You Just Do It . . .

Quite a few people have been asking me how I am coping with our current situation. My response, though glib it may seem, is "you just have to do it." Michael has been on lockdown for the past week in preparation for this deployment, and it feels like a trail run on what to expect with this coming year of separation. There have been a few nights that I have gotten overwhelmed, where the twins are crying harmoniously and I only have two arms. However, I've noticed that there are ways that I am keeping the sanity.
Prayer.
Calling in a favor, divine intervention, or a straight up miracle from God is something I do regularly. God knows what's up. He knows what we need.
Humor.
Twin baby bodily functions prove HILARIOUS at times. Gas in unision, for instance, causes peals of riotous laughter from my oldest son. Okay, and me too. We've been able to find things to laugh about throughout the day.
Daydreams.
What I want to do with my house while Michael is gone is my favorite mind wandering. I redecorate our home repeatedly when things get hectic, I'm running on one hour of sleep, or I start to think about the pending dangers to be found in his deployment. He talks about the weapons he's being issued, and I start to think about the sideboard I found online. He tells me a little too much about the dangers of this mission, and I mentally pick out the fabrics for a
french provincial living room. Am I minimizing the seriousness of what he's doing? Not a bit. Compartmentalizing has become a way to keep myself from being drawn into a cyclical monologue of woebegones.
Also, I get to pick where we spend his leave time. Museums in Paris? Return to Spain? It's fun to daydream where we will meet mid-deployment.
Gratitude.
While being a military wife calls for sacrifices on many levels, I am extremely grateful for the bounties we have. We will never be wealthy. But, what we have is sufficient and causes us to appreciate everything a military paycheck provides. We will never stay in one place forever. But, we love meeting scores of new friends and fascinating people while living in crazy places. We will never have a year without separation. But that, above all, has increased my testimony of the eternal bonds of marriage and family. We feel close as a couple even when we're on different continents. We know our family is bound together forever, come what may.

Did I ever think I'd be a "Single wife and Mom, a.k.a. Army Widow"? On some levels, yes. I had a feeling that my life's journey would take me on this route. We both had been on a path which would have led to careers with goverment acronyms, but opted to stay with the military. Why? The mission. Our sub heading for this blog, "We live this life, so you don't have to," holds much significance. We understand the sacrifices we make in order to better this country. What my husband does is not fun, it's not easy, and it's full of frustration and heartache at times, but it's what our country was founded upon. Conviction to do, motivation to act, and the courage to move onward inspite of the challenges. So, how do I "do this?" I just do.