Remember when THAT message used to interrupt your favorite programs and make you roll your eyes? I feel like I had one of those moments this weekend at my husband's deployment briefing. I purposely had not
"tuned in" to the fact that today marks the start of his last full week at home for at least a year. Before Saturday, I was blissfully ignoring how entirely tiny the month of February actually is and how March was ready to roar in like a lion.
Then, the briefing and suddenly, it was like I was jolted from my happy land of denial over and over.
I will say that this deployment briefing was MUCH better than the last one I remember. More resources, more take away information in easy-to-use formats and even some very nice goodie bags for the kids. We also had a wonderful breakfast and lunch provided to us by The Thank You Foundation. Lots of friendly faces in that group, including a familiar one (AF Sister, a fellow blogger), and that meant a lot.
Some things, though, remain the same and that, my friends, is why I wanted to just pretend these folks were talking to someone else about that someone else's husband rather than admit it was MY family needing to know anything and everything.
I won't bore you with the details of the amazing amount of things our state is not doing in a timely fashion (IDs, orders, etc) because I know most of you live that reality right along with me. I will say, though, that until everyone's ducks are in a row and I can go through the motions without really putting myself in the deployment driver's seat, I wish we could just continue to pretend that this is not truly happening.
I know it's awful to think and probably even more awful to say, especially when there are so many people dealing with so much and who have done this dance much more often than me and mine, but I'm saying it anyway--I'm kinda over it. I think this thought is especially not-so-good given that we don't even start until next week.
My youngest is having an awful time with the idea of her Daddy being gone and it breaks my heart. We're also in the middle of the paperchase for our adoption and realizing that I may need to do some fancy begging and crying in the next few days to make sure a few things are taken care of while he's still in the zip code. I think because I have been running around these past five months (since we learned he was going) trying to take care of things from now until 18 months from now...I'm tired.
And, like the petulant kid I am, I refuse to just accept it and move on. Nope. Not this girl. Because anymore, my brain operates like a DVR...I won't even know you've interrupted my broadcast of "normal" until I'm done watching all the shows I've been saving in my list of recordings. Golly, it could be three months in before I even have to admit we're doing this deployment thing again...
Am I the only one who does this? Or, are there those of you who, like me, wait to confront the new normal until you simply cannot avoid doing so? Any advice for getting myself back into the deployment groove? I'm all eyes!
