Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Deployment

Embracing Strength and Love: 20 Inspirational Quotes for Military Spouses During Deployment

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Embracing Strength and Love: 20 Inspirational Quotes for Military Spouses During Deployment

One of the biggest things you can do for yourself during deployment is figure out what you can tell yourself when you hit a low point. Little reminders, quotes, and inspiration can go a long way in helping you get through this time apart. There is something about reminding yourself why you can do this, or even how you can make it through can turn your deployment day around.

If you need some ideas, here is a list of 20 inspirational quotes for military spouses to use during deployment.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“In the face of adversity, we have a choice. We can be bitter, or we can be better.” – Maya Angelou

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll

“Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean

“Success is not about the destination; it’s about the journey.” – Zoë Saldana

“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” – Roy T. Bennett

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Helen Keller

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” – Maya Angelou

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene

“Storms make trees take deeper roots.” – Dolly Parton

“No matter how much it hurts now, someday you will look back and realize your struggles changed your life for the better.” – Unknown

“Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

“Out of difficulties grow miracles.” – Jean de La Bruyère

“You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.” – Brian Tracy

“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.” – H.G. Wells

One Long Deployment

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One Long Deployment

They walk away, they have to. The time has come for them to leave.

To deploy. To head overseas. To do what they have trained to do.

We stay behind, we know we have to. We have to stay strong, even if that is hard. We have to be the ones at home, holding everything together.

You second guess in moments like these. Should he have really joined the military? Should I have really married into this?

As you stand at the start of one long deployment, you wonder how you even got there…

Time goes by, and the days pass. Cross one off, then another. One week at a time.

You hold it together. You have to. For the kids. For yourself. For them.

You talk every other day, sometimes every day, sometimes you have to go longer.

You remind yourself that things are much better now. You remind yourself having a spouse off at war used to mean just letters, now you have so much more. But even that reminder doesn’t make them seem closer.

As you start off that one long deployment, you find yourself in a weird place, and wonder if anyone else can understand.

Can they understand the deployment ache? The feeling that something is missing, even if you are having a good day? Do they understand how that feels?

Can they understand the sadness that can come, knowing this is your life, knowing there will be more deployments?

Can they understand how yes, you did choose this, but no, you really had no idea what military life would be like? That you really didn’t know how your emotions would play out?

As you get through that one long deployment, you wonder if there is anyone else you can connect with, anyone else who is going through the same thing?

You go to the FRG, you go to the local playgroups, you join a book club. At first you are not so sure. Can these other spouses relate? And then you find that yes, some of them can.

You make plans, you are going to help each other through. You find your people. Others who get deployments. Others who can truly understand.

You find yourself in a place of almost contentment. Yes, your spouse is gone. Yes, they are deployed, but you are finding your way.

This one long deployment is halfway over, and you feel as though you have gone through so many different phases since they left. You were heartbroken, you were sad, and now you have found a place of peace, but can you stay that way?

As time moves on, you feel the up and down of the deployment. The good days, the bad days. The hard days, the easier ones.

You have worries. Will they get extended like they did last time? Will they happen to come home early? Will they be changed when they do come home?

Staying busy is key, you know this, but some days, you don’t want to do anything. You want to take a day off. Take a day off of a deployment? That’s not even possible.

As you round each corner, you think about how much this one long deployment has taught you. How much you have learned. How you have grown.

You are more independent now. You have figured out how to be, because it was the only way.

You have more strength than you did before. What seemed impossible is now possible. And you hope some of that is rubbing off on your kids.

You look towards the finish line and wonder what homecoming will really be like. Is homecoming like the videos you have seen on the news? Is it as happy as they want you to think it is? What if there is more below the surface?

And then you find yourself at the end of this one long deployment. You have less than a month, then less than a week and time stands still. The calendar doesn’t want to move.

And you feel ready, so ready for this deployment chapter to be over in your life. You are so ready for normal again. To be a full family.

You know that you have both changed. You knew that going in. And you hope and pray the first few days, weeks, and months together can be a time of healing.

You get together with your friends. You make homecoming signs. You share your after deployment plans.

And then the day comes, the one you have been waiting for, this one long deployment is finally over. You have your homecoming outfit, that’s ready, but are you? You are full of emotions and as nervous as you were before your first date.

