It has just occured to me (and to D too) that we will, in 6 weeks,begin preparations to part ways again.

It doesn't seem right.  We're still trying to get used to living together again; we're still dealing with the aftermath of a year apart.  It doesn't seem right that we should have to prepare to be separated again.

But, war has no respect for relationships. It does not recognize anniversaries and birthdays, it does not differentiate between holidays and any other day of the week.  I doesn't care much that families need to spend time together, that children need their daddies to be around more than 6 months out of a 2-year span. There's a war that needs to be fought, and my husband's on the US team.

The faceless entity that is the US military has decided that he has to go....so he's going to go.

And I will once again join the ranks of deployed spouses.  I'll get oil changes for free at the AAFES service center, I'll get invited to 'misery loves company' coffee mornings, I'll even get to park in designated 'spouse of deployed member' spaces at the commissary and BX.

Woo freakin' hoo.  You'll have to excuse my lack of joy at the prospect of being alone again; the distinct absence of ecstacy I feel when I think of spending yet another summer alone, another 180 plus nights in a  bed made for two..... but containing only one.

Am I bitter about this?  Yes, slightly.  Do I have a right to feel bitter about this?  Perhaps.  I knew what I was getting into when we got married 11 years ago, that much is true.  I understand that my husband is doing his duty, that he's asking not what his country can do for him, but what he can do for his country.  He's not shirking his responsibilities.  He's not running off to the doctor or to the psychiatrist, asking to please get put on a profile that will make him undeployable.  He's not constantly coming up with excuses as to why he can't deploy.  He hasn't even questioned his placement on a deploying team so soon after completing a remote tour (although many of his peers have).

I haven't either.  This, to me, is just another aspect of military life. I'm accepting that this is the way things are going to be, and I'm going to grin, bear it, and press on.

I don't have to like it, though.  And I don't like it.  But I do have to do it.  Just as it's his job to go off and play his part, it's my job to stay here and keep the household running, the kids clean, fed, educated and loved, the bills paid......in other words, I have to keep the home fires burning until he comes home again and we perhaps will get a respite from deployments for a year.

So, I will do my best to keep my chin up, to be the best wife I can be, to love him the best I can in the remaining time we have left. 

It's the least I can do, don't you think?