Have a little compassion...

Last year a friend of mine went through her husband deploying for the first time. I'll be honest, while I was vocally supportive, inside I was screaming "Get a grip!" Every time she posted something new about how horrible everything was on facebook, I felt like shaking her and saying "Get over it! It's military life! Deal with it! You signed up for this good or bad! Just. Suck. It. Up!"

......... How is it that I got to the point of feeling so negative towards a struggling spouse going through a deployment? Well... I could have SWORN I did not handle my husbands deployment that badly. At least... I don't remember handling that bad. You don't become an army wife and expect a normal 9-5, home every weekend type of lifestyle. It just doesn't happen... maybe for a few months here or there, but not over all. So I knew that a deployment was happening... so obviously I handled it well... right?

Well, apparently I didn't handle it as well as I remember. I found an old journal recently that I attempted to keep up with when my husband first deployed. I wrote in it pretty consistently for about 2 months. Chronicling all the ups and downs, and crazy mishaps that occurred during that time.  Let me tell you right now, the first two months of the deployment did not go well at all... nooooooooot at all! And I MISSED my husband desperately. I was a wreck.

I don't remember handling it that poorly.... but apparently I did.

So when I look back at how my friend handled her husband's first deployment, I wish I had been a little more compassionate in my heart.... deployments are HARD, no matter how many you've been through... but especially the first one. I'm glad I found that old journal... I have come a long way and grown a lot since then. I still miss my husband desperately when he's gone, and things are still hard, but I know how to handle things now.  Regardless though, military separations suck. 1 month, 2 weeks... 6 months... a year... all of them suck. We learn to handle them a little better with each one, but we still feel that a piece is missing every time our soldier leaves...

And let us not forget Murphy's Law for military spouses: When our spouses are away, everything that can go wrong, likely will...... and boy has that proven true over the last 6 months!