Deployment Sucks

For anyone who has known me for any length of time, you know that I am a pro at this deployment thing. I take a day to mourn and then (in this house) we move on. That isn’t really working for me this time. I’ve even resorted to “fake it til you make it” mentality and I really can’t even fake it.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my boys are now grown and nearly grown and I don’t feel so much pressure to “be tough for their sake”. Maybe it’s that Tiffany no longer lives across the street, ready to slap me out of it. Maybe it’s because I’m not working. I don’t really know what it is, but at some point this shit has to stop.

Earlier today, a friend posted on Facebook that it was Crew Change day and how two weeks was too long to be away from her man. Seriously, Alicia? I straight up told her that when she said things like that it made me want to punch her. Then I remembered Dave has only been gone 8 days. EIGHT.

Deployment sucks. If people tell you that it gets easier, they are lying to you. It never gets easier. In fact, I am about 99% sure it gets more difficult each time. I have spent some time this week trying to figure out why it is so tough this time and here’s what I’ve come up with.

I love Dave about a billion times more than I did the day I married him. Don’t get me wrong. I loved him from the very beginning, but over the last 13 years, that love has grown deeper. My dependency on him has grown wider. He has learned to read me, to know exactly what I need from him based on…whatever he bases it on. At the risk of being cliché: He completes me.  And without him, I’m feeling a little lost.

I know that this is a season in my life and that it will pass. I know I have amazing friends who are going to help me get through this. I know my kids are there for me every day and always willing to help when they can. And all of those things are great, but it just doesn’t take the place of having my husband next to me in bed each night.

So, it’s time to suck it up and do my job. I am a mom. I am a fighter. I am a navy wife. I am tough and it’s about time I start acting like it.