A Little Grace

 First, we made it through our first big holiday of the deployment. Thanksgiving isn't a big, meaningful holiday for us, as even when Jacob is stateside he works, but we got through it.  It is always easier to fill the empty spaces when you are with family, and we were surrounded by so many different family members for an entire week while back in Michigan.  We had a fabulous week away.    

Since we often don't travel for Thanksgiving, if this were a "normal" year we would pack away all of our fall/Turkey decorations and take out all of the Christmas decorations the Friday after Thanksgiving.  This year we were not home on Friday, so instead we only had the Sunday before we went back to life and school open.  

So, me being Type A, uber planned Amanda I had already analyzed the next three weeks, and I knew based on my work schedule, and the kids school schedules we had to get a majority of the Christmas decorating completed on Sunday.  And believe it or not our Sunday was near perfect.  We ran the errands we needed to, got back in plenty of time to drag out all of the decoration boxes, and Cade and I even managed to get the tree up the stairs by ourselves.  The kids were so much help with all the of the decorating everything went better than planned.  

Our last step was our outdoor lights.  Normally while I decorate the inside Jacob works on the outside and then we all come together to do the tree.  Well, for obvious reasons we had to change the order, and to be honest I do not like doing the outside lights so I put it off until the last thing.  And I was reminded quickly why I do not like the outside lights.  For those who don't know Jacob is a "tech nerd".  He loves all the new technology advances, and one of the those advances he has embraced in the last 3 years is the new LED, digital outdoors lights.  You know, the ones they program to make light shows.  I just want lights that light up, and I can hang, which I normally do with the staple gun.  But that is not what I had.

So to be sure I knew how to get these fancy, fandangled lights to light I did the old school plug them in before you hang them to make sure they light trick.  And to my surprise (not) they didn't light.  I read the very small print directions, that left a lot of steps up to the imagination, to no avail. l tried the three different connectors, screwing and unscrewing them multiple times.  I know you can all see where this is going.  After about an hour, I gave up, honestly I was VERY frustrated, and told the kids we would have to try again the next day.  

Which we did.  Except the next day was Monday.  Back to work after a week off.  A very busy and slightly stressful day led me to get home a little later than I wanted, and I only had about 30 minutes to work on the lights before I had to get dinner started.  I had "researched" and googled the type of lights, and my issue of not being able to get the lights to register on my blue tooth, in the app, yes, this is the kind of lights he left me with.... I felt confident I would be able to troubleshoot it, even if I didn't get them hung that evening.  

45 minutes later I was near cussing and the lights did NOT register on my repeatedly re-installed app.  

I decided I couldn't give any more time to this, sent Jacob a very strongly worded message about my dislike of the new bulbs, and how I was not amused that he had left me with this technical mess.  I may have added a few extra phrases just to make sure he knew my feelings on the matter.  Then I started dinner. 

At dinner I was expressing my sorrow for not being able to figure out the lights.  I let the kids know that their dad and I might be able to connect over the weekend, but that the lights wouldn't be out any time soon. I was feeling so defeated for what I wasn't able to do.   And do you know what our eldest said?!

"If the lights are going to be that much trouble, let's just not do them".  

Stated as matter as factly as possible.  We both glanced over at Ellee, and she nodded.  

That was an amazing moment for me.  The lightbulb click (and I thought at least I can get one bulb to work).  I can not be all things for Cade and Ellee.  I can be me.  I can be their mom.  But I can not fill the space that their dad holds in our household and in their hearts.  And to be honest I had been trying to completely fill both spaces since he left.  

Duh.  If it was going to so much trouble why stress.  Will it ruin Christmas to not have the outside lights on for a year?!  I mean when put so plainly it all seemed to make sense.   I not only felt a bit insane, but also a sense of relief.  We have done a decent job as a military family explaining that sometimes we have to make choices that are different than other families, and the kids got it.  Now, I had to get on board.  

