Military Sneak Attacks

No matter how prepared you THINK you are, you're never prepared enough... especially for something like your husband's deployment to Iraq. I thought I was prepared. I thought I was fine. And then, I was driving in to work last Sunday to tie up some loose ends at school before the week started, when I started thinking about the going away party I wanted to have for him, and before I knew it I was crying. It's official. I've had my first pre-deployment cry. Which means: it's official, my husband actually IS deploying, and I actually DO realize it on some level or another.

Beyond that, I really thought I was rough, tough, and this 2nd deployment was going to be no sweat. In my strange, deluded mind, I truly believed that. I believed that, until my husband checked in for his training and came home with a schedule of what the next few months of his (aka OUR) life will look like. While looking at it, I got irrationally angry. I was annoyed at hubby, at the dogs, at the garage door. I was tired, grumpy, nothing was going right. I shed an angry tear over the fact that my husband would be AWAY training while I was AWAY with my students at their 8th grade camp and my dogs would have to be AWAY in the kennel. I was walking in a cloud of rage for no apparently reason when I realized that I'm not really the maniacal woman I was pretending to be. I'm really just a woman who is grieving over the impending loss of normalcy as I know it.

Then I thought about it. When Hubby gets back from THIS 2nd deployment, it will be almost exactly two years since he left on his FIRST deployment. I did some quick calculations in my head and realized that by this time next year Hubby will have been in Iraq 14 of 24 months and home only 10.

I thought I was going to be fully prepared for this 2nd deployment. I thought I would look this deployment square in the eye and laugh in its face. And, maybe I will. But first, I have to recover from the FACT that this deployment is pulling sneak attacks on me. It's sneaking up on me because I've barely had time to accustom myself to life WITH my husband before I am having to prepare myself for life WITHOUT him once more.