Blog Archives

7/18/2017

This Week

Read Now

Some days, it seems as if the one consistent thing the military seems to offer to families is that plans must always change.
But that is when the beauty of our resiliency comes out, and we readjust, re-plan, and move forward.

He was supposed to come home this week.
We were supposed to be making banners and planning the Welcome Home meal. I was supposed to be peeling my kids off the ceiling from excitement this week. He was supposed to step off of a plane and into our arms this week.
This week was supposed to be the finish line.

But there was an extension.
He won’t be coming home this week after all.

My girls were supposed to be baptized a week after his return. We had plans to go on vacation during the leave period that was supposed to be coming. He was supposed to be there to hold my hand during an out-patient procedure I have coming up.

All of this has been shifted. Changed. Re-arranged.

We will walk through some of these things over the coming weeks without him. Others will have to wait.

The good news is, He will be late…. but he WILL be home. I am so grateful for this. I know to be grateful for this.

But this week… This week when I look at where the finish line should have been, I know it will sting a bit for all of us. We’ll make room for those feelings. We’ll feel them. Work through them.

And then get busy preparing for the day when we can cross the finish line together.

0 Comments

7/2/2017

Visitor

0 Comments

Read Now

Humans adjust.
It's what we do to survive stress and change we can't do anything about.
What do you do, though, when that adjustment creates a separation that doesn't belong?

I am startled to realize that when I think about my husband in our home, I think of him as a visitor.

He will come home in a month. He will be here for 8 weeks before he leaves again.
The start of another deployment cycle.

During a deployment, he starts to feel less real anyway. The edges of him blur a little. Day by day he becomes less 3 dimensional and more 2 dimensional to my mind. But even still, usually there is the anticipation of relief when he comes in the door. The promise of a breath. Of a reprieve.
The promise of together.

This time it feels as though as soon even plane touches down and we hold the banners and bake the cake…
Even then, the breath will already be being sucked out of us all.

Another countdown.
It feels as though we never reach the horizon. We keep running and running, and going and going, and hoping and hoping…
For time together
For a chance to heal
For an opportunity to figure out who we are together again.

When I look out over the coming months, instead of seeing holidays with him, and help at home, and a chance to do the work of being a family together…
Instead I see him gone.
Still gone.
Again gone.
And he’ll be gone even before he is gone.
His mind will go before he will.

4 Places at the table instead of 5. More nights of girls crying themselves to sleep for missing Daddy. More school events and bouts of stomach flu and household repairs without him. More nights of falling asleep to Netflix instead of falling asleep in his arms.

This is where I am supposed to talk about pride. About how we do this for the country. About the reason he serves and we support him. About the way my heart swells at the playing of the National Anthem.

I know that is the expectation for the military spouse narrative at this point in the writing.

I would write it for you.
But I’m just too tired…
With no end to that tired in sight.

0 Comments

This Week

Visitor

Val

MY STORY

MY VIDEOS

MY MUSIC

MY PICTURES

Archives

Categories