Pre Deployment Thoughts

Sleep is just not happening tonight. I think I tossed and turned for two hours thinking about that damn D word. I started counting the days until he leaves. I'm still not sure how time passed so quickly from when we realized deployment was around the corner to wishing it would never come. I try to recall if we've prepped for all the possibilities and requirements of deployment. Everything feels so messy. Different. I know 100% of those feelings come from our recent move. I haven't even properly sorted out the cross country move in my brain. I'm still missing California every day and not connecting with North Carolina. Deployment is just another thing I need to process.

I am terrible at deployment. I have this bad habit of stuffing my pre deployment emotions down until my body can't handle it. Those stuffed emotions usually manifest as anxiety attacks. After a particularly scary incident (last deployment), I've learned to just feel the feels as they come. Which really means cry it out. And I do every day. And it's ok to cry and be sad. I think it is very normal to miss your husband and to have the worries and concerns military spouses have. (It took me a long time to allow myself that grace :)

I've been considering how this deployment will be for the kids too. Everybody struggles. Yes, even the teenager, Miss Independent will miss her dad. She doesn't realize it yet. The boys, I can't even. Pray for us! Our last deployments were only a few months. Honestly, short deployments are manageable. Long deployments require more...everything. I'm going to have to step up my boy mom game.

This to shall pass.