with our third baby. We came together then.
We fought together then.
He fought nurses for me, and wasn’t afraid to say what he thought to world class doctors and surgeons.
I fought with information, with research. And with treatment.
We walked that together and it was so scary.
but
I’m still here. We’re still here. That little girl turns five this week.
I consider that and it gives me hope.

Hope: It’s there in his emails… The ones where I hear him finding a new sense of purpose that I haven’t heard in his voice in years. He is finding that purpose by revamping the squadron’s suicide program. He is finding it in being an advocate for his sailors. I’m so proud of him.
I hear him finding a new part of his story.
I hear his voice gaining strength, even through the fatigue of yet another deployment.
I hear the best parts of the man I fell in love with holding steady in spite of it all.
This, too, gives me hope.

Hope: in the moments that I know will come…. As real as darkness is, as real as my cynicism, and the hardness that wants to take over with each separation, there will be equally real moments on the flip side of those things. There will be moments when we talk and really connect. Moments when he hears me. When I hear him. Moments when we come together and begin to find our way again. No, we might not be able to completely shore ourselves up in the scant few months before he leaves again, but we can make a start. We can commit to that start and to the path, however winding it may be. Even with interruptions. Even with setbacks.
We will do this.
He is that kind of man.
I am that kind of woman.
And there is so much hope in that.

]]><![CDATA[Pre-emptive Disappointment part 1]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:31:47 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/pre-emptive-disappointment-part-1It feels so unfair to say this, but I think it’s true.
One of the hardest things about deployment and homecoming for me is the pre-emptive disappointment.

How in the world do I go about explaining what I mean by that?
When we think of a homecoming…. We think of the banners and the flags. We think of the first kisses and our service member running into our arms and the tears and the “THANK GOD YOU ARE SAFE. THANK GOD YOU CAME BACK TO ME.”
I will be grateful, so grateful that he has come back to me. I will not take that for granted.
All of that is real and true and it is a glorious moment each and every time.

Much has already been written about how there is so much more than that moment…. Much has been written about reintegration and the difficulty families can find coming together again after so many months apart. This is a little different than that…   For me, this goes a little further than the difficulty of renegotiating roles….

When I consider that homecoming, I know it will be glorious and I can taste the salty tears that will stream down my face. I can almost feel my body relaxing finally into him.
But I can also feel the disappointment of that moment 2 weeks later when the honeymoon phase ends and we have our first fight.
I can feel the fatigue of 2 months from that when he still can’t sleep…. And he is trying everything he can think of to find the elusive relief of rest.
I can feel the tension in the moment I know is coming when he feels out of control and throws a plate and it shatters against the wall in front of me.
I can feel the distance, the horrible chasm of distance that I sometimes feel from this person that I want to feel the most connected to.

In the middle of a deployment I want to believe that it will be better this time. I want to prop him up in the saddle of that white horse and see my prince charming riding back to me. I want to assure the kids that of course Daddy WILL make it all better… their nightmares, the unfairness of schoolwork, the tears they’ve cried for so many things he has missed.

I want to believe that so desperately and part of me falls into the trap of that every single time
But I have wised up. Less and less of me is falling there. And that is actually what scares me.
5 deployments in and I find myself slipping more into cynicism than idealism.
Cynicism and fatigue—knowing that we are at 5 deployments and have several more to go before retirement.
My heart feels colder and the exhaustion is set deep in my bones. I don’t rebound from the deployments like I used to because I am just so tired from the accumulation of time we have spent apart. I am so worried that the pressure will continue to put hairline fractures into all of us until eventually we shatter and disperse into dust.
My hope dwindles because I know the reality—even if it WAS possible to shore our marriage and family up in the precious few months that we have before the next deployment, we will still have the next deployment, and the one after that, and the one after that will strike new blows of their own for us to recover from.
So you see I find myself living in this world of preemptive disappointment—and as a person who wants to hang on to light and hope even in the thickest darkness, to find my heart sinking into this cynicism scares me and sours my stomach.
And it makes me sad…. Because I don’t even get the fleeting moments of hoping for the happily ever after to come after each deployment anymore…
Instead I live in the land of pre-emptive disappointment, never quite sure of how, when, or if we might have the time and space to be pieced back together again… and wondering if we will ever be able to get to a place where we might begin to feel whole and complete once more.

]]><![CDATA[Numbness is supposed to be a lack of feeling]]>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:30:28 GMThttps://www.herwarhervoice.com/vals-memories/numbness-is-supposed-to-be-a-lack-of-feelingNumbness is supposed to be a lack of feeling…
But right now it is an ache. An ever present ache.

He slung his sea bag over his shoulder and I let out one last sob as we pulled away from the air terminal. The girls and I had cried all morning long, but we dried our tears as we drove out of the parking lot, out of the gate, and out of town to the Cineplex at a mall in the next town over to see a movie to keep our mind off of what had just happened.
I haven’t stopped moving since.
I haven’t felt any feeling all the way through since. People talk about not being able to finish their thoughts… I can’t finish my feelings. They surface and begin to register and then something in my brain makes me turn the other direction as fast as I can.
Saying it like that makes it sounds like it’s a conscious decision. What I’m finding most troubling is that it isn’t. I feel incapable of producing the emotions that I am supposed to be feeling.
It’s exhausting.

I know that I miss him. I know that if I sat still long enough, or if this auto-pilot coping program could be turned off, the grief would come creeping in like a cat gingerly padding over to me. It would creep in silently and then once it was all the way in the room, sit on my chest like an elephant.
Maybe I’m stuck here because I just can’t afford not to breathe right now.

The numbness though… is unsettling.

I feel disconnected from him. The disconnect makes me sub-consciously stall sitting down to write letters, or putting together packages, or even writing him the bread and butter kinds of emails to keep some line of communication flowing. On the rare days he is able to call his voice almost can’t reach me and the emptiness that fills me after we hang up the phone makes me want to run as far and fast as possible.
I struggle at the closing of each of my letters. Of course I tell him I love him. Of course I sign with “Love, Val” but our old familiar sign-offs don’t seem to work. I feel cold and formal. I can’t conjure up any language of intimacy.
Throughout his workup cycles the word that kept coming to me was ‘optional.’ My husband is optional. He is a posh feature in the mini-van of my life. Not something essential like a transmission or brakes, but an option… Like air conditioning or power windows. He can be in our lives… or not. And we go on just fine. I’ve told myself that for six months now, preparing for this deployment—our longest yet.
It isn’t true. I need him like I need air or water. But staring down the sheer number of months we were going to be spending apart, my brain shifted into this ugly mindset.
Who thinks of her husband as ‘optional?’

What have I done letting myself believe this? If this is a defense mechanism, I fear I am defending my heart too well.

If I feel this numb now at a month in where will I be at 3 months or 6? Will I have any space left in my heart for him when he returns at the end of this? Will I be able to turn the switch back on or will it have rusted into the off position?
The guilt I feel about feeling so flat about the person I love most in the world is as crushing as the numbness itself.   He is gone. GONE. How dare I NOT cry? How dare I not allow every shade of the darkness to overtake me? How dare I not look at his goneness square in the face and feel the gaping hole that is left when he isn’t in the bed beside me, at the head of the dinner table, reading or watching t.v. on the couch next to me in the evening?
Is this just denial? Will the wall breech?   Will the feelings I have been stuffing back burst out of the dam and drown me?
Do I want them to? Do I want to feel it? Or do I want to stay here with my finger plugging the hole?
I’m afraid to answer that question. I’m afraid of either side of the equation. If I stay in this numbness I am afraid my heart will die. But if I don’t can I withstand the weight of the feelings?

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