Later than evening, when Jacob awoke to my wonderfully written message, he video messaged me, 4:30a his time, and 9:30p our time.  And wouldn't you know it, there was a connector piece I didn't know about that conducts the bluetooth signal, and as soon as that was plugged in, the lights lit up.  

I did end up putting out the lights later in the week.  They are nowhere near the amazing job Jacob does.  I am lucky our neighbors know he is gone and they too will offer a little grace this year with the lack of display.  I do not know how long these literally taped up lights will stay put, as the staple gun kept jamming, and so they are up with electrical tape. But they are up, who cares if they don't last.  I know that if I ask the kids to help me box them up for next year, we will remember this whole ordeal as a funny memory.   We will move on.  Because we believe everyone needs grace.  I just have to apply what we have been teaching for myself.  

  

Over a Month In: What A Wild Ride

 Let me start this post with this will be a mashing of many ideas and stories all in one.  The last month has been a wild ride, and I will try to give you a little glimpse.  

First, we are over a month in.  The first two weeks I found myself contemplating the silence.  The calmness.  How regular the routine seemed after what I felt like was a HUGE jolt.  Contemplating in a way that may have felt and looked very much like a pity party every night after 8pm.  This was the time that Jacob and I would normally decompress, make plans for the next day, and really connect.  Now after the kids went to bed, the house was a whole lot of quiet.  For the first few weeks the amount of time that stood in front of us seems unfathomable.  So much so I felt my brain was unable to comprehend it.  It felt so overwhelming.  

Then in weeks 3 and 4 I wasn't so upset with the quietness.  I harnessed my amazing ability of creating tasks, and accompanying timelines, and I vowed to use the after-kids-are-in-bed time to be "productive".  I found a new sense of identity in completing tasks.  But that tired quickly.  I wasn't really processing the time that I would have to get through before we would feel "normal" again, I was actively ignoring those feeling, and shoving them to the side  I know now I was lulling myself into a false sense of I-can-will-the-Army-to-follow-my-timeline sort of thought.  I felt confident by living in denial my well thought out plan would surely be communicated the next time I heard from J.  I think you all know how that turned out.  

Because reality did finally show up. During one of the more recent conversations my heart was torn a bit when I was told he would not be home for a concert I really wanted to attend with him.  The realization of this was hard, even though if I were honest with myself I knew it.  I was just ignoring it as to not move through the emotional phases.  I am sure this is a survival tactic of some kind.  I will say reality still hurts, but it will work out best to actually be dealing with facts, and not make believe notions believing in something false and then having to deal with the let down just a while down the road. 

 Now a month in I do feel like I can think a little clearer.  Jacob has a new schedule and although it is hard to mesh with ours, we are doing a bit better each day.  I remind myself often that technology is amazing, and to think back on his first deployment where we would wait days to hear from him and he was using a pay phone with a prepaid card.  Now we can communicate at lot easier than that.  

The deployment murphy law has been kinder than in the past.  I have struggled getting all household, children, work, and personal tasks completed within the confines of open business hours, but I would give myself about  a 90%.  We have only sprung one plumbing leak. I caught it fast, and as I type I am awaiting the plumbers, for what I am really hoping is a quick fix.  The dryer has some strange error, but seems to be drying fine, and the internet says to just reset the dryer and it will fix itself... I will get around to it.  The kids got hair cuts, we waited longer than we should have, but it got done.  Oh, and I got the bike hitch off the top shelf in the garage (read way over my head even as I stood on the 7 foot ladder), all by myself, and did not chip a nail.  And only one pet has been sick and needed vet care, if you don't count the hamster that just passed, because that one didn't need vet care if you get what I mean.

I will leave you all with a little story.  This week when it seemed like EVERY task was taking about 5 times longer than it should, and more and more tasks were being thrown at me, J sent me a selfie with a camel.  

I wrote back (while stuck in traffic for the 3rd day in a row)

"Here I am just trying to survive, and you are taking selfies with a camel?!?!"

There has to be some kind of irony there.  

   

What to do with 12 hours?

