Calm?

I am oddly calm right now.....not sure what to make of this. I will be visiting family for Thanksgiving, and when I come home I will only have a couple days left before it is time for me to go to the gym and hold up my welcome home sign. I have decided to go to my mom's a day earlier than planned, I just felt like I needed some down time. I can have days here where I do practically nothing, which some would call downtime, but for me its not, my mind is always too busy. At mom's I get to actually relax and stop my brain for awhile. I just felt that I needed this before he gets home. When I get back I will go crazy cleaning and thinking its still not clean, I will take the pup to the groomers, I will put all the decorations up, and probably not sleep. This is good though, because it means there are only about 2 days for me to act like a last minute crazy woman.

Me the FRG leader....

So today me and a few of "my" ladies got together today to paint our welcome home banners for the gym and barracks. I had sort of been trying to put this off I think, but we needed to get it done this month! It wasnt so bad, except for the damn wind. We brought bricks to hold the sheets down, but that didn't help all that much! At least they are done and they turned out pretty well! I know the next couple weeks I will be so busy with all this homecoming stuff. I guess I will be happy once this part is over! Yesterday I was driving home from the PX and as i came around the corner I suddenly saw a huge group of soldiers rushing into the gym with their bags. I immediately started crying like a crazy person! As I continued to drive, I saw the white buses, and the rest of the guys in formation waiting for their turn to start running. I was having a "good" day, I wasn't expecting that, I wasn't ready for that. I was happy for those families inside the gym, and a part of me thought, "I still have __ days before he's home" and the other side of me thought "I ONLY have __ days before he's home" I was crying for awhile, but I could not tell if it was happy or sad tears. I mean all year while I have seen those white buses I knew it was them taking more of our guys away, later in teh year I know that they meant the other division is now leaving, but that didnt make me happy, it just made me feel those feelings of the day I watched him get on that bus! I hate those white buses!!!! John told me that I will soon get over my dislike for those things once I am in the gym and aware that the white buses brought him to me. We'll see.

In a weird place

So I live in a duplex on post, the wall that connects us is the kitchen wall and the master bedroom wall...fun. As mentioned before, I dont talk to any of my neighbors, I think I saw this specific neighbor like once or twice. I usually dont go to bed till real late anyway, but if I happen to go in early and "hear" them I always end up in the living room for a little while. i would often hear them laughing and joking around, it made me miss john so much, because that's how we are most of the time, At first it just simply made me sad, but then I got to where it felt sort of comforting to hear them over there laughing and being happy, it was nice to know that I wasn't alone in the duplex, and they reminded me of us, so it helped me to drift in to thoughts of me and john. Well her husband just deployed a couple weeks ago, and I noticed that she sleeps with the TV on now...very loud! I don't want to say anything because I don't even talk to her, and plus I feel like I know where she is right now, she is trying to adjust to her life without him, she is alone over there, and just the silence can drive you crazy, so I try to zone out the TV. I noticed last night she was watching some war movie, I did that also when john first left, I felt like even the movies that were about vietnam or WWII could still help me feel close to him, or to maybe understand what he is going through over there. I know it doesnt really, but at that time I thought it did, and I was trying to latch onto anything I could. I have actually thought about moving my bed to the opposite wall when john gets home, just in case we are loud :) I don't want to make it worse for her because I know when john gets home she will still be in a transitional stage. I don't know if that is all just weird or not, I mean I don't really even know her, but I did start to think about that stuff.

People and their Comments

I was just reading a blog from a fellow Army Wife. She was talking about how she is sick of hearing people say things about the deployment almost being over now and that she should be so excited now that she is at the 6 month mark. I remember that mark....it doesn't feel like some magical place, it didn't make me feel any different, it just made me see that there were still at least 6 more months to go....."stop rubbing it in my face" I felt like saying so many times! The first month or two was pretty hard, trying to find my place, adjust to this new lifestyle as a army wife without her soldier, now that I am in the last month, I have realized that this is also a very hard time, if not harder. The middle was so easy, I got through it all. I was asked what I did to help the time go by faster, and I really don't remember, I just lived life, found things occasionally to make a day here and there go fast. As much as I wanted to just sleep the year away, I didn't do that. I totally understand what she was saying though, the only difference is that I am in a different stage of the deployment so I get the "wow less than a month, you must be so excited!" those are the people I would like to smack around, those comments tend to stress me out more. I am usually a happy and friendly person, but I totally fake it during those comments, even when my husband tries to talk about how he can't wait to get home. I give him the support the best I can from here, I tell him I am excited also, I just leave out the details! One thing though, I think I would rather be wanting to scream throughout the day from the stress of the homecoming than to be coming home to that empty house for the first night, realizing I have about 350 more nights of that.

