The Deployment Diaries...Part 3
Before we get going on this next installment, I have to say...
There are so many military families who have gone through many more deployments, much longer deployments, much more dangerous deployments, and deployments that do not have a happy ending. To you, I am so thankful for your service.
I share our relatively mild deployment experience partly to give a glimpse of this military life we lead, but more than that for my fellow spouses: I've often found when going through life's challenges that it is so helpful, so encouraging to know that I'm not alone. Not the only one who has cried over everything and nothing in the weeks prior to a deployment. Not the only one whose children have struggled, not knowing what it would be like when Daddy had to leave. Not the only one who found solace in watching all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls. Not the only one who thought the last hours of the deployment were the longest. You're not the only one. But, as many of my mil spouse friends wrote to me in the hours after Stephen left, "You've got this."
April 29, 2017
Well, we’re past the half-way point (hopefully), and things are generally going pretty well, although this deployment thing still messes with me sometimes. I go back and forth right now between thinking, “Yay! We’re halfway through!” and thinking, “We’re only halfway through…?”
I do feel that we’re in more of a routine… Cooking seems normal—thank goodness. And with daylight savings time we’re only seven hours behind Stephen now, which makes it easier for him to talk to the girls after school and a little easier for us to talk in general. I’ve gotten used to the “lonely evenings,” largely thanks to Allison getting me addicted to Gilmore Girls. (I’ve threatened to send her some cigarettes to get even.)
We did enjoy a visit with my parents in March, and it did snow while they were here. Besides having some extra time to enjoy their company, I was happy to have them here to celebrate when they “snow day” news came in each evening. It wasn’t that much snow—just enough to close school on Tuesday and buy us a delayed start on Wednesday and Thursday—but it was super cold and good for sledding. (And good thing, too, because when we'd had little bits of snow earlier this winter, I'd discouraged the girls from playing in the muddy mess, assuring them that we’d have some real snow later in the season—I was starting to think I'd have some restitution to pay.)
It seemed that Spring Break was here before we knew it, and we headed south again for that. We were able to see lots of dear family and friends in Georgia, and then spent the rest of the week with more family and friends in Alabama. It was a whirlwind, but so good to be home! And, not wanting to drive on Easter Sunday, we drove straight through on Monday…and didn’t get back until 10:00 that night before the girls had to be at school Tuesday morning. I let them sleep in a little on Tuesday, and then felt like I spent the rest of the week recovering. Not sure that I’ll plan to drive it straight through again until I have Stephen at the wheel and we can help each other out—it’s exhausting to do that solo.
And then the girls got sick again last weekend. And I started feeling a little nuts again. Sigh…
That’s the thing about this deployment: Just when I’m feeling like things are going pretty well, some little something pulls the rug out from underneath me and I’m crying for no good reason and wanting to run away (with the girls, not from them). This time, it was the girls being sick again, a rainy, cold, dreary weekend, my neck being out of whack, feeling behind on my to-do lists after having been out of town and worn out from traveling and getting settled back in, and frustration with their school. (So maybe it was actually a lot of things and not just one little thing). Their school’s really not a bad place, but I get so annoyed with the little things like the Reflections Contest not being done properly and the ridiculous grading system that the county uses which makes the report cards of their top students appear mediocre in the name of being kinder and gentler to all… June 23 as the last day of school? Really? With 12 out of 13 snow days unused, not to be paid back? “Maybe I’ll just homeschool them,” I’m thinking. (My mom talked me down from that one. For now.)
And then Wednesday came along, the girls were better, we went to Orff Club, I went to Community Bible Study, visited the chiropractor, Annette took the girls for a treat after school, the sun was shining… And I felt more like myself again.
Thursday brought an exhausting, but fun, field trip to the Natural History Museum, lunch with a friend whose husband is also deployed and whose twin boys are friends with our girls, a playdate at the park with Melissa and her kids. A great, but tiring day.
And then Friday I was frazzled and on the verge of tears again when I thought that I was going to accomplish one of the many nagging things on my ever-increasing to-do list…getting Stephen’s car’s safety inspection done before the end of the month, something that it seemed I’d have two weeks to accomplish after spring break, but which got postponed until the last weekday of the month thanks to trip exhaustion and sick kiddos. As I was about to move the van out of the driveway so I could take his car out of the garage, I thought, “I wonder…When do the stickers on the van expire?” 04-17. Shoot. I have to have the van legal. His car can wait. Hop in the van, take it to the shop. Yes, they can also do his car today, and Annette (God bless her) can run me back home to pick up the other car. Two cars in the shop, she and I went to lunch and met a very nice faux Willie Nelson—God has funny surprises sometimes! (I LOVED Willie Nelson when I was little—probably because my parents were happy for me to quietly enjoy an hour of Hee-Haw on Sunday evenings, no matter how corny and twangy it was. I will always have a soft spot for Willie Nelson—or a good impersonator, as it turns out.)
And then we went to retrieve the cars. The van passed, but Stephen's car failed. Hmmm. They left the expired stickers on the van... And now that I look at them, I see that the old inspection stickers are from Pennsylvania, where we bought the car, not from Virginia… No time to think too much about that... Took the van home while waiting to hear back about the S2000. Picked up the girls from school. The shop called and wants to remove the after-market fog lamps because one isn’t working and they are “too blue” (not gonna happen) and it would be $467 for the part to repair the tail light that Stephen can probably tinker into submission when he gets back. Guess we’ll just have a “fail” sticker on his car and keep it in the garage til July. Ask Annette to take us back to the shop to pick up the S2000. And realize that the van probably didn’t need a Virginia inspection anyway—we have it tagged in FLORIDA. (Eye roll and SIGH!) This is where Annette is a God-send, not only for driving me back and forth four times, but for praying with me and helping me laugh through the whole debacle. As she told the girls, “You know that feeling when you’re at the beach and you stand in the sand and you can feel the water rushing the sand under your feet, but when you step away, it’s like NOTHING HAPPENED?!!! I love that feeling!”
Home from the shop again, rushed to get out the door to gymnastics (rescheduled from Thursday at 7:00—too tired after Thursday’s festivities—for Friday at 5:30), and should’ve realized how awful the traffic would be in the 5:00 hour. 27 minutes to make a normally 10-minute drive. DC blows.
But then things started looking up again—such is the yo-yo of my mental state these days. Picked up pizza after gymnastics, enjoyed a movie night with the girls (Inside Out), and had a wonderful Saturday. Sun shining. Accomplished not only one, but both optometry check-ups for the girls. Bought a wagon-load of plants at one of our favorite places around here. And enjoyed a productive, happy Saturday afternoon at home.
Tomorrow, we plan to go to church (having missed the last three Sundays in a row) and are looking forward to meeting some friends for lunch in Bethesda afterwards. And so… to bed.
I miss my other half. I’m much less stable and get tipped over much too easily without him.
