Military Life, Military Wife does it ever end???

Blessings

2010-09-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

God blesses us with so many things, and we tend to drown out our blessings with our sorrow. The Bible tells us to rejoice even in times of great sorrow, that we should rejoice in the Lord always. I have been making sure that although my husband is gone to rejoice everyday for all of the blessings that I have in my life. Today I have a daughter turning 16 years old, and she was surprised that I could focus on her at all, with my DH leaving last Friday. But she has been a blessing in my life for 16 years and I thank God for her everyday. I think we don't thank God enough for the things we do have, and we continue to ask for more. We don't trust God with our DH, we want to take care of everything ourselves, and then we become overwhelmed. Then we wonder why we are sick, from stress and worry. God is just telling us to slow down, that He has this, that He wants to carry us and take care of us. When we feel like we can't count on anyone else in our lives, He is ALWAYS there to sustain us. He is always there to be our friend, our Father. He will listen to all of our secrets, and then the best part is He will forgive us. We can't always say that about a friend, or our husband. He will never judge us or yell at us. I think that is so amazing, He is just there to hold us in His heart and Love us unconditionally. Some women run all their lives looking for that unconditional love when all they really have to do is look up. I marvel at my children and their individual relationships with God. It is amazing thing to see innocent young children love God as much as they do, and hunger to learn about Him. Then to see grown people run from Him they way that they do is so sad. I just wish that they could see how He loves us. It is so amazing, He gave us His all, everything He had. Would we be willing to make the same sacrifice for Him???? Just something to think about on a day when I am so thankful for the gift of my very beautiful daughter, my husband may be away, but he will be safe because he is in God's hands while he is away.

2010-09-11T10:31:00.001-07:00

He left yesterday and today he is in Iraq. There is nothing like watching the one you love stepping on a bus and driving away from you. The butterflies in your stomach and the empty feeling that you have as the slowly diappear. Today is his birthday and he is halfway around the world, fighting for our freedom. On September 11, 2001 we were attacked and he woke up to the worst birthday he would ever remember. Today he landed in Kuwait to fight a war that began in 2001 on his birthday, a day that we didn't could never have imagined would bring us here. My hubsband has always had a deep love for his country and I am so proud of him and I love him so much. I would not change a day of our lives for anything. God has blessed us so much, and I am thankful for everyday with him. I will count down everyday he is gone, until he is home again. I wish he was home today, but I am proud of where he is and what he is doing.

2010-09-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Another day, another prayer sent up. I know he couldn't be in better hands. It is like a party at my house everyday because I am afraid to be left alone to much with him because I am afraid that I will lose it in front of him and he just doesn't need to see that right now. I want him to leave me being strong. The ROCK for the kids. So I am finding things to keep us super busy so there is nothing to just sit around and let my mind wonder and thing about it to much.
I do love our church, I know I wouldn't make it without them, when they layed they hands on my husband and prayed over him, I could just feel the love pouring over him. We truly have this amazing family, that loves us, surrounding us here. We couldn't be more blessed. But I know that when I am sitting in that parking lot watching him board that bus I will be going through that grieving proccess all over again.
I finally had the chance to sit down and explain to DH about what the feelings are that we go through when they leave. How it is that we feel. How our life is exactly the same, that we do the same thing everyday, that it is almost like they die when they leave. That we actually have to go through a mourning process when they leave. It is because our lives are exactly the same as if they had died, other than the fact that they can call us. We become single parents. They don't go through the same mental seperation that we do because everything in their lives changes, they have nothing stays the same for them. They don't have they same surroundings, they don't do the same activities. Everything is almost the exact opposite for them, they have hardly anything there that reminds them of us over there, they don't do anything there that reminds them of us. While we are over here, washing dishes, or going to the grocery store and thinking of our DH. I try to reboot my life when my husband leaves and it totally irritates him, he thinks that I am trying to forget him, which is what I am trying to do, but not in the way that he thinks I am. I just want to help myself not dwell on missing him.
I think that, that is the best way to not focus on them being gone for as long as they are going to be gone.
Being busy does make the time go by faster.