You get the kids ready, and head in your car. You can’t eat, you can’t do much of anything but focus on the task ahead. You park the car and head to the gym to wait.

And you wait…as if you haven’t done enough waiting but this time the waiting is different. This time you are waiting just a short amount of time, maybe a few hours. You made it through months apart, you can handle a few hours.

You are thankful your friends are surrounding you, even if some of their spouses already made it home. Being in the last group is difficult, but you did it and now you are here.

As you sit and wait, you think about this one long deployment and everything you have been through. You think about your highs and lows. You think about the good and the bad.

And then it is time. It is time. It is time. It is time.

Everyone stands up, with smiles on their faces. The doors open and it is time!

You look for them, in the sea of green. You find them, so serious, still in soldier mode.

They see you, you know they do but they can’t react, not yet. And you wait and then you don’t have to anymore. And then they are in your arms again. And you did it…

You survived this one long deployment. You made it to the finish line. You found a way through and got to the other side.

As Military Spouses, What Happens in the World Can Hit Us Hard

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As Military Spouses, What Happens in the World Can Hit Us Hard

As military spouses, what happens in the world can hit us hard.

As we turn on our TV or log in to our social media account, we see another situation that will likely require the military to step in, deploy, and serve in the way they have been trained to do.

We wonder what this will mean for our own spouse. Will they have to go? Will they be gone a while? Will they be safe?

We just don’t know what will happen and we can get pretty freaked out by it all.

Some say this is what our spouses signed up for, but the reality is, we can never really know what a military career will look like.

By marrying a service member, we start a new journey.

Will it lead us to amazing places? Will we find our community? Will we be challenged beyond anything we could ever imagine?

Yes! Yes! And Yes!

Military life means deployments and moving, probably too often. It means going days, sometimes longer without being able to talk to the person we love. It means sitting back and having to wait to see what will happen next.

As the country tries to figure out what is going on overseas, we sit there knowing that if it isn’t our spouse going over there right now, it is someone else’s. If it isn’t our soldier leaving soon, it will be someday. And we know how hard these types of things can hit the military community as a whole.

I can tell you to stay strong, but the tears might still come. I can tell you not to worry, but there is so much to worry about. I can tell you to depend on your friends, and maybe that is the only thing you can do right now.

As I watch what is happening in the news, I wonder what is to come. Will this be another Iraq? Will this not be quite as bad as we think it might be? What is going to happen?

I wish we could see the future so we know what is ahead. I wish we could plan everything for the next five years. But the reality is no one really can, and as military spouses, we can’t know which way the tide will turn. We don’t know what all of it means for our spouse.

We have to just stay strong, as much as we can. We have to reach out when things feel a little too much. We can’t let all the little comments get to us, because let’s face it, not everyone is going to say the right thing.

This is an emotional time. There are many different viewpoints about what we should do, even within the military community. There are many different ways this could go.

There are so many things you will go through as a military spouse. Maybe your spouse will only serve for a few years, and you will look back at this time as the “Army years.” Maybe your spouse will serve over 30 years, and deployments are going to be a part of the memories of your life together. Whatever the case, saying goodbye to your spouse is never easy, especially when you are unsure of where they are going off to.

I can remember sitting with my friends and our kids at a McDonald’s in Germany. Our husbands, who had been deployed for over a year, were being extended. This seemed impossible. It seemed like something that couldn’t possibly happen.

But it did…

And as heartbreaking as that news was, as hard as the next few months were, somehow we got through that long deployment. Somehow we made it through those unsteady days.

When I see the articles about service members being deployed because of this new threat, I feel so much for their families.

For the new spouse, who didn’t think this would happen so soon.

For the seasoned spouse who thought this last year of military life was going to be uneventful.

To those who have been through this before and to those who have no experience with a long separation.

Know that we see you, and we have your back. The days won’t always be easy, but you have people praying for you. You have people who get it. You have people in your corner.

No matter what happens today, or tomorrow, or next week or next month, know you are not alone. We have each other. And that is something we can depend on!

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How a Small Duty Station in Germany Shaped My Military Spouse Experience

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How a Small Duty Station in Germany Shaped My Military Spouse Experience

Nineteen years ago, I boarded a plane with my 18-month-old to join my husband in Germany. He had been over there for about 4 months, and we were finally joining him. The time apart was quite a whirlwind for me as I adjusted to the way the Army did things, which was slower than I would have liked.