 I think the hardest part of deployments are the few hours right before they leave.  The only other time I remember a similar feeling was right after basic training graduation and he was headed to Airborne school right after.  I remember he was released to his family (which was his parents and me), and we had a day, maybe, honestly I can't remember.  But I know the feeling of time in moments like this is like a bit of a vacuum.  You are there with your soldier, so excited to be with them, and yet you know every moment that ticks by it is closer to saying goodbye.  

Well that was exactly the feeling we had when Jacob's unit was released after the "Farewell Ceremony", and he looked down at his watch and told his friends he would see them in 12 hours.  Because in a strange twist, we got to experience another first in deployments, where his report time was 1:30a.  

So what do you do with 12 hours?

I am not sure we did it right.  Because I still don't know what you should do.  We drove home, and Jacob had to repack, because the Department of Defense has stated military can't travel in uniform for right now, so we had to find his packed civilian clothes and try to find room to pack his uniform and the big space taker upper, his boots.  But as I am sure you figured out, we made it happen.  

And then what?!  We did some laundry, kids played in the playroom.  I organized some photos.  We played a few games. We sat at the dinning room table in silence, as who knows what to say.  Talk about tomorrow?  Talk about the future?  Talk about the large elephant in the room?  We contemplated naps, and who would take one when.  We had an early dinner, and watched a "spooky" movie.  We sent daddy off with our last bucket list item (which by the way the fact we completed all 23 items is amazing and we were super proud we got that done) which was "drink a cotton candy drink".  And that did actually make this whole ordeal feel a bit celebratory.  

We did put the kids to bed for a short nap, and then we just sat with each other.  I don't know how to put into words the almost awkwardness of the time in-between.  All has been done.  All has been said.  Maybe if we don't mention what is about to happen..... it wont.  But you know that isn't possible.

12:30am came around and it was time to pack the car and get the kids up.  Another soldier who was carpooling in with us arrived and we somehow got all the bags and people in the car.   There was a lot of silence.  A lot of silence.  And then we arrived at the unit.  

And just like that our 12 hours were gone.  Should we have done more?  Should we have done less?  Did we spend it the best way we could?  

I don't know.  I am not sure there is a right or a wrong way.  All I know is now we embark in the next step.  We move forward.  

May the time go as fast as those 12 hours did.  

Can You go Already

 Have you ever had something hanging over your head and you finally got to a point you were ready to just get it over with?  

I've reached that point. 

We were very lucky this time around, as we heard "rumors" about a deployment list very early on.  And also very early on we had a very good lead Jacob's name was on the list.  The planner part of me was thankful and happy we had, what I think was the longest, time to prepare for a deployment.  But now.  

Now we are ready.  Ready, ready.  As I have said before, in the military they like to give you plans and then those plans change, and then those plans change again.  That stayed consistent this time around too.  Except this time his "date", the big one, the date our kids call the "goodbye date" keeps shifting.  First, you get an "around" date.  As in around the fall.  Then we finally got his orders and that had a date. But then we found out he would still be coming home at night, so that date was the date.  Then they added in a ceremony after what we thought was the date.  He has sold his car based on one of the first dates, so as of right now I am going to be driving him somewhere, we don't know yet, in the future and that should be the date.  

Whew.  It has been a lot of back and forth, and us thinking we had prepared the kids, just for things to shift ever so slightly.  But a shift, even if for the better like Jacob gets to come home yet one more day, is hard.  Emotionally the walls have been going up in preparation for him to be gone.  Then we get one more day.  

I know I have spoken of it before, but this is the in-between.  We are frantically trying to get it all done before he goes, and our thoughts are consumed with him leaving.  And yet he is still here. We are thankful to still have him, but the back and forth becomes overwhelmingly exhausting.  The emotional tug of war that takes place in this in-between time is hard.  Hard for me.  Really hard for our youngest who bares her emotions through anger.  Hard for our son as he continues to "act cool" and like this is no big deal.  

