The balancing act

I keep trying to get on here and update. But i am finding the balancing act is tipping more towards the girls, dh and the dog and further from 'me activities' whether they be online or not. I'm ok with it. Things in all honesty, have been going really well. I have a few weak moments of missing dh terribly or worrying myself sick about finances. But, the girls and dog and I have been doing really good holding down the fort.

I am starting to understand why women who's dh's are in the military are so adamant about labeling themselves as such and such. For our branch your a proud army wife. I never understood it. We aren't doing the work, we aren't putting in the physical and mental agony that our dh's are at basic training and in war zones. We get the easy job, we get to spend uncounted moments with our children, hold down the fort and run our lives in a manner we see fit while DH's are off working their rears off to support our family. I have come across so many army wives who wear their dh's military status with pride as if they had earned it themselves. So i went into this with humility. I am not a military wife, i didn't marry the military and my dh was not in the military nor was it ever a possibility when we met. I said i would never define my or my girls' lives by the military. DH is after all, only National Guard Reserve. He does is 8 months of BCT and AIT and then from there he comes home and commits one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year to serving in the Army for our country. We have it easy, especially since he is nondeployable for a minimum of 2 years.

And then i began to dive into the world of the Army. I sat and wondered today, how can someone who is so far away physically still have your entire life revolve around them? We live, breath, eat and sleep DH and his absense. We pray for him at night as the last thing we do before we sleep, then we wake up and usually talk about what daddy is doing at 'school', through out the day random songs will bring him to my mind, silly things i want to share with him will cause me to realize how empty life is with him gone. I spend at least an hour a night writing him letters, and the girls and i take pictures every day and print them out and make a page for his daily scrapbook for when he returns. So much of our day consists of things we do to actively keep dh involved in our lives, that I am starting to understand how the military can consume your life and why these women wear the pride of their DH's. It isn't just something that he goes through, the entire family lives it. Our lives are consumed with when we will get a call or contact or a letter. A simple 20 minute phone call can send me to the depths of despair and to the highs of the moon in a single instant.

I am learning that despite not wanting to be, I am becoming an Army Wife. And I am incredibly proud of my soldier, though it feels so odd for me to say that. For almost 9 years now, my dh has been my Ben. He's been any number of good (and at times bad) words and phrases to me. But suddenly, he is a solder and it is all new to me. The way of life overwhelms me, as it is completely different then civilian life. They have their own language, their own code of ethics, their own rules. At times i wonder how i walked into this secret society and why the heck I ever agreed to be initiated. Because if you know me, I am the type of person that strays from those secretive clubs and laughs at them. I am on the outskirts of things, living my life the way I see fit and telling anyone who commands me to conform to go screw themselves.

No longer will that be a luxury I am able to afford. I walked into a whole new world where there are rules that apply to us wives as well. We shall see how i fit into this new way of life. My goal is to make my husband proud, so I will learn to grow.