Reflection 1

A personal reflection on the separation caused by military training and deployment from the perspective of an Air Force wife.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Training

As you can tell by the title I am a proud USAF wife.  I'm proud that my husband selflessly volunteered to protect his country and I'm proud to stand by his side and support him in all his endeavors. That being said, we are in the midst of his first deployment, he hasn't left yet and won't leave for a little while but it doesn't ease my anxiety about the whole situation.  Right now he is in the States doing some training while our daughter and I are here at his duty station in Europe. He left late this week and it's been absolute agony, I miss him so much and I'm having such a difficult time coping with this training and eventual deployment.  My husband and I are by no means newlyweds but our relationship still feels fresh and exciting.  We enjoy each others company fully and immerse every available chance we have  exploring Europe with our six year old daughter.
Routines...
Every day starts the same, with me waking up and getting breakfast ready while Aaron takes a shower and gets dressed.  Most days I pack him a lunch but sometimes he goes ahead and buys one.  When he leaves for work I get our daughter up and ready for school, walk her to the bus stop, then walk myself home.  From there, I either do some chores, go online or do homework.  Then I pick our daughter up from the bus stop, start dinner and wait for Aaron to come home.  At dinner time we all sit around the table, talk about our day then after dinner we all watch a movie or tv.  Everyday is more or less the same and that routine and normalcy, or lack of, is driving me crazy... and to think the deployment hasn't even started yet!  The days leading up to Aaron leaving for training were agonizing, I cherish everyday that we're together but more so when I knew that there was an actual time frame leading up to his departure.  When our daughter and I returned home from seeing Aaron off I immediately cried my eyes out, at the same time feeling utterly selfish that my lovely husband was the one actually getting out of his comfort zone and supporting the mission while I was at home, not training or learning anything new that could potentially save my life or other peoples lives.  I can't help it though, I miss him so much and I'm hoping that the days go bye quickly and our daughter and I can be reunited with him.  I visited one of the military spouse sites that I frequent, www.milspouse.com, to get some info on how wives cope with deployments to make them a little bit easier and got some great pointers.  Mainly, a lot of women said to get a list together of some goals you want to accomplish while your husband is gone and above all to keep busy.  I've put together my list which seems daunting to say the least but I don't know where exactly I'll be pulling out the motivation to actually accomplish them.  I'm just praying that God can give me the strength for all this and not to feel so depressed.  Sadness and loneliness is one thing but depression is a whole different story and I'd rather not partake.  I know when school restarts for our daughter and I, things will be a lot more busy but until then I absolutely need to find the strength to tackle some of that to do list, first and foremost the reorganization of my house (did I mention my wonderful husband has a great knack for surprising me with awesome presents and never saying no to anything that I want, which has led up to me needing more space for said presents and things) then the subsequent redecoration of the house. Well, this first post has helped a lot, hopefully writing all my thoughts down can help me feel better about the whole situation.

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