Happy

Something about this deployment has made me stronger. He recognizes it. I recognize it. There was no time to wallow-in-self-pity. He left last March / April and I had to hit the ground running; managing a full-time job, a household, a teenager, and (at the time) a preschooler and a toddler. It eventually evolved into a full-time job, household, a teenager, a kindergartner, and a preschooler. Life didn’t stop just because we missed Hubby / Dad. This Mom had to step up to the plate and we lived the last 12-months with gusto.

The other major change during this deployment for me has been communication. Somehow I have always expected Hubby to be able to ‘read’ my body-signals. He has failed miserably at that. Why he doesn’t understand my cold shoulder as “you stayed up way too late playing Zelda on the wii instead of snuggling with me in bed” I will never understand ;).

Our only communication this past year has really only been via our fingers on the keyboard. (We have found it much easier to send IMs via AOL while looking at each other on the computer web-cams, then to actually try to talk on the web-cam with the microphones. That delay can really cause harried conversations.) When forced to type out all of my thoughts and feelings of the day I have become much better at SAYING what my thoughts and feelings are. Recognizing that he can’t tell my ‘mood’ from a tiny little picture of me on his computer, I don’t leave things to his imagination. I tell him. This has spilled out into home-life these two weeks and he recognizes it. He still gets a cold-shoulder once in awhile but I certainly don’t have unfair expectations for his mind-reading ability.

Deployment is hard. Very hard. But because our marriage was strong to begin with it has only brought us closer.