The countdown begins

I just realized the other day that my husband will be gone within 2 months.  While we have confirmation of his unit, we still do not have a report date. The reality of it can be enormous. This will be our second overseas deployment, this one so far is vastly different from the previous one. For instance: "I've had time to prepare" for it, I thought I was prepared, believed I had plan A, B, C and D in place. However, I'm not. I mean I SO AM NOT!!! All plans go out the window when you're rocking along in life and suddenly realize the day you thought was so far away, is just around the corner.

This is a bit of a schizophrenic time for me. I want it to slow down, want to be able to spend as much time with GI Joe as possible. I want our family to make as many memories as possible before he deploys. Then there are the moments when I about half wish he were already gone, after all, the sooner he leaves the sooner he will return, right?

Crazy I know. I have to keep reminding myself to focus on the here and now, something that can be difficult for a planner, to not worry about tomorrow.   Matthew 6:34 "So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today." (NLT).   This has caused me to become more protective of my family time. I'm going to be very selfish over the next weeks, especially as his deployment date draws near.

*Note* After drafting this last night for posting today, GI Joe received a drill letter stating all pertinent dates for the next 3 months. This includes going away ceremony and later the actual Mobilization date. We've been waiting on this for months, expecting it, yet as he showed me I felt that "punched in the gut" feeling. Ok, so now this is really real. Now we can begin the countdown in earnest.

Why am I doing this?

So here I am again, giving blogging another shot. Why am I doing this you ask? Well to be honest there are several reasons, none of which is to feed any narcissism. The idea actually came to me the other night while text chatting with one of my sisters-in-law. I had shared with her that I had been interviewed by another blogger from a military spouse blog I discovered during our last deployment about my thoughts & feelings on deployment. After which I emailed her a link...her response: "the blog post is so cool, wow **** I didn't really know what it's like and happy to hear that there are other wives you can connect with...isn't blogging the best...thanks for sharing this with me!"  I thought, you know the whole point of that posting was about loneliness & my particular situation of being a ANG wife whose husband has yet to deploy with his own unit, which leaves something to be desired in the connecting with other spouses in the same situation. So why not do something about it? From the responses on said post, it seems I am not alone.

Those of us whose spouses serve in the Guard, and Reserve or Active duty away from post, are at the disadvantage of not having a built in community of those who truly understand where we are coming from.  I love my family & friends, they have been supportive, however, unless you are or have gone through it, you just cannot understand. Even my sister who is retired from the military once responded to the effect that she has never been on this side of if so cannot completely understand. So it is my hope that maybe someone out there will read this and think, "I'm not alone, I'm not going crazy, this is 'normal' or at least as close as it gets."

So be prepared to follow the crazy adventures of one bubble headed wife & mother, one drama queen, one prima donna as we prepare for and live through another deployment.