The flight over was long. The leg from Chicago to Madrid was the toughest. My son’s car seat wouldn’t fit and he didn’t sleep a wink. Finally, as we sat down on our short flight from Spain to Germany, he crashed on my lap.

We met my husband in baggage claim at the Frankfurt airport, sleepy and in a fog. Unless you count trips to Mexico as a teen, this was my first experience in a different country. This was my first experience in Europe. This would be my first experience on an Army post.

A few days later, I was walking my son in a stroller around the post. I stopped and just took everything in as a group of soldiers marched by. Up until a few months before, we had been a civilian couple, raising our son in a civilian family. But all of that had changed.

As the months passed, I began to feel more comfortable with my current situation. We were stationed in Schweinfurt, approximately two hours from Frankfurt in Bavaria. I was 26 years old, and the interesting thing was when my mom was my age she also moved to Germany, as a DoD teacher near Ramstein. I grew up with photos and souvenirs she had collected during her time there. I was so happy to experience some of what she did, but as a spouse instead of a teacher.

I made friends pretty quickly as our FRG was very active. There was also a deployment coming up and all of us could feel it. So many of us had little ones and soon after we got there I discovered I was pregnant with my second little boy. There was a lot going on and a lot to take in.

After we had been there for about five months, my husband deployed to Iraq. We assumed he would be back within a year, or even nine months. But that was the deployment that kept getting extended and he finally made it home after almost 15 months.

During that deployment, I learned so much about myself. About who I was as a mother, a wife, and a military spouse. It was my “welcome to this life” baptism that I didn’t really fully understand until much later, after moving back to the states and experiencing more deployments.

Our little community in Schweinfurt was something so special and different. For one thing, the post was pretty small. We only had about 3,000 soldiers. Compare that to Fort Campbell which has around 29,000 soldiers. Pretty much every soldier, unless you were on Rear D, was deployed. Most of the soldiers went to Iraq and some to Afghanistan. But the reality was, the post was made up of military spouses, going through a very long deployment, far from home.

During the first part of the deployment I was pregnant, and as I got closer to the birth, that was my main focus. My amazing mom came out planning to stay two months over the birth and after to help. I can’t even tell you how much this helped me. My son was born just four days before his due date and three days before my husband made it back to Germany for R&R.

During those two weeks, my dad came over to join us and we had a nice family Christmas together. My parents left us for a week to travel and we had a week as a family of four before my husband had to head back to Iraq. That week was truly amazing. I can’t even tell you about what he did, other than sorting out my son’s birth certificate, but our family needed that time.

R&R was over, and my husband and I woke up before dark to take him to the train station to head back to Iraq. My husband stood over my son’s crib and said goodbye, thinking he would be back in about five months. In the end, he didn’t get back from another 11, missing almost his whole first year.

My dad headed home soon after, and my brother came to visit which helped with the after R&R letdown. In February, my mom and brother had to head back home, and soon after I ended up in the hospital with my two-month-old for RSV. I was so thankful for my military spouse friends who stepped in to help me during that week.

Winter ended, and it started to warm up a bit in Germany but our husbands were still deployed. We, spouses, worked hard to stay busy, and spend time together. We had Monday mornings at the coffee shop, we met for lunch and met up at the park once it was warm enough to do so.

During those 15 months, I found myself in a tight-knit military community with almost all of us going through the same thing. This isn’t something you find in a lot of places, but this was my introduction to the military world. I didn’t realize at the time how different it would be at a stateside post when units were all coming and going at different times.

I learned through other military spouses, what they had been through in the past, and the lessons they had learned along the way. I learned true independence as I would go so long without being able to talk to my husband, and just had to figure everything out by myself. I realized what was important about parenting and what to let go of so that I could be the best mom for my kids.

The military was 100% in our face during this time. Yes, you could go off post and I did. I enjoyed walking my kids around in the double stroller and visiting all the different German shops. I was able to travel even more once my husband came home, going on a few USO trips.

But still, the military ruled so much about my life then. From where I got most of my groceries, to where I got my mail, to where my son went to preschool.

When we moved to the states, I found this wasn’t the norm. But it definitely shaped my military spouse experience.

Looking back, I am so glad I had the experiences I did. I was a part of history. I was a part of the military community. And learned so much along the way.