Another Deployment

2010-09-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

It is funny how when it is time for deployment it seems like they just got home. We are gearing up for yet another deployment to Iraq, and when we watch the news all we hear about, is how everyone is coming home.
It is even worse because I have to be strong, I have to show him I will be ok while he is gone. We don't cry on front of our spouses, we excuse ourselves and go to the bathroom. As we sit in church, we turn our heads as the tears roll down our cheeks because we realize that in a week or two our husbands wont be sitting next to us. We know that the first time we have to sit alone in church is almost harder than anything else we have to do. For me, I have to look up at the drum set and not see my husband sitting there, or watch someone else playing "his" drums. There are so many things you do together, but there are those few things that you ALWAYS do that are harder than most.
We went grocery shopping yesterday, that is the one thing, other than church, that I had the hardest time with during the last deploment. My kids would have eaten cereal every night if it wasn't for a few of my friends. I have such a hard time shopping without my husband, it is just something I associate with him, we have always done it together. Most men would cringe if they had to go grocery shopping, but my husband goes, or we go together.
How do you survive the things that make you feel empty while they are gone? Thank goodness there are only a few of them. I remember one day during his last deployment I just felt like I couldn't deal with him being gone anymore, and I was in bed. I was praying, and crying, because we all know that as a military spouse we cry a lot. God answered my prayer and I felt his arms around me, it was comforting, and something that I so desperately needed, at that time. God answers prayers, when we need them the most. I know that I will be fine, and I will pray a lot again. I know there are a lot of other wives going through this with me, and they feel the same way that I do. They dit in church on Sunday morning just like I do, wishing that their husbands were by their sides too, and they will be, just not today or tomorrow. We have to let them do what they have to do, my husband wouldn't be the man that he is if he wasn't serving his country, and he is definately a good man. I wouldn't love him if he wasn't.

Way to soon

2008-06-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny that when we want time to rush by us it goes so slowly you feel like you are going to die? But when we are trying to savor every memory and cherish every moment, as us army wives do when our DH is leaving, it rushes by. I feel as though I have fallen into that boat today, I have been acting as if nothing is wrong for so long that I swear a 2x4 slapped me in the head today. He is leaving (of course I already knew that) but it is time, and I have to let go and face it. I thought I would be able to be strong until after he left but I lost it today and I haven't been able to stop the flow of tears that I don't want him to see. He is so excited to go and serve his country and I don't want to take that away from him, through tears. Doesn't it break their hearts enough that they are leaving their family behind, that any extra flow of tears and emotions isn't good for them. I get that they need to know we will miss them and that we love them, I knew it was going to be hard I just didn't expect it to be impossible. I thought I was stronger than this. So what do we do when we can't face the person we love because we don't want them to hurt? How do we handle this situation? Will it get easier to deal with in time? I don't think it does, as I was in church crying after service my best friend came up and hugged me and then started crying because she misses her DH so much it breaks her heart everyday. So does this mean that I am going to be a walking basket case for the next 15 months? Am I strong enough to lean on someone that isn't my DH? I know that I have a wonderful family through our church and I feel blessed but I am not the type of person to lean on anyone or ask for help. So after he leaves, what do I do? How do I be strong when I feel so weak?

9 days

2008-06-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

The time is getting closer, I did talk to DH last night about who he will be last night. I talked to one of my friends yesterday morning and since her husband has been home things are getting progressively worse. I am not going to lie it scared me down to the very core of my being. I have a wonderful husband and should this change him I wont know what I should do about it. I don't want to be like my friends and be afraid to broch the subjects that are hard to deal with. I also want him to know if he comes back and acts as they are, I wont hesitate to get him help to fix the problem, I am not going to be afraid of helping him. I know military men care about their careers first and foremost, and some of the things that go on behind closed doors that I am seeing would or could end some careers. I just know if it were my husband I would stop at nothing to get him help, his well being is more important to me than anything else. I guess I can feel this way because I know he is going to be retiring soon after he gets back.
He is so excited to go, this is what he joined for. He is finally able to do something with all o his training! If not this then what is the military all about. I fully support my husbands career and I am reluctantly supporting this. I know I am going to miss him, I have to give it to God that he will be safe. When we posted his flag at church yesterday and had his going away party, it truly hit me that he is leaving. I am going to lose my best friend for the next 15 months. That is such a long time.
How are my kids going to handle this? Can I be the mother and father to them that they will need? How do I try to fill such large shoes? Daddy is always the hero, we are the caretakers, how will they feel without him for so long?
Sometimes I feel like I have more questions than answers!

