My husband is due to deploy in the next couple of months and I am desperately seeking some kind of plan - a roadmap to cling to.
This is our fourth deployment.
It’s not like we haven’t been through this before. When it comes to the Army, we’re on the more experienced side, but definitely not the overly-experienced. What I find to be the most difficult part of homefront life during deployment is the elusive concept of balance. It’s so easy to get knocked off our feet.
Our third deployment started out rocky and went down from there. Our dog drowned the day my husband left. The rental we were living in became infested with black mold. We bought a house and I moved into it box by hand-packed box. We had a brain tumor scare with our youngest child which finally resulted in an Epilepsy diagnosis.
My normal, schedule-driven life was reduced to a year of triage: the kid who needed attention got it first; whoever ran out of clean socks got their whites tossed in next. It was a hot mess. I was a hot mess. I swore never again would I let a deployment take me down.
Now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is.
One thing deployments have taught me is that life goes on for us here at home. During his last tour, I graduated college. It had been years of screaming babies and writing term papers at 2 a.m., but that framed diploma on our wall constantly reminds me of what goals we can accomplish when we stick to our plans.
I know wives who plan to lose weight, ones who will go back to school and ones who will learn a craft or volunteer during this deployment. My lofty goal this time around is simple sanity. I want to find a balance between my career, keeping our 120-year-old house from falling into shambles and raising these four boys without a father to help me construct Cub Scout pinewood derby cars. Luckily, I make a mean pinewood car.
Balance is so hard to achieve because each day hits us differently during a deployment. Scheduling is well and good until a deadline looms and three of the four boys have the stomach flu. It’s called life and it doesn’t stop just because they’re deployed. So I’ll have to be flexible with my plans and my schedule. I know I can rock this.
Our last deployment knocked me on my butt, but this time, I’m up and swinging before it has the chance to strike. I’m finding my balance and setting routines before he goes. Sometimes you have to look a deployment square in the face and simply say, “Yeah, I got this.”
Bring it on, Deployment Four.
Follow Rebecca at http://theonlygirlamongboys.blogspot.com/