Homecoming Sign

My husband counts down his days with so much happiness in his voice. I try to ignore the fact that its already almost here. Its crazy to think I am down to a couple of short weeks now! I made a homecoming sign to hold at the ceremony. I took so much time to add the blue and gold glitter. I almost went to bed that night leaving it on the table to dry, but as I made my last check around the house, I looked at the sign, pretty happy with it, and then I got this terrible feeling. I was suddenly worried that I could jinx myself by already having a sign made. So I ended up folding the sign up and putting it in the trash. I just dont want to take that chance, I know that's silly. I have the poster board, markers, glitter, streamers, and a banner for outside, but I have decided that I will not decorate anything here untill I get that call from Rear D...then I will have 48 hours. I mean I know that's cutting it close I guess, but I already know I will be going crazy during those two days, so I might as well have something to keep me busy.

Rambling

I have heard it said a few times that the deployment is the easy part, its the reunion that's hard. Now that I am heading into my final month of this deployment, I see that its so very true! I can remember in the beginning of this deployment I was wondering how I would ever make it a whole year. Its weird for me to think that because I have been living on my own since I was 18 so it wasnt like I was not sure how to handle things on my own, but I guess it was the fact that now I had to handle his stuff too. I was soely responsible for our lives for the whole year. I felt like I could screw up and then it would be all on me! Now that the year is almost over I see that I handled it very well, nothing broke that I couldn't fix, nothing burned down, our dog didnt run away or get stolen or hurt, so i think things went well! The past couple months is when I have been feeling so crazy inside. Feeling like I didnt get anything accomplished this year, questioning our marriage, questioning my capabilities, my education, all that and more. This year I have been responsible for crap messes that john got into before we got married, the current finances we have now, the dog, the FRG, school, a job for a few months of this deployment, and trying to stay positive for the family. I realize that just about every other wife of a deployed soldier also has these responsibilities, however I felt that I was the only one not juggling them all properly! Late in this deployment I started to realize that maybe these wives also put on a smile and pretend everything is great to the outside world. I started to think about this during the reunion trainning class i went to in late September. I heard the other wives talking about things just about everyone else in the room nodding their heads. Being an FRG leader I feel especially pressured to appear that I have everything under control, yet I want my wives to know that I am on the same page as most of them, its my job to be the organized one, the one that looks like everything is put together, no matter how hard I may try I have it instilled in me to appear controlled and put together no matter the situation. I feel like they are counting on me to be that person. Anyway, I was passing the barracks today, and just like every day since they left, I get choked up and want to cry, I see him marching to the buses. Even after a year its still not easy to see the barracks or the motorpool and think about the day he left. My heart still breaks. Its truly bittersweet when I have been seeing 1st Cav leave, I know just how those wives are feeling, but then I know that means its closer to my husbands homecoming. This year has actaully gone by fast. Trying to tell me that 11mos ago, I would have rolled my eyes at you, all I wanted to do was sleep till November came around. Unfortunantly I couldnt do that since I had our pup to take care of and I'm trying to finish my degree, but I did manage to close myself off from the world for the most part. I know thats not healthy, but I was up here alone, no friends or family around, so going out and seeing couples at lunch together or friends walking into the wal-mart chatting and laughing, those all were too hard for me to deal with, made me feel 10x more alone! So I have stayed in my bubble with the FRG and school my only outlet. I havent even met any of my neighbors, and I have been here for a year now. One lady would come out and talk to Ranger (not to me, seriously) and thats it. I see some of them getting together outside on Sat. nights, and it makes me sad, but at this point I know that john will be home soon and I will have someone to hang out on my patio with. I hope my neighbors dont think I am a bitch, I'm just shy when I am outside of my element, and very quiet! I did choose to stay in my own little world though. Ok well I of course have so much more but I am gonna go to bed i think!