Yesterday, I was telling a retired Army spouse that Stretch was getting ready to go another trip. She asked if he could take her husband with him. I totally understood what she meant. We laughed about the need for these absences after we're used to having them. The ability to not cook: to serve the kids TV dinners or breakfast for dinner. To watch whatever we want on TV. To just get a little alone time in the evenings.
Stretch leaves today for the first of two back to back trips. While I'll miss him, I can't say that I'm sorry he's on TAD. This attitude is one that many of my civilian friends don't understand. My sister thinks it's funny but doesn't get it either.
I don't know if it was all the togetherness over the holidays or if
it's just that Stretch hasn't had a trip in awhile. But yesterday was
one of those days for us where he was just stomping all over my last good nerve. At the end of the day, I turned to him and said, "When you retire, one of us needs a job that requires travel." He started to laugh. I told him, "I'm not kidding." To which he said, "I know!"
I'm not saying I want him to deploy. That is a completely different animal. But these short TAD trips... sometimes, they do a marriage good.
