Day 201: How am I?

I don't know the answer to that question. When someone asks me, "How are you?" I give them the automatic response of, "I am ok." I know I have talked about it before. Some days the response is true, other days it is not. Today, I just don't know if it is a true answer. In one way I am doing fine. The day wasn't overly stressful, the kids were mostly well-behaved, and I got some organizing done on the house this weekend. The other side of that coin is the fact that I am lonely. I miss my husband fiercely and to top it all off, I have been battling the homesick feeling for a while now.

So I am both okay and not okay, and the worst part is that I have no idea how to change that. Some people will say that you need a break, some "me time" to take a breath. That may be true, but the problem is that my problems will be waiting for me when I get done with my "me time." Nothing will have changed. I will still have a ton of laundry to be done, a house that needs to be cleaned, kids that need to be dealt with, and a husband still in harms way. I am sure that some time to myself would be good, but I don't think it will really help in the grand scheme of things. I think that is why I am feeling a bit hopeless, because I know that what is wrong cannot be fixed right now. What is wrong cannot be changed for the next 5 1/2 months, maybe longer depending on reintegration issues that come up. I am going to have to stay strong for the foreseeable near future, and there is no break that I can take from that. That is a little bit of a downer to think about, so I try not to focus on it.

Unfortunately, tonight is one of those nights that I can't avoid it. I want to be okay, I need to be okay, I am willing myself to be okay. Sometimes though, I can't fool myself. I am not okay. I am fighting feelings of loneliness, exhaustion, sadness, worry, anger, frustration, fear, and self-doubt all the time in order to keep myself upright and tell myself I can do this. I am a strong person, but there are times, like now, when I feel so weak and the one person that can help me or make me feel at all okay is halfway around the world. I know I will be okay. I know that today is just one of those days and that I will make it through. I know that taking it one day at a time is the key here and will get me through this deployment.