The Army has left Schweinfurt. If we were to visit again someday, we would find the area a very different place. I think they have knocked down most of the housing and there is no longer any American military presence. But the memories will stick with me forever.

The Halloween party we had when I was super pregnant. The Thanksgiving potluck we military spouses had while leaving computers on in hopes that a husband or two would log on. The time after R&R as I thought we were in the final stretch of the deployment and then learned we had so much more time to go.

The lonely nights we made better by spending time together while our kids played. The tensions that arose during a super stressful situation. Homecoming day, when the deployment was finally over, and we could get back to almost normal life while knowing we were now different people.

All of us were going through something so difficult but we had to find the strength to make it to the finish line and we had to do it together one day at a time. I will never forget those years, even if some of the details are fuzzy all these years later. I am thankful for being able to experience life overseas, and I am even more thankful for all that I learned while I was there.

Arriving at that small Army post in the middle of Bavaria as a brand new military spouse is something I will never forget.

18 Tips to Help Military Spouses Navigate Their Next Deployment

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Beyond Staying Busy: 18 Things That Can Truly Help You Survive Your Next Deployment

The #1 bit of advice you will receive during a deployment is to stay busy. That’s simple enough, right? But how about beyond that? What can you do on a day-to-day basis to get through your deployment? What can you do to make time move faster and not feel like you are always falling apart when you are surviving a deployment?

Here are 18 things that can genuinely help you survive your next deployment:

1. Buy a journal, write in it daily

Find a pretty journal, even Walmart has some cute ones. Write in the journal every day. Make that a part of your routine. Share your day, share your feelings, and let everything out.

2. Find good friends

Find good friends and make plans with them. Don’t be shy. Put yourself out there when you can.

3. Laugh

Laughing during a deployment is the best. Find people you can laugh with. Watch movies that crack you up. Don’t be afraid to have fun even if your spouse is deployed.

4. Focus on school

If you are in school, focus on your school work. If not, maybe now is the time to go back? Check out the programs in your local area as well as online.

5. Focus on work

Focus on your career. Don’t have one yet? Figure out what you want to do. Find a job and get started.

6. Focus on your family

If you have kids, focus on them. They will take up a lot of your time. You can also have regular phone calls with your family back home or even plan for some visits. Family can help with the hole in your heart left from the deployment.

7. Let yourself cry

If you are the type who feels like you need to cry, do it. That can help you get back to a better place.

Beyond Staying Busy: 18 Things That Can Truly Help You Survive Your Next Deployment

8. Binge watch it all

Game of Thrones, This is Us, or any of the Netflix originals will work. If the solo nights are bothering you, binge watch something.

9. Find friends who are there too

Good friends are important and finding friends who are also going through the deployment are a must. You can walk through this together, make plans together, and depend on one another.

10. Make a deployment bucket list

Make a deployment bucket list even before they go. What do you want to get accomplished? What do you want to do with your kids? What can you focus on?

11. Stay on your normal routine

In some cases, sticking to your regular routine is the best thing to do. You can focus on what you normally do and keep living your life, even when your spouse is gone.

12. Wine, lots of wine

Wine or fruity drinks or even Dr. Pepper. Whatever gets you through the deployment.

13. Care packages

Some personalities love to send care packages, and they are an excellent way to spend your time. You can get super crafty with them or keep them simple. Remember to be aware of holiday ship by dates as well as when you need to stop sending things overseas because they are coming home.

14. Don’t dwell on it

While you can’t completely forget that they are deployed, you can try not to dwell on the fact that they are gone. When you feel like you are, snap yourself out of that and go and do something fun. Put on some music and get in a better mood.

15. DIY projects

DIY projects can be a lot of fun. Whether you are repainting your kitchen or creating something original. Pinterest can give you a lot of ideas as well as Facebook groups such as White Walls.

Beyond Staying Busy: 18 Things That Can Truly Help You Survive Your Next Deployment

16. Go to the gym

Go to the gym, go for walks, train for a 5K, whatever you do, find a way to get out there and exercise. Not only is this good for your health, but working out is a good way to get your anxiety and frustrations out.

17. Slumber parties

If you can find a good friend whose kids get along with yours, have sleepovers. If your spouses are deployed over a holiday, you can have them to not feel as alone. Put the kids to bed, stay up late drinking wine, and vent over all the silly stuff from the day.

