Feeling Emotional...

I have guilt when I write this, because things can be so much worse right now.  I feel guilt that I feel this way because I have witnessed my friends be strong for a year while my husband was by my side at night.  I feel guilt because two wives on my street each had a husband not ever come home.  I feel guilt that we have been so blessed for the past five years in an unstable lifestyle.

I want to break down, I want to feel sad but that guilt creeps in and reminds me of those things above.  6 weeks is nothing...nothing in the army.  He's safe, he's on US soil...I should not complain!  I feel like I'm new to the army life and I'm not, I've been doing this for 10 years.  But this is the first time he's left us now that we have a family.  I want to feel pity for myself, but I just can't let myself do it.  I have to be strong.  Writing this helps let out those weaknesses.  The weakness of watching my 2 year old have a meltdown in a store crying, "Daddy.  Daddy.  Daddy hold you."  He knows and this is just day 1.  I've heard from my friends with children about their struggles of the kids misbehaving, acting out, breaking down during the deployments...army children have a sixth sense about these situations.  They know that their daddy is gone, not understanding why, as much as you may try to explain; and explaining to an almost 5 year old that daddy is at school or training or fighting bad guys, it might as well be in Chinese.  He knows too, my sweet boy has been trying me a lot today, saying and doing things he wouldn't otherwise do. 

But it's time to pull myself from the bootstraps, slap on that thick skin.  To me, this 6 weeks as a "single mother" will be a family version of the soldier's army training.  A 6 week preparedness course...how to prepare for the worst case scenario, a deployment.  I've done 2 deployments, schools, JRTC, NTC, field training, etc as an army wife...now it's time to do it as an army mom.  Hooah!

Oh and to start the Army mom preparedness course, I will share a video I saw numerous times yesterday while waiting for a new ID card (I couldn't hear it there)...

And in case, I ever need a good, patriotic cry...
(JR Martinez, a true war hero from the 101st, a contestant on DWTS)