Preparing for Separation—Again

We are military families. Deployments are what we do, especially for the last 15 years, and we know it. We also do TDYs, schools, trainings, and unaccompanied assignments. Plenty of separation.

Some of us do them with grace and class, like my friend who hosted an event for the company she works for with 25 parents and many small children, in her house, which looked spotless. Catered food, a mother’s helper, her hair was perfect, and we had all sorts of fun. All while on the tail-end of her spouse’s deployment, no less. She killed it like the rockstar she is, and everyone had a wonderful time.

I, on the other hand, dealt with my first deployment of a loved one when I was 19. It wasn’t my husband, but one of my best friends from high school (who was and still is married to my other best friend from high school—we’re all still close). He was being sent to Afghanistan in the fall of 2007, and I panicked. In fact, I panicked while picking up stickers for his going away party… at the recruiter’s office… and enlisted.

I left for Parris Island a month later.

My husband had one very long deployment before we met; he had recently returned from it when we went on our first date. He left again unexpectedly a little more than a year after we got married and ten days after our first daughter was born.

We lived across the country from family, and he was gone a little more than seven months. A week before he returned home, someone kicked in our door in the middle of the night. I hadn’t been sleeping anyway, and I definitely didn’t until he returned. I lost nearly 30 pounds, only some of which was pregnancy weight. We had to attend weddings, funerals, and deal with food allergies.

His second deployment was when one daughter was 2.5 and the other was 5 months. We had more advanced notice, and were it not for the community I found in my local baby-wearing group, I never would have made it. Friends tucked us into their lives and included us in even the most mundane of things. They were seriously our lifeline. My kids both had food allergies, my mom was eight hours away, and… the beat goes on.

Now, I’m finally back on the upswing (and even medications!) after struggling with getting help for depression (I wrote about it for AWN here), which ended with me suspended in my last semester of undergrad. We’ve been dealing with what presented as permanent hearing loss for my youngest daughter and ended up being a host of other issues, my work is taking off but has me traveling a lot, my kids spent the whole winter and spring sick, and we found out the other day that my husband will likely be leaving for 12 months.

Again…

It’s far enough out that I haven’t told my kids (almost 4 and almost 6) yet, but close enough that it’s putting wheels in motion all around me. We’ve hit the stage of lots of doctor appointments, looking at housing options for where he’ll be when he’s not elsewhere, and wondering if I can possibly keep both of my kids alive and all of us in some semblance of sanity for 12 whole months.

The rational (very small, but existent, I promise!) part of my brain reminds me that we have things like Skype, that he may even end up back in country for a few days at a time, that I’m a grown adult who can do things like grocery shop and organize birthday parties, and not get the power turned off or have my car break down on the side of the road because of service neglect.

In case you haven’t gathered, my husband is the rational, organized, systematic engineer in our house, and I’m the free spirited, stay up for three days and pull the kids out of school for a beach trip liberal arts major. We bring balance to each other and find ourselves checking each other when one of us walks near the precipice of our respective crazy. We have always been in each other’s corners when dealing with the outside world, whether it’s crazy in-laws (sorry Mom!) or wanting to lock ourselves in the house and never leave.

In the face of an upcoming separation, I have to remember that these things will be steadfast, even in his absence. He will remain the yin to my yang, the vodka to my Redbull (I told you, three days awake. It can be tough!), and of course, the father of my children.

The work he does pays for our house (so that I can focus on a job I’m crazy about) and provides us with insurance (so that when my children fall off the bunk bed and break their arm or jump from the counter and break their collarbone, we have adequate medical coverage). My Happy Mama pills will stay covered, and he does something that brings him satisfaction.

As his wife and his partner, I knew when we got married what he loved to do and why he loved to do it, and I know that expecting him to be anyone less than who he is would be unacceptable.

So, like the many military spouses before me, I will wait. Wait, and aspire to one day be like my friend who has all her crap together.