18. Stay social

Stay social. Get out there and meet others. Be active. There is so much you can do, especially if you live near post. See what is out there and make plans.

Not all of these tips will work for everyone, but they can give you a good idea of what you can do to survive your next deployment.

What would you add to this list???

Beyond Staying Busy: 18 Things That Can Truly Help You Survive Your Next Deployment

You Will Never Know, Unless You Are a Military Spouse

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Happy to have this guest post by Hannah. Please email me at Julie@soldierswifecrazylife.com and let me know if you would like to write a guest post for Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life too.

You Will Never Know, Unless You Are a Military Spouse

You will never know how it feels sending the person you love the most, the person you built your life with, off to a war zone. 

You will never know the heart wrenching fears that run through our mind. 

You will never know the deep breath we take when your child asks, “Mommy, What if daddy doesn’t come home?”. 

You will never know the courage it takes to explain to your children what daddy is doing, and why it makes him a REAL hero. 

You will never know the longing we have for our spouse. Longing for their touch, and simply just their presence. 

You will never know the heartbreak of holding your crying child who misses their other parent.

You will never know what it’s like going a year without holding your spouse’s hand, giving them a kiss, or just being able to look into their eyes. 

You will never know the feeling of uncomfortable quietness while waiting for the phone call to assure you that your spouse is okay. 

You will never know how it feels hoping and praying you don’t get “that” knock on the door. All while knowing the reality of the situation- it COULD happen. 

You will never know the dreadful feeling in our stomach the night before they deploy. 

You will never know how differently we look at other couples, only reminiscing on our own memories with our deployed spouse. 

You will never know the thought of honesty that crosses our mind when someone asks us how we are doing today. 

You will never know the heartbreaking sympathy we have for our Gold Star Families. 

You will never know the warm feeling that runs through our heart, when we read or hear “God Bless America” 

You will never know how much we value time spent with our spouse. 

You will never know how hard it was to be strong. 

You will never know the ache behind our smile. 

You will never know how hard it is for us to ask for help.

You will never know how easy it is to love someone who is thousands of miles away, across the ocean. 

You will never know how you’re brought closer in your marriage than you ever were before. 

There’s something about being a military spouse that makes us all special. The hurt, the pain, and the sacrifice that we also go through. Being a military spouse is not for the weak. We are forced to reach down and find our inner strength. Not only does that make us incredibly brave, but it also makes us a little bit of a badass. 

Often times I hear people say, “I don’t know how you do it.” Or “I could never do it.” Often times I find myself sitting there, wishing I had a friend to call. A friend who actually understood what I was going through. It then hit me that none of my civilian friends would understand the struggles I go through as a military spouse. It’s not a conversation that is carried on when brought up.

Because when you are not a military spouse, there are things that you will never quite understand. Things that bond us, military spouses, together. A connection that is instantly made. A deeper feeling of understanding that no one else will ever know unless you are a military spouse. 

My name is Hannah, wife of a soldier, sweary mom of 2, running off coffee and chaos, living in Louisiana!

When Military Life Breaks You

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Military life is hard, we all know that. Military families have to deal with so many challenges. Military children do too. Military spouses have to take on pretty much everything and sometimes the stress can feel like too much.

Sometimes the deployments are just too close together or they are too long or there is just too much loneliness because of frequent moves. Sometimes military life breaks you.

What do you do if you are in a place where it feels like too much? What can you do if you feel broken? You know you are not going to walk away from your spouse but you know you need to do something.

You know how important their military career is, but you feel like you can’t keep going on like this. You are lost and just not sure what you can do to get through the next few months or years until military life is over.

1) Get Back To Your Faith. No matter what religion you follow, you do put your faith in something. Cling to it. Pray. Meditate. Grow in your faith.

Try to find a good place to go each week. Look at what your post or base has to offer. Look online to see what you can discover locally. Write in a journal, sing, go for long walks. Find a way to find some peace in the midst of this lifestyle.

2) Don’t be afraid to get help. Sometimes the best thing to do is call for help. Find someone you can talk with. Someone you can talk to about what is going on. Someone that won’t judge and someone who can give you some good advice on how to deal with what you are dealing with.

