Day 182 (242) - the other side of the rainbow.

So, you know and I know, that if there was only one thing I'm good at (although we know I'm good at lots of things, let's pretend it's just one) it's expecting too much of myself and then beating myself up afterwards when I don't feel like I rose to my expectations. I had so many things that I was going to do this deployment. I went into this stupid thing with this grand visions that I was just going to be a rock star. All those times that I sat there, by myself and just cried from loneliness, or self pity, or anger or frustration or sleep deprivation. I never blamed the situation or the person who said the careless thing to me, or about a thousand other things - I blamed myself for not dealing with it better. It has taken me almost 9 months, and just a few weeks shy of you coming home to realize that I didn't suck at this and that it wasn't the worst experience of my life and that I am, indeed, not the worst mother/wife/sister/friend/navy wife on the face of the planet.

I would sit here and pen all these posts in my head of things I wanted to say to people, well hell, to the world in general. Some of the stupid and insensitive things that would come out of peoples mouths were ridiculous and I still blamed myself for them, as if it's my fault people are tactless.

This deployment has made me realize who my real family and friends are. People who I thought were family are now barely better then friends. And people who were just friends, I can now not picture them not being in my life. I wanted to tell anyone and everyone, "please don't feel sorry for us". Those people who pushed the subject with me and would be all "poor you", I always inexplicable explained it away as "we chose this life, please quit apologizing". I'm not sure why - but I just felt that it was my fault for letting them say stupid things to me.

But before I start to just ramble - this is what I do know. I have made it through this. My children are happy, my children are healthy (in theory anyway, colds be damned). None of us want for anything. I have managed our way through 8000 miles of cross country visiting, moving into a house, dealing with idiot landlords and stupid utility companies. I've gone through emergency room visits, urgent care visits, and more shots then I care to count. I've offered support to my people, I've offered support to my kids. I turned my frustration into yet another creative outlet (I'm sure your real happy about that - wait till you see all the yarn when you get home). I didn't allow myself to get beat by this. I had rough days, and rough nights. I had times when I just wanted to sit and cry and not think about all the responsibility that I had on my shoulder, all the responsibility that you had added to the frustration of not having your family. Moments where I felt that everything was crashing down around me and I didn't know how I was going to make my kids realize that they do in fact have a strong mother. But I am ahead of the game, I came out as a victor in all this.

I'm on the downside of this countdown and yes, I'm incredibly anxious. I've figured out how to make our routines and our lives work with just the three of us, all while making sure they know who you are...so yes, I'm anxious. Anxious to see us. We work very well as a family of four and we've been apart all this time, I can't wait to see how amazing we are as a family of four together.

I beat this and I'm a better person. I used to hate it when people say, "I couldn't do that....I'm not sure how you do." In fact, I've said that to someone before and I really should email her and apologize. That friend said to me, "You just do, you do because you have to". And we are stronger people for it. But now I get it why people say that. They don't see what the rest of us know. That we are strong women. We are smart, resourceful and forward thinkers. We are home base for a our families. We are president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. We are historians. We are peacemakers and lawmakers. We are excellent communicators. We are nurturers and lovers and fighters and hardasses. We demand excellence, we demand to be taken notice, we demand that our children get noticed, and not get left behind. So don't feel pity for us, instead be proud of us. Be proud of our husbands. Be proud of our children. Because this is a hard life, it's not easy but we are better for it.

I'm a Navy wife.