Deployment and boundaries.

Now that this deployment is nearing it's end (sort of), I have been thinking of how things need to be in the future. Me and Jeremy have each become more independent. I can't speak for him, but I feel changed, and more self reliant. Not in a bad way, I still love and need him very much, but I have surprised myself how much I really can handle. With that being said, I still have work to do. I'm getting better at setting boundaries with everyone, but I still revert back to my own ways where I let everyone say or do whatever, and put up with it. So I'm asking, again, to cut me some slack. Everyone I've talked to says reintegration is hard and I think some people don't know what's really going to happen when Jeremy comes home. First, he still has to work, for awhile depending on when he gets home. Second, it will take time for us to get used to living together again, and for how things have changed. Third, we need privacy while we're trying to figure these things out. You all know we love our family and friends, but we need to work all of these things out for ourselves. We value advice, but no one really knows what we have gone through but us, and unless you have been military yourself and either was deployed or had a spouse deployed you can't imagine. It's not a business trip, it's not like being apart for a week or month. It's watching the person you have committed you life to get on a bus and a plane, and you wonder if you will ever see them again. It's staying up to ungodly hours hoping for a phone call or an instant message. It's not seeing each other's face except for a blurry image on a computer screen. It's not kissing, hugging, or touching one another for eight months straight. It's sitting in a hospital bed, wondering if they have to admit me, no one is here for the baby or to take care of me. It's feeling alone. I'm not saying all of this for anyone to feel sorry for me, I'm only saying you may think you know but you have no idea. I don't claim to know everything about everyone's life, only you know the burden you bear. All I ask is for no one else to add to mine.

Reflection

I have spent too much time worrying about what everyone else thinks. Knowing why doesn't always fix it, when the people that caused it will not change. While I feel I have worked on this, and am in a better place about it, residual things pop up now and then.Recovery is an ongoing thing I believe a person can never completely finish. While most days I feel OK, pain grief, and doubts can pounce on me still. A big one to fight is not feeling like a good mother. In my case, and in some people I know, when you loose a child, you feel like you were inadequate in some way. Either in the sense that I did something wrong, or my body is flawed, too flawed to carry a child. I had a similar feeling when my baby was born with Down syndrome. Whether you loose, or feel that they might suffer, you feel responsible. My head know none of this is my fault, but sometimes a feeling deep down makes me feel inadequate, and responsible for all the bad things. It's not not logical but it exists, and sometimes I struggle.

We all deal differently

Deployment is one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with. Everyone's experience with deployment is different, I'm not trying to speak for all my friends, or military wives in general, but these are my thoughts on it. I used to be on the outside. I went to beauty school with a army wife. She had a few kids, and was going to beauty school full time, and I used to think I don't know how she does it, I don't think I could. Then about two years after beauty school, my new husband decides he wasn't to enlist. Our jobs were going nowhere, we both needed a change. He had wanted to enlist after high school, but I really feel he wasn't ready. Now we have decisions to make, so I fight it, and make this be a point of resentment, can I deal with this lifestyle? We decided to take the plunge. After that there have been many situations in our lives where I have had to deal with things alone.I didn't know I had it in me. Sometimes I feel that I am not dealing as well as I'd like. Sometimes I have my blue days, but one way or another, I'll make it through.