If you feel like you need some extra help you can find a Military Family Life Consultant to talk with or make an appointment with a local provider. Tricare will cover up to 8 sessions without needing a referral. Just call up the provider and let them know you have Tricare and they should be able to help you from there. I had to do this during our 4th deployment and doing so was worth the time.

3) Let Things Go. Seriously. Let it go. Don’t worry about what isn’t important. Some of what you stress about matters, and some of what you stress about doesn’t matter at all.

Let go of trying to be a perfect military spouse. For one thing, no one is a perfect military spouse and you will drive yourself crazy trying to be one. Do what you can each day and let the rest of everything go.

4) Depend on your friends. If someone offers to babysit, let them. If someone offers to mow your lawn, let them. If someone wants to bring you dinner, let them.

Get together with friends. Make dates with them. Join them for coffee or a playdate. Invite them over for dinner. Friends will get you through, even if they don’t 100% understand what you are currently dealing with.

If someone is making you feel bad, let them go. Surround yourself with supportive people. If you don’t have any local friends, join a club, playgroup or even start one yourself. Find something you enjoy doing and look for others that enjoy that too.

5) Make Time For Yourself. Read that book. Watch that movie. Start writing your book.

Make a list of all the things that make you happy. When you get really upset, start going down your list. Try to surround yourself with things you enjoy.

You might have to work ten hours a day. You might be with kids from 6 am to 8 pm. But whatever time you have for yourself, enjoy every minute of that time. Even just 30 minutes a day can help. 

Making time for yourself as a military spouse is very important. Even something as simple as picking up some flowers and putting them in a vase on your kitchen table can help with your mood.

We can’t change a lot of what military life is going to bring. There will be deployments and trainings and too many goodbyes. There will be lonely nights and tearful goodbyes.

However, when you are a military spouse, you have to figure out a way to make it through. Even when you feel like military life is breaking you. Do what you can to figure out how to get to a better place. This will help your spouse in their career and will help you in living a fuller military life.

Join my email list and receive a free Guide for your first 30 days of deployment! 

When Military Life Breaks You

On The Emotional Day Before They Deploy

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On The Emotional Day Before They Deploy

I wrote this post a day before my husband left on his 4th deployment. No OPSEC rules have been broken.

This is the last day. How did this happen so fast? The deployment was coming up for so long and now the day is almost here. He is at work. They have him at work the day before he goes. Why Army why? You get him for the next nine months, why can’t I have him all day today?

I just want to freeze time…but then I don’t. I want time to move forward, but I don’t want to have to spend all that time without him.

Nine months. Maybe more. Maybe less. I will take each day at a time, each hour, if I have to.

Some days will be good. We will have fun, and we won’t miss him quite as much. Other days will be hard. There will be a lot of tears, and Homecoming will feel so far away.

Will he be ok? Will we see him again? These are the questions I have to ask. I have to. Not everyone comes home from war. Most likely, he will. The odds are in our favor. But still…I wonder. Is this it? Is this all we have?

I dread tomorrow. D day. The day he leaves.

The driving to drop him off. The last kiss. The last hug. Watching the person I tell everything to walk away is heartbreaking. Knowing they will be in danger is terrifying. Thinking about living apart makes me bawl.

Deployment #4. How did we get here? How is it possible? It hasn’t even been TWO years yet. Uh!

So many emotions. So many feelings.

I dread the first day. I walk around the house, looking at his stuff—from the coffeemaker he won’t be using for a while to his clothes that won’t be worn until next year. I remember how the night before he left, we sat together and watched that one movie, how just a couple of days ago we were out back BBQing together, and how last year at this time, we were getting ready for a family trip to California.

I think about how much he will miss.

Summer. The start of school. Birthdays. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. All that comes with the holiday season. The snow might come, and he will still be over there.

I think about what I will focus on to get through: my boys, my blog, my garden, my books.

I wonder how much I will grow as a person. I wonder how much he will grow.

How will we be different? Will we struggle to connect again? Will this be the deployment that breaks us?

As I sit here, the day before my husband has to go, all I can feel is dread. Knowing that this time tomorrow, I will be in tears. But also knowing that this time tomorrow is one day closer to his returning, and our countdown can begin.

Have you just started a deployment? If so, check out my other blog posts on deployment and make sure to join my Facebook support group. 

On The Emotional Day Before They Deploy