How Does She Do It?

So my darlingly lovely friend, That Damn Yankee, wrote me a delightful bloggity blog post today, because she is awesomesauce. She’s getting back into the swing of bloggity blogging, and I was all, “will you come write with me because I love you and you're awesomesauce?” And she said yes. It could also be ‘cause I nagged the sh*t out of her.

Without further ado, I give you… That Damn Yankee’s thoughts of Army Wifedom:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I’ve been an army wife for eight-and-a-half years. I’ve been through deployments, and field exercises, and TDYs, and “Mandatory Fun,” and a whole bunch of random military stuff on top of marriage stuff and kid stuff.  I’m not bragging by any means, just lazily introducing myself to you.  During the midst of Army-related insanity I would post on my Facebook or various message boards I belong to. One of the boards is from when I was pregnant with my oldest back in 2003/2004. So these women have “known” me since I was a newly-pregnant, newly-wed, newly-Army Wife. I consider these women to be some of my closest friends.  And so many times I got the question from them, “How do you do it? I could never do what you do.”  Instead of a declaration about how I do it because I luuuuuuuuuve my husband I’ve decided to make a list. Because everyone likes lists. [Editorial Comment: Yes. Yes, we do. We really like them on Post-Its.]

So this, is “How I Do It.” Break it down, now.

·         I love my husband.

I do. And yes it’s cheesy and somewhat cliché but I’m with him because I love him.  In spite of all the crap that’s come our way, I love him and will stand by him (If you’re hearing The Pretender’s “I’ll Stand By You” in your head right now then I win.). Plus, I’m not the easiest hedgehog in the gaggle .  Blah blah give and take blah blah random 98 Degrees song lyric blah blah.

·         I make friends on the internet. [Editorial Comment: So do I. Don’t judge me.]

This simple task, by far, has been my saving grace even before I met and married the husband.  Picture it: Massachusetts 1999. That was the year I discovered message boards. In 2001 I discovered blogging (Live Journal RULZ!). I realized that I loved being able to say whatever I wanted and would get support from complete strangers. And ridicule. But let’s not focus on that. I liked the anonymity the web gave but in that anonymity came a type of familiarity.  These screen names became friends, and in some instances became family.  Take Wings for one. I met her on a message board when we were stationed in Germany.  [Editorial Comment: Told you. Friends. From the Interwebz. And also porn. Which is nice.] And Irish—met her too through the same board and we have been talking on the phone almost daily for the past four years. This past March we finally met.  Even if we hadn’t met, we’d still be family. My sanity, my comic relief, my child-abuse-prevention-hotline. My partner in inappropriate joking.

·         I laugh at seemingly inappropriate things.

You know that saying, “If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry”?  It’s totally true. I need to make jokes about everything—it’s my coping mechanism. And so when my eldest son was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome I made mention to Irish that “Well, if I have to have a kid on the spectrum, at least it’s on the good end.” I miscarried a week after my husband left for deployment number two and laughed at the insanity that, if he had come home at that time, it would’ve counted as R&R (he was two weeks into a 15-month tour). Irish mentioned that she was having medical issues and she has a family history of Lupus I started laughing and quoting House. (So as to not appear a total c*ck-dolphin she was laughing as well. It’s not like she was crying and despondent and I was mocking her. I’m an a**hole, but I’m not a jerk.) I have to find the humor in things or it would be very ugly. [Editorial Comment: Now do you see why I’m friends with her? Well, that… and the fact she has an enviable rack.]

·         I spend time away from my kids.

I have two boys, whom I love more than anything. They are five years apart which is a pretty good age gap (in my opinion). But they drive me nuts like no one else on this planet. And so to keep from completely losing it, I get away from them from time to time. Especially during deployments.  Even going to the commissary by myself is a fricking island retreat and so I try to get away from my boys as often as I can (which really isn’t that often).

·         I watch a LOT of TV.

·         I read a LOT of Chick Lit. 

·         I smoke.

·         I snark.

·         I cry.

·         I wait.

If there’s one thing we Army wives are good at, it’s waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for training to be done, waiting for the deployment to start, waiting for it to end, waiting for emails or phone calls. We wait for the homecomings and we wait for the "Knock at the Door." We wait for R&R. We wait for finance to adjust our Soldier’s pay.  We wait for the kids to go to bed so we can curl up with a book/reality TV/a jug of wine.  If being an Army wife could be summed up in two words those two words would be, “We wait.”

So there. I don’t have any magical super powers that make me able to live this life. I don’t love my husband more than you do because you “couldn’t imagine living that life.” I’m not better than you because I do live this life—I’m better than you for so many other reasons.  I kid. I kid.  Seriously though, there’s no real secret to this. The rabbit is in the hat the entire time.

[Editorial Comment: See? I told you she was awesomesauce.]