Mom. Wife. Military Life.

What is the first thought that pops into your head when you hear that word?

Time. Sadness. Scared. Lonely. Hard. Adjustment. Curiosity. Familiarity. Uncomfortableness. Anxiety. Stress. Overwhelmed.

I could go on for days. Truth be told, all of those feelings happen durning deployment. It may happen through days, hours, minutes, hell… even seconds.

You see deployment looks different on everyone. It can be hard because to our civilian friends and family, they see the sadness in our eyes, and hear the strength in our voices when we speak. They see the good fight that we CHOOSE to share. They do their best to compare their spouses business trips and weekend plans to the deployment we are experiencing, and please, as much as you want to scream “THIS IS NOT THE SAME”… try to remember to have grace. Our nerve endings are at an all time high, and I often think when we are at such a raw, vulnerable time someone could sneeze and we would find some sort of reaction from it. Kindly remember they don’t know, they are doing their best to support you, love you, and be some sort of ear for listening in the best way they know how.

I just watched the most beautiful video on what deployment really was to spouses. One of the most memorable quotes from the video was something along the lines of when people hear your spouse is deploying and you get that oh so wonderful response of “Well y’all signed up for it”… Well listen Susan, that’s 50% true. We knew it was part of the job. We knew it would happen at some point.

But you know know what we didn’t know?

That you never know when it’s coming. That more likely then not, it’s going to be over some sort of holiday/birthday/anniversary…maybe even all of them. That our babies DID NOT sign up for this lifestyle, so when their daddy deploys and you watch those tiny little hands swing around their daddy’s neck and they squeeze on for dear life because they don’t quiet grasp the concept of time he is going for, that… that is not what we signed up for. We didn’t sign up to have sick kiddos all day and one parent holding it all together by a hair and then to crawling into a cold bed at the end of the night reminded that for these months, we are both mom and dad and there is no break or tap out. When the car breaks down, bad weather comes, bad news gets handed to us, we take it all on our backs and begin trekking through this deployment and balancing life through FaceTime with our spouse showing we can do it all before taking a cry break in our closet between homework assignments and the nighttime routine.

But between all the hardships of deployment, something beautiful is born.

The words…

Empowerment. Strength. Resilient. Achiever. Motivated. Proud. Loved. Grateful. Blessed.

These things start appearing. We start realizing that in between the moments of missing the ones we love, we are growing stronger. When something breaks in the house, we fix it. When we have a particularly hard day with sad babies and we manage to talk ourselves out of the anger we want to dive deep into, we begin speaking calmly and fluidly and everything comes to peace, we have achieved avoiding one less screaming match. We begin building this superhuman person. We are machines. We are a different breed. Its something that flips… something turns that sadness to motivation because we are in it, and once we are in it, we are starting our jog to the finish line. Its exhausting, but we are focused and you know what? You are right about one thing. We don’t have a choice. Given the cards we are dealt, we will come out better from this. Greater. Stronger.

When you have that time away from your spouse, your eyes open to how much you appreciate the things you are given in a relationship. Things that in normal every day life go extremely unnoticed. Be it, help with nighttime routines. A break so you can take a bath in piece. A listening ear at the end of a hard day. Someone to just exist with… that may sound silly but that may be one of the main things I miss when my spouse is deployed. Just existing. You know when you are sitting in bed and you have something silly on TV, your spouse may be playing on their phone or reading a book, you aren’t even talking but you are in the same company, same bed, warm, cuddled up, and safe. Just being around each other knowing you are content in life just living and its perfect and ok because you are together. Have you not thought about that lately? Take those moments in, because those moments are some of the moments we miss the most.

After growing… a lot… emotionally, physically, spiritually, we get prepared for the homecoming. We plan for weeks what we are going to wear, how we are going to do our hair and makeup, to finally the pinnacle of those instagramable moments of first reunited kisses and priceless hugs. Months of stress, tears and strength all melt away in those first few reunited seconds. What you don’t see is the weeks after…where after months apart, we all have to find our footing again. From handling every single thing and having that well oiled machine torn apart, it can be quiet the humbling experience for everyone. Learning to relinquish the reigns after months of being the heartbeat of the operation can come as a shock to all. We have to relearn how to work in our every day lives again. We have to figure out where we all fit. Those are the moments you don’t see after the fact.

No matter how many times we have gone through this it is still something that is ever changing every single time. Not one single deployment has looked the same. As we grow, our kids grow, our relationships grow, we have to evolve and change with whatever is served up for us. We will be faced with new challenges that are aren’t even in our realm of thinking, but we will all over come it. We will come to breaking points only to realized they weren’t breaking points, they were speed bumps and that as tough as they were or are, we are stronger. We will find our community in people we never knew existed before going through deployment or in faces that before deployment, were only acquaintances. We will find that sometimes leaning in to people isn’t a sign of weakness, but a necessary step to get through to the other side. We will look back once the dust has settled and we are standing on top of that post deployment mountaintop and see how high we have climbed as spouses, parents, and most importantly, as individuals.

Deployment brings on SO. MANY. EMOTIONS. And just like a fingerprint, it is different for every single person. Know you never have to do it alone. Reach out when you need help. And take pride in the journey you are walking because it take a STRONG ASS PERSON.

You can and you will. Don’t forget that.

Inspire. Believe. Succeed.

-Kinzy