By Tiffany Shedd
After I earned my graduate degree in 2004, my thoughts were on finding a job or getting into a Ph.D. program. Little did I know, I was only a few days away from meeting my future husband and having my world, and my idea of home, completely rocked. Ten years later, we’ve crisscrossed the country as we PCSed from Fort Campbell, KY to Fort Wainwright, AK and back to the east coast to Fort Bragg, NC.
I don’t know anyone who owns a map.
Heck, I’m starting to think I don’t know anyone who owns a GPS that isn’t embedded in their car or their cell phone.
Oh, I can smell them in the air – freshly sharpened pencils, paper just out of the package, fresh-cut hair on the kiddos. Yes, it’s back to school.
I read a terrifying study a few weeks back. It determined that babies born at military hospitals were twice as likely to be injured during delivery.
In my tiny Navy town, this news brought about quite the brouhaha.
I have a confession. I am not a perfect military spouse. I may not even be a very good one. My realization came last year over the holidays when I could not make cookies. And it made me cry. A grown adult, mother of two, crying over cookies. Let me explain.
On our kitchen calendar, there’s an eight day block of time this month with the words “Mommy at Conferences.” As soon as I wrote those with a dry erase marker, our four little boys dropped their jaws.
“Where are you going?”
“When are you coming back?”
“But I have a field trip that day!”
“Who is going to take care of us?”
I raised my eyebrows at them and simply answered, “Daddy will be here with you.”
The television is my company when my husband is deployed.
After my kids are in bed, and my dishes are done, and I’ve answered e-mail and written my husband, the television is background noise. It helps me feel like I’m not really alone in those waning hours of the day.
I must be honest and admit I have struggled to write these blog entries lately. Not because life has slowed down any and I am lacking in material, but because I feel guilty that we are in a pretty normal routine lately.
My husband is home after a month long TAD. It was our longest time apart since the birth of our second son, a year and a half ago. I admit, in the past I have often compared my life as a military spouse and mother to that of a single parent. From sun up to sun down, I do it all when it comes to the house and kids. We welcome dad as a dinner guest when he can make it.
I am a graduate school dropout. Not a title I am exactly proud of, but it’s my reality. I withdrew from my classes the week they started. I was so excited to start this chapter in my life but when it came down to it, I’m just not ready.
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