The months are passing so fast this year it seems and now that the end of the year is coming upon us we are faced yet again with another year without the man of our family. This Army experience will total 5 ½ years when we are done with it, and we have been a whole family for 2 of them. I am not complaining that he has missed so much, because honestly we have been blessed to have had him with us for that long. But I am having a hard time knowing that this part of our lives will be over in a little over a year. This means no more sleepless nights worrying about his safety, no more running from the news afraid to hear of more deaths and hoping it was not where he was located, and no more wondering when he will be home for dinner. In the same breath though this also means no more helicopters flying overhead in the middle of the night, no more artillery shaking our house at all hours, no more driving to the store and seeing soldiers in formation, these things that I strangely love so much. I could go on and on with the things that I will miss about this lifestyle, but the truth of it is, I will just plain miss this lifestyle altogether.
I will never look at a single parent the same, nor will I see a child with his parent the same either. Seeing a women in the grocery store break out into tears because she dropped her purse will always make my stomach drop, and hearing gunfire at a funeral will always make me cry. Situations that we do not understand and in no means have to, but we can understand enough that we all have something in our lives that weighs heavy on our hearts.
As a person in the military you learn so much and you take so much from the situations that you endure. Rightfully so, you also take a lot on your mind and emotions that you may not be able to describe. I do not feel as though as a spouse we have a lot of right to complain, as we are not the ones that have leave or the ones in direct harm’s way. With that said, I cannot help but feel so many emotions of this lifestyle that I do not want to leave behind. As we get closer to moving away and entering the full blown civilian lifestyle I am realizing how much the military has affected me as a spouse as well. I have made friendships that I will never find again, the understanding that you could have a friend for 6 months and they never once have met your spouse. I have realized in myself that I can do this on my own, I can be a single parent and make sense of it all while being so confused along the way. I will never look at Skype the same again as it was my life for 12 months. So many things that I am taking with me that I never in a million years thought would affect me so much, and yet here I sit, tearful as I think about it.
I do not really have a point to today’s blog, other than to put down in writing my love for the military. Not all of it was good, not all of it was bad, but it is what it is. It is a life that I will never forget and a life that many will never live. It is a life that has made me feel emotions I never knew I had, and has made me love my husband in ways I never thought possible. I will cherish the years we spent living in this strange lifestyle, but I will never cherish it more than I will cherish this last sprint of our journey.
So here is to the next journey in our life, knowing that this is our last Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years until another whole year has passed. And oddly enough, I would not change it for anything in the world.
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