The Bride of Franken.. er.. Uncle Sam

A few of the hardest things about being a military wife :

** You don't get to choose where you live, you live where the military tells you to live. Because of that, you often don't have your friends and family around you for support.

** Having to be a single mom and fill in for Daddy for your kids.

** Being sad to see him go, but having to keep it together for the kids because they are already a wreck.

I've been lucky. My husband deployed a lot when we lived overseas and it was lonely. I had an entire ocean and half of the United States between my family and friends and myself. BUT, we didn't have children, so I could work to pass the time and just worry about myself. Once we got to NJ, he was put in a job where he worked 7:30- 4:30 and had nights and weekends off ( as opposed to the shiftwork and weekend duty overseas). It was awesome for about a year and then after September 11, he was deploying quite a bit. Once again, I had no children and a job to occupy my time. The hardest time was the weekends when I was home alone, all day.

Shortly after Noah was born, my husband was offered an instructor position and took it. That was an even better job, because it was as close to civilian life as you can get in the military. He never deployed and only went on short TDY's ( temporary duty) to other bases in the US. The longest of these trips was just two weeks. No big deal. He's had this job for the last five and a half years.

The longest Noah has known his father to be gone is two weeks. Zoe has never endured a separation of more than one week. This brings us to yesterday. My husband left for NCO Academy and will be gone until October 30. In reality, compared to the six month and year-long deployments out there, this isn't a long time. But, it is the longest my kids have had to endure so far and I am scared. This is my first lengthy separation since the kids and I don't know how they will handle it. I don't know how *I* will handle it. I mean, I know I will handle it, because that's what you do when you are a military spouse, you suck it up, draw on strength you did not know you had and you trudge through it.

In the past, we lived on base, so if something decided to break in the house, I just had to call maintenance. Now, we are homeowners. If something breaks, I have to fix it or find someone who can. We have one bathroom.. if something in there breaks, we don't have a spare. These are the things I worry about, but it is always something you don't expect that goes wrong when they are gone. Time will only tell what obstacles we have to deal with.

The other thing that weighs on my mind, is that his time in his instructor position is up. It's been a nice run, but it's time to go back to his real job- aircraft maintenance. He hasn't been assigned to an aircraft in nine years. We don't know exactly when it will be, but he is going back to the flight line sometime around the first of the year. That move brings with it the shiftwork, weekend duties, working holidays and deployments. The squadron he is going to typically has four and six month deployments.

I guess the positive side is that this six week separation will be good practice for a deployment later. It's a better way to ease myself back into single mom mode than to just plunge into a four or six month deployment.

Noah has known his Daddy was leaving for awhile now. We even talked about it Monday and he seemed like he wasn't affected too much. Monday night, DJ put Noah to bed and Noah started crying. He didn't want his Daddy to leave. DJ talked to him for a while and then put him to bed. About thirty minutes later, Noah came walking in the living room and said, "Daddy, I don't want you to work for the Air Force anymore! I think you should quit that job and be a bus driver, because bus drivers don't go away." It was so simple, so naive and yet so sad and sweet all at the same time. We explained that he couldn't just quit his job and put Noah back to bed.

I am proud of my husband, but I won't lie- there are many times I wonder what I was thinking marrying a man in the military. I miss my family and my friends so very much. My kids don't really know their grandparents or their cousins. They see them at best, once a year. We spend many holidays with only the four of us... our little family.

So, I apologize for the random, run-on, all-over-the-place, woe-is-me blog, but I'm feeling a little sorry for myself today. I always have to have my "pitiful me" moments and then I get over it and conquer it. I am a much stronger person that I ever thought I was and I have proven that to myself over and over for the last eleven years ( the length of time I have been married to the military). One day at a time, one battle at a time, baby steps.. however you want to look at it. Tonight I will cry and tomorrow I will wake up feeling better, brush myself off and try it all again.