So I really didn't mean it in a bad way when on Monday I said "Can you go already".  I did finish the statement with a smile and a side laugh.  I mean I know how ridiculous that statement sounds.  But dang.  This in-between has been so hard.  When he actually leaves, we can leave the in-between and start to work on the next phase.  A new normal for us three left stateside.  New routines.  New emotions can come in.  We can move forward.  

But I know.  I know with the forward motion will come the loneliness.  The sadness.  The empty feelings.  So do I really want that?!  The tug of what is the correct thing to wish or hope for in the moment is a wishy washy place that I am not comfortable in.  I like the decided.  The action.  The forward movement.  I am trying to appreciate this place of stuck.  

We have been stuck before, and for now we have to become a little more comfortable, as we will be in the in-between for a little while longer.  

                                         

Just Not Now

 This post is probably well overdue.  But in justification my day job is in education, and we had our first day of school for students August 1st and it has been non stop busyness since then.  

And all in that same breath I may have been actively avoiding the click clack of the keyboard where I have to face the reality of the impending deployment date that looms ahead.  Honestly... that is probably more accurate for the lack of posts.

I am one who likes routine and busyness.  So honestly the start of the school year is a time of year my soul finds a bit of peace.  Our kids fall back into routine, we are back to having family dinners.  Bedtimes are a bit more manageable in the way I get to have a little quiet time before I finally fall asleep each night.  

But this year, the start of the school year came with a big dark cloud looming above.  And I did what I do best, ignore the hard feelings.  Ignore the calendar deadlines.  Ignore the hard emotions that creep up.  

Then we attended a Yellow Ribbon Deployment Readiness Training.  And while sitting in a "family" only session with a panel of supporters to answer questions I felt my wall start to chip away.  The cracks were starting to show.   There was a mom there, who tried to ask a question, and couldn't quite get it out, as she had to stop to choke back her tears.  And just that fast tears flooded to my eyes, and I had to swallow a BIG lump from my throat.  

I tried to swallow away that it is going to happen.  He is going to leave.  For a long time.  

And the fact I still can't get out these sentences without tearing up right now, tells me I am just not ready to let everyone in yet.  Not ready to work through the emotional wall that is holding firm, cracks and all.  

So until then, hold tight.  It will come.  The thoughts will flow. Just not yet.  

Murphy's Law of Deployment

 

Anyone who has dealt with military life knows that things will go wrong during missions/trainings/deployments.  And it will be multiple things, all at once.  Once on the morning Jacob left, our AC stopped working, in August.  The fish tank caught on fire.  Our new water heater stopped working, for no apparent reason.  Last deployment my car battery died, the alternator crashed, and I had to replace the brakes 3 times...all within 3 months.  We know this happens.  We plan for this to happen.  And we even laugh about it (long after it happens). 

So when a few things started going a bit sideways, but Jacob was still here, I became concerned.  But I think we are in it, the Murphy Law of Deployments.   And somehow I am being blessed to deal with all the nonsense with Jacob here to take on 1/2 the battle.  

It all started when we returned the rental car from CO and they tried to tell us the hail damage was from our time with the car.  Despite the fact we have pictures of the car with the dents prior to us renting, and the weather that states it didn't even rain while we had the car, they still have filed a claim and now we are stuck completing a mound of paperwork.  Our sweet Lucie dog (15 years old now) had a really rough week between our family trip to Florida and Michigan.  After a trip to the emergency vet we decided we wanted her last few days to be with us even if that meant she was in Michigan.  While in Michigan she got herself stuck out on the back porch.  See she figured out how to go through the doggy door to get out, but couldn't figure out how to get in, so she barked to be let back in.  The only problem was we were gone for one hour.  So some really kind and nice neighbors called the cops, and the cops showed up to my sister's door.  Although this story has a fine ending, for example the trip to Michigan revitalized Lucie, and she is acting like a much younger, healthier dog, we had to deal with the stress of having a claim filed with the city of Holland.  

