The "new normal"

As week 2 of this deployment draws to a close, I have to say that this is definitely a life-changing experience. They say that times flies when you’re having fun…I guess during deployment it almost comes to stand still! I thought that the deployment fair and its wonderful handouts were preparing me for this, but I’m coming to find out that all it really did was provide me with a bunch of resources. Don’t get me wrong, resources are great and I have used some of them already, but that is only part of the equation.

I really think that there should be a class available to help prepare you for the mental side of deployment. My “deployment 101” class would be spouses sharing their experiences with stress, loneliness, and depression during this time of separation. I had no idea that insomnia was quite normal. It wasn’t until a week of sleepless nights that I finally talked to other military spouses about it and found out they had been through the same thing. When you’re unprepared for the mental side effects of deployment, it can hit you like a ton of bricks. Prior to my wife leaving, I made sure to have the power of attorney in hand, cell phone service temporarily shut off, and contact information for the Rear Detachment….but nobody told me I should probably have some sleeping pills too. The only plus side to insomnia is that my wife says this is the most productive I’ve been since we got married!

Aside from the sleepless nights, I’ve had to deal with balancing caring for myself, a 3 year old girl, and a dog. Now this may not seem like much to some, but for me it turned out to be a lot tougher than I expected. Let’s start with the dog that was such an awesome addition to our family prior to the deployment. Then my wife left and she showed her true colors. First 2 days she refused to eat in the morning before I left for work, so I put her food away. Both days I came home to a trashcan turned upside down with its contents strewn across the downstairs floor! Day 3 I tried a different approach to the refusal to eat and left her food out so that she could enjoy it at her leisure. This worked, except for the big pile of doggie poo she left me by the front door! She has since normalized, which is good, because my daughter loves having her around.

My daughter hasn’t been nearly as difficult as the dog. She only asks the same questions a million times a day, demands peanut butter and jelly for dinner every night, and refuses to sleep in her room. That’s the easy stuff for me to deal with. The hardest part has been that she doesn’t want to go back home when we leave the house. I think that coming home reminds her that her mother isn’t there. So I typically try to do something fun while we’re out and take plenty of pictures. Then when we head home, I tell her we’ll send them to her mother on the computer, and she looks forward to that.

Finding a “new normal” takes time. Balancing the household by yourself, while supporting your Soldier, is no easy task. But I’m glad I’ve found great a community of support, both online and at our base. I might survive this after all!