Thursday, July 21, 2011

Oh depression, how I hate you so so much!


Well, like I said before, he left last week.  And my depression, insidious bitch that it is, has kept me up at night, sleeping too much, and either not eating or stress eating among other behaviors.  Yesterday I was supposed to run errands, including mail off the stuff that he left here.  Nope.  Instead, I was up till 0530, was up at 0715, 0830, up from 1000 till close to noon (but that’s okay, cause I got to talk to D, which is what I needed – we just talked, which is nice), and then took nearly a 3 hour nap before the boy came home.  In his “uh oh” clothes.  I’m not saying how I know that my depression has kicked me in the ass; knowing it is enough for me, honestly.

The house is trashed.  Really.  It really really is.  There’s no clean towels, we’re short on dishes, and I can’t remember the last time the washer was run.  Add to that the cookies on the front room floor…  Sigh.  I am so not Martha Stewart.  And I wasn’t too great about housekeeping while he was here – it was super annoying to be doing while he was sleeping or on the computer.  If he was working, it would be a different story, but he was home; he could’ve helped.  I would’ve welcomed his help.  But it’s going to take time to readjust to one another again.  I know this, even if I’m not real happy with it.

Today I’m concentrating on cleaning once my school work is done.  In fact, if you see me on facebook or yahoo, please ask me if my homework and chores are done, cause I’ve gotta keep on task.  Just thinking about the stuff that will and won’t accompany the family when D gets orders is helping me.  S sending me “you are beautiful” nearly every day is awesome.  She’s an amazing “accidental” friend to both me and D, and I wish that she lived closer to us.

Cae’s nearly done with extended school year for the summer.  I don’t know how I feel about that, honestly.  The big kids go back to school at the end of August – Beckie is starting seventh grade.  And my sweet Cae is going into kindergarten.  It’s shocking how fast he’s gotten to this age.  All three will be starting swim lessons next month, too.  D wants me to demand to treat Cae’s like a “mommy and me” class, but he’s really too old for me to do that.  He’s 5, they may not let me.  Marion’s barely within the age range for “mommy and me” swimming class at 3.  I guess I’m just going to have to ask, but I’m not going to be that pushy mom.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Hello and Goodbye I

Well, it's been a month, and after a couple of days of flight delays, D's on his way back to Germany.  On the way to the airport, the optometrist’s office called to say his glasses were ready.  Great.  Okay, so something else to mail on Monday.  I check the mail when I get home and guess what's in there?  Yeah, his new driver's license.  DAMMIT    >.<  So Monday's already looking busy.

Classes are going okay, but I keep choking on the finals.  I've gotta figure that out, cause this is getting ridiculous.  So with D back in Germany in a matter of hours, the family's only real concern is getting S back to the bus station tomorrow, and whether or not D's going to be able to re-enlist.

He was supposed to go to a job fair this last week and completely forgot about it.  At least he was thinking ahead on what he's going to do if he can't re-enlist.  He's being smart about this, and I'm really proud of him.  He's pretty upset about being so far away for the amount of time he's got left in Germany, but I keep telling him “we've made it this long, we can make it this much longer standing on our heads!” 

He misses his kids...  The family misses him.  Honestly, what so many people don't realize is that we've got a generation of kids right now that losing at least one parent for at least a year at a time if not completely.  Regardless of how you feel about our country's foreign policy, you've gotta admit that this isn't healthy for marriages or kids.  But military families trudge along, dealing with separations, deployments, and homecomings.  I'm not going to say that the military deserves more compensation than they do – the economy's in the toilet, and military families are lucky to get what they do; what I AM saying is that those that say that military families get “too much” need to try the life of a military family, particularly the life of a family with at least one parent that's deployed and not yet at the rank of a higher non-commissioned officer. 

Why?  These families still qualify for government assistance, even with the “wealth” of allowances and benefits, while having to say goodbye to a spouse or parent more often than most would believe is fair.