What an AMAZING life!

I fully intended to write this post last night, but the more I thought about what I wanted to say, the more I realized that I better take some extra time to gather my thoughts. Afterall, I want this post to be meaningful for others as well as myself, and yesterday my thoughts only would have turned into ranting and raving about the military.

So after a lot of thought and careful consideration, I have discovered that I have an amazing life and my husband, along with the United States Navy has given that to me. That doesn't go to say that I am happy about being a military spouse all the time, but when I sit back and think about what my husband is giving up for us to have this life...it makes me cry. I cry because I am incredibly proud of the person that he has become throughout our relationship. I cry for the times that he has missed with his family, that he will never get back. I cry because when I think of my husband and what he is doing to help preserve our freedom, my heart is flooded with such happiness and contentment for a life that we will have one day together. I am so proud of my husband and what he has accomplished throughout his career, but with that I must say that I'm proud of myself too.

When we read stories in the papers about fallen soldiers or those soldiers who have randomly performed a heroic act, we often forget about the people at home who have helped him along his way. Military wives are a special breed and the military life is not for the faint of heart. As a military wife myself, I can only speak for myself when I say that military spouses often aren't acknowledged in the grand scheme of things. I like to refer to military spouses as "silent soldiers." As a military spouse we are forced to sometimes deal with situations that are scary, stressful, and heart-wrenching to say the least. We are forced to endure long separations from our loved ones in order to accomplish the mission at hand.

I don't say this to make others feel that military spouses are in any way superior to others, but being a military spouse as I said before, isn't for the faint of heart. During the time that my husband has been on deployment, I have been observing my friends and family and the things that they tend to worry about, i.e. finances, the loss of jobs, unruly children, etc., which are some of the same things that military spouses worry about. The one thing that separates us from civilian families is that we worry about getting that call from the Red Cross or answering the door only to see a man (or men) in uniform struggling to tell us that our loved one has passed on. We worry that everytime our spouse boards a plane for yet another deployment that it will be the last time that we see them so we memorize their smile, the way the walk, the way it feels to have their arms wrapped around us in a final embrace before boarding the plane, etc. These are very real worries because as most of us have already seen on the nightly news and in the newspapers, etc. our loved ones could be gone in seconds...fighting for the very freedom that we all have today.

As a military spouse with a loved one currently in Iraq these fears are very real to me. My worries don't stop there, as a military spouse and mother with physical disabilities I worry that there will come a time when I won't be able to take care of everything on my own. If this happens, what will it do to my husband's career that he has worked so hard for? Will there come a time when my husband will choose his bond with the Navy over his bond with his family?

We are taught that the military expects us, as spouses to put our husbands first before anyone else. We are taught that information that may be important to us here on the homefront is better left unsaid in our weekly 10-minute phone calls to our spouses. We are taught that such information could be detrimental to our military counterparts, and that in their line of work there is no room for that kind of thing. After all, we are told that a "preoccupied or stressed out soldier, is a dead soldier." It seems that the love between a husband and wife and the United States military leaves a lot open for speculation. With spouses on the homefront keeping "secret" what is going on at home, and our military counterpart keeping "secret" what is happening with them, it is no wonder that many military marraiges can not / do not survive mulitiple deployments. The institution of marraige is a sacred one, but to those who serve in the United States military...that too is a sacred institution, and sometimes our military counterparts are torn between love for their families and love for their country. It's a fine line, and not one that I care to cross anytime soon.

Today, I am still trying things on, finding what fits, what works, and crafting my identity as a United States Navy / Seabee wife! The military life isn't for everyone, but it's what you make of it. I am proud to be a Navy wife, to love a soldier, proud of my soldier and of the life that we have created. I believe that makes the Navy happy too!

Until we meet again!

*Note* This post took on a life of it's own as I was typing. I have so many thoughts running through my mind even as I type this, but I will save those for later posts.