People often remark that they do not know how I handle life as a military wife. They talk about how hard it must be and how lonely it must feel. They mention things like depression, anxiety, worry, frustration. They talk about how strong I must be.
But I would be lying if I said I felt like a strong woman. I don’t.
Most days I just feel relieved I made it to lunch without a meltdown or to dinner without crying in the bathroom floor. On a really good day, I feel like I made major progress if I actually got to take a hot bath AND wash my hair all in the same day.
Then there are the bad days. The days when I open my eyes and see an empty side of the bed. The days when I look at my phone, realize the date, and feel silent tears fall across my face as I am reminded how close we are to yet another deployment.
Finally, there are the really bad days when it feels like you cannot muster the strength to even get out of the bed or face life because doing it solo day in and day out is just not fair.
In the end though, it is all worth it. The long days, the bad days, the good days. The moments when you make it through another day and fall asleep just a little bit more certain that you did something good. Both of you, across the miles, did something good for your family.
We don’t need accolades, we don’t need recognition or awards, we don’t need 10% discounts or free stuff. We just need to know we can make our husbands/wives proud because God knows they make us proud every day. We just need to know that if we keep holding on, if we do get out of that bed, that it won’t be much longer until they are home or until the deployment has come and gone. We just need to know that we were strong enough to love the truly strong ones another day.
Deployments come, homecomings arrive, life keeps going and they miss so much. They give up so much. We aren’t the strong ones. They are; the ones in the uniform who hold our hearts. So, we look up through silent tears and we hold onto moments like these, when a cup of coffee with the one we love feels like a little piece of heaven right in our living room.
We push and we trudge and we make our way through it all…for moments just like these.
In Christ’s Love,
Kristy
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