preparing

2008-05-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Ok so the time is coming closer to him leaving, and as he prepares to go alot of my friends husbands are coming home. My husband is amazingly kind and truthfully he spoils me rotten. I don't want him to leave for Iraq, for 15 months and then come home as a totally different person.
I have several friends that are dealing with these issues, PTSD on the extreme side, how do you support that, you don't KNOW what they went through so you can't relate to them, this frightens me. I have another friend and her DH wont sleep at night and he is heavily drinking every day. They wont talk to their spouses about it, and if my friends try to talk about it, they are snapped at and then the subject has to be dropped.
So as I am getting ready for DH to leave, and don't get me wrong I am very proud of him, I am afraid that when he comes home I will not know my DH and I will have lost my best friend. There is no one that I am closer to, or that I would rather spend time with. But will I recognize the man he is when he comes home?
Will I be the same person he left behind?
I don't want to lose my best friend, I hate sounding selfish, has this happened to a lot of you? Is everything I am seeing the norm, or an exception?

Blessings
Mel

Mothers Day

2008-05-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

So today was mothers day and it was a great day, I am trying to get all the great days I can in before he leaves. We got up super early and went to Church. I have this tendency to procrastinate, which totally drives DH insane, and we had to get the Sunday school bags ready. There was easily 1 1/2 hours worth of work to do in there this morning. Yeah this morning did not start off well with him. I however found it very humorous. I do have from Wed. to get this list completed, boy talk about being stuck in a hole in the wall with someone complaing...lol, I thought he was going to strangle me when he saw the list, and I don't know why I read it to him when I get it in my email on Wed night. Oh the stress of deployment, that is what I am going to blame this on.
In other wonderful news, we came home from Church and I had wonderful cell phone messages from my children that are in NY, and my little one and DH sent me to bed and made me brunch. My 17 year old brought up some ice cream and we layed in bed and watched a movie and ate some ice cream while we were waiting for DH and kids to bring me brunch in bed! I thought that was wonderful of him!
I finally DID IT!!! I made my honey do list 2 days ago, so over the next couple of weeks as I continue to blog before he goes I am going to update the list on here. One of my big jobs for him is to get the kitchen painter, the frony yard set up for the summer and fall, getting our storage shed cleaned out, putting together the girls trampoline, setting up my office in our bedroom (I am not normally allowed this but I am taking advantage of him not being here I can do this for exactly15 months woohoo) there are a bunch more things on the list but those are all the major things. Today while I took a nap after my wonderful brunch he started working on the front yard getting it ready for my flowers and my swing and lounge chair.
We are going on vacation in a week in a half so we really don't have long to accomplish all that we want done, but whatever doesn't get done really isn't that big of a deal, I can do it as I get around to it. There are just those things that a guy can do a little faster than us. Or so we like to think, or let them think. Or something like that.
So as the days quickly fly by for some of us and slowly pass for others, I am sitting here thinking, that most of us really don't measure time by minutes or hours anymore but more as to what we have accomplished along the way. The more we have accomplished then it is QUALITY time rather than QUANTITY time. Do you realize that when we were little there was never a distinction between the 2 we just spent time with our family and spent time with our frinds and what we got with either was great and we didn't complain. Wow our society continues to become more spoiled as time goes by, and we are raising our children and the people that will be running this country to whine and compain over some very minor issues. Hmmm just a thought as I was thinking about my honey do list.

Until later, peace be with you and my prayers are with you and your loved ones,
Mel

another day closer

2008-05-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

It's like a count down, remember when you were a kid and you would count down the days until summer, when you didn't have to go to school anymore, or maybe you were counting the days until your birthday, could have been Christmas. The difference is this time you are not counting the days for a joyous event, you are counting the days hoping instead for them to drag on and take their time passing. Have you ever noticed when you want time to fly by, it doesn't, but when you don't want it to it does! So yes it is just another day to everyone else but to us it is another day closer to THE day.
I do feel fortunate, my husband hasn't started the dreaded "getting ready to deploy" attitude I have heard about from some spouses. He is pretty much the same as always. We get a little snippy with each other sometimes, which is out od character but I have to blame that on both of us. I know I am on pins and needles. I tell everyone that when I drop him off I am going to treat this as if he is going away for all those one month deployments, but truthfully who am I really kidding? I can lie to myself all I want, I highly doubt I am going to convince myself of anything anytime soon. I need to actually prepare my children for this so that they will understand that daddy isn't just going away for a little while this time, usually after about 20 days they are rebelling and awful so this should be a real challenge! I guess as lucky and fortunate as I have been I need to realize that his wish is to do this and I do support this but holy cow what a hard adjustment this is for everyone!
I have decided to just devote myself to just doing good things while he is gone. I am going to work on my businesses, and I have volunteered with the FRG and I am thinking about doing the same with the Red Cross if I can find the time. I also think I will become more active when the girls go back to school next year and I think we will be starting work on the Church Christamas Pageant a lot earlier this year than we did last year and I am usually the lead coordinator of that as well so for at least the first few months I will be very busy. I will also have most of our 7 children with me all summer so that will also keep me busy as well. I am hoping that since the first few months I will be extremely busy, that, that would be the hardest time as well so who knows.
He goes on leave tomorrow and I am not sure what we are going to be doing while he is on leave. I do know that the girls are still in school so there isn't a whole lot that we can do without pulling them out. But I think that it should be ok, other than my 17 year old, and she can stay with a friend. I know he wants to go see his parents and he is hoping to go see his girls before he leaves. Hopefully we will get a chance to do both.
I guess as time slowly slips away we will judt do whatever we have time for and we will leave it all in God's hands. Isn't that where it all truly belongs anyway. As I will daily be praying for all of of our soldiers please keep mine in your prayers as well, God bless.