Then Jacob and I drove home.  And when we arrived half of the outlets didn't have power.  No rhyme or reason.  Jacob went to work checking and replacing outlets, while I got ready for work Monday morning using extension cords all over the house.  We got our electricity back up and going, thanks to a good friend, and while checking the outlet in the attic, Jacob found a family of bats.  Yup.  You read that right.  We now have bats in our attic.  Good news we caught them early, and as the "bat-man" said it was a God thing as they haven't been there long, and there would have been no way for us to find them for a lot longer, had we not had the electricity issue.  

Oh, and we are in crunch time.  We are trying to complete the Before Deployment list, and time is ticking.  Our basement is in complete disarray.  We have redone the kids bathroom, and it still needs some small things done.  Cade's room had to be repainted, due to our error, and his wall items hung again.  And goodness some garage fairy needs to come over and get our garage back into enough order so we can park in it again. Between the Army mess, and the overflow from the basement, we can barely walk through the garage. 

Jacob leaves tomorrow.  Not for the big one, but for a while.  I have spent the last few days feeling completely overwhelmed.  Stressed.  If you talk to me it is clear my anxiety is high.  But after today, I feel like that's it, right?!  This is my Murphy Law of Deployment, before the deployment.  Right?!  

I sure hope so.  

It's the Same, but Different

 

I had to literally take a scan of the picture above, as digital files did not exist, and yes for those wondering, the picture is cut in a heart shape, found in my Senior year scrapbook photo album.  

This picture was taken September 22, 2001.  It was the night of my Junior Miss Pageant, hence my make up and hair being done.  September 11, 2001 had happened only 11 days prior, and the two kids in this picture had watched the horror unfold while in their homeroom.  I could go into exact details from that day, but by the evening Jacob and I found ourselves in a back booth of our local McDonalds where Jacob told me he wanted to enlist in the Army while we ate french fries, and the looming idea that the future had never seemed so uncertain before.  I felt my breath shorten.  I remember staring at him trying to comprehend what he was saying.  We hadn't even turned 18 years old yet, and we were discussing way bigger decisions than we could even imagine.  I told him I would support him.  

I had no idea what that statement really meant.  

Jacob enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program soon after this photo, promising he would graduate high school first.  We hadn't even graduated high school and we thought we were capable of making adult decisions.  

When the text, yes a text, Jacob can rarely call when he is away with the Army, came through that Jacob was expecting his name to be on the deployment list for 2023 I was taken back to that McDonalds booth in an instant.  It felt the same.  Yet different.  My breath became slow and shallow, I feel like I was staring out into the distance without any focus, and my mind went blank.  Yes, blank.  Almost like I couldn't make sense of what I was hearing/seeing and breath at the same time.  

It feels the same as the first time, but different now.  

I had no way of knowing what Jacob's decision would mean way back in 2001.  In all honesty, neither of us could know.  His original "plan" was a 3 year enlistment.  We are now staring down his 3rd tour, and honestly he was eligible for 5 (we were able to get out of 2 of them, but those are stories for another day).  His 3 year plan wasn't just thrown out the window, but it was more slowly changed as we individually grew, and in our case have grown together. 

A quick reminder of what can and can not be shared.  I will not be sharing any specifics.  No dates, no location, no duration, no unit information.  If I see a comment that shares any of the above it will be deleted, not because we don't appreciate the comment, but there are laws.  Federal Laws. I can share our journey, our feelings, and vague updates.  But know as I type this, we are facing a lot of time away sooner than later.

We have had a little bit of time to process and think about this deployment and we keep bringing up how this all feels the same, but different.  The kids are older, more independent.  I am in a different type of career, where I am not directly in front of students at this time.  Technology is at a whole different place, I mean Jacob left for Basic Training without a cell phone.  The kids didn't believe us when we told them that tidbit.  But deployments mean time away, missed milestones.  This momma has to fill the shoes for a two adult household.  And there is the disconnection that always happens no matter what you do.

So, we felt it was time to share the news.  I know it is a bit to process. My mind is finally at a place to start this blog back up, and take anyone who wants to join with us on our journey for a while.  

I mean even starting this blog back up feels the same, but I guess it is different.