Day 34: I just do

Today was a good day, the key was being busy. I felt productive. I went to PWOC again today. I got to talk to some friends and meet some new ones. Heard a message in our bible study that hit home. After PWOC, I came home with the kids, had lunch, and did some organizing while my son took a nap. I then watched three kids for a "friend of a friend" who I think is going to be a friend soon. We are just getting to know each other and I think it will be another new friend here in this new place. Her kids and my kids played really well together and their ages match up really well. We all had dinner together, they went home, my kids got to watch a little TV and then they had an early bedtime.

Yesterday, I wrote about why I do it. Well, today, I am going to answer the question I get asked by, mostly, my civilian friends: How do you do it? How are you able to sit at home while he is gone for a year? How can you stand the stress of doing it all by yourself and the constant worry for your husband? The truthful answer is simple: I just do. There is no magical gene or physical attribute that makes an Army wife strong enough to deal with a deployment. We just made a choice. We fell in love with a soldier, accepted the job he has to do, and told him we will support him.

I remember the day my husband asked me what I thought about him enlisting in the Army. That day, I was an ordinary woman, engaged to this amazing man. I wasn't an Army wife. I didn't have that strength. I didn't know how to live without my family. I had lived in the same city my whole life. I was terrified of everything: the uncertainty of moving, the deployments, the distance from my "home." He was joining in a time of war. It was scary. I didn't know where the Army would take us. At that moment, though, I became an Army wife. I told him that I support him in whatever decision he made. I said that I understood why he wanted to enlist and told him I would follow him anywhere the Army would let me and be waiting for his return when the Army wouldn't allow me to follow. He later told me that my support of him enlisting showed him that I was in it for the long haul and that it meant a lot to him that I was supporting him when others were not so supportive. He knew that with my support he could do anything, he could defend our country and serve the way he had always wanted to serve. That is what makes an Army wife. That is how I do this everyday. I simply do because I love my husband, support his decision to defend this great nation, and I hold down the fort at home so he has something comfortable and loving to come back to. I just do.

One more day gone... One more day closer to seeing his face again and holding him safely in my arms.