My first entry May 7, 2008

2008-05-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

I have never blogged before but I am assuming it is like writing in a journal and I am very good at that. I am getting ready to go through a deployment with my husband, and we have been married for so long, and he has been military for so long that people just assume that this is his second or third deployment, and when I am upset that he is leaving and it is his first, I feel like crap because other military wives have actually been through 2 or 3 deployments. We have never had to deal with this yet, not from his lack of trying, he volunteered many times to deploy but he was a recruiter and was not in the position to go so I was lucky, and I felt protected from the big bad world out there. So yes I guess I am a little selfish I don't want him to go. I didn't want him to go before and I don't want him to go now! He would be so angry if he heard me say those words, and we never fight, we have the perfect marriage even after 9 years. I would like to think I am a good wife but I think that maybe I am not such a good wife at this point! God says a wife is supportive and submissive and I think lately I have been distant and depressed. I have been nervous and it has been making me ill and that has been making him worry about me, his concern is that if I can't take care of myself while he is here, then what am I going to do while he is gone. I did try to sit down with him and explain to him that he needs to understand that I have an illness and it takes a lot outof me on a normal basis, and with all the extra stress of him leaving I am not going to be normal for a while and I needed him to understand that for me and to just be there and not lecture me about it, that as far as my health goes I am really doing the best that I can, and that is the trust. Once he is gone and the anticipation is gone then my nerves will calm down and I should get back down to an even level and hopefully the butterflies will go away and I will be normal again. Why can't it all just be easy? Why do I do the wrong things even if I am littereally trying to do the right things? It is like my head is right but somewhere in the back there is something there that will make sure that the right thing doesn't get done just so that there is something there to stress him out about, all of a sudden I become a burden instead of the person that he loves and can count on to take care of everything while he is gone.
There is no one anywhere that I can count on like I can count on him, he is always there for me, and of course here I am whining that he isn't going to be here. I am afraid of him not being here, I am afraid he will find a better person than me while he is gone. I am afraid he wont miss me, I have all of these irrational fears (caused by a jerk of an ex) that I can't help but have and I know they are ridiculous, we fit, we always will fit, we are absolutely perfect together, always, there isn't another man in the world that would fit with me better than my husband, I know this, and he knows there is no one in this world that would love him or give him more than me.
My other fears while he are gone, I am starting a business, this should keep me busy, it's not so much right now, but it hopefully will. I am hoping it will help the time fly by because it will keep me busy. I NEED BUSY!!!!! I will start 10 businesses to keep busy if I have to! I am very active in our Church but summer is coming up and there isn't much to be active in during the summer, I usually deal with childrens programs because I am great with the children.
I am sitting here thinking who knows where this journey is going to lead me, God will watch over my husband, he isn't going to get out of going to Iraq just because I don't want him to go, maybe his trip will be shortned but not cancelled, I need to just give it all to God and start this whole Journey from scratch with him. Look at it from a new perspective, instead of the cynical one I have been, yes I am going to miss him with every fiber of my being, and yes I will worry about him, but he will be safe because we have faith and that is all we need, to KNOW he is going to make it home. So instead of whining I should be planning and encouraging. At least on the outside for my husband, after we have a long talk about how I have been feeling lately, I owe him the honesty of that before we move on. To the next phase which scares me!
THE LEAVE before deployment! We will kill each other if he is home for 3 weeks! But I know to make the best of it because I wont see him again for a very very LONG time.

Blessed are we that are truly loved