Thoughts...

Do you as military spouses ever just sit back and think about everything you are leaving behind. All of the years and experiences with family and friends "back home" that you will never get to experience? Do you ever just think about how much you will miss during your 20 years or more away? I am just starting this journey but I cannot help but think those thoughts, I cant help but realize that my parents will be 20 years older then when we left if we do decide to make a full career out of this. My sisters will be in their 30s when we are done. All of that time will be lost, you don't get time back and I am finding that hard to deal with. Now, don't get me wrong I knew this is what we were signing up for. I also knew what we needed to do to get our family into the place we needed to be financially and where our health care is concerned well, we were seriously lacking in that area before enlisting, and don't even get me started on this further weakening economy. Who knows how long KS could have held out where he was working and the odds of him finding another job with what very little college education he had... well it obviously wasn't going to happen. We had exhausted every option we had. I still believe that this was the right choice for us, and in many many ways I wish we had made this decision years earlier, but God puts us where he wants us and I know that years before this would have never have been an option for us. Neither of us were at a place to "let go" so to speak of our family, ourselves, and in many ways our marriage. Not that we will ever let go of our marriage but what else could you call a deployment? You are sacrificing your marriage and family to go defend our country and all the people who are that 99% who are not serving in our armed forces. In a lot of ways I feel guilty for leaving my family behind, for leaving my sisters during their transition into adult hood without a big sister to look up to and to guide them. Without a shoulder to cry on and without a place to see refuge during trying times. I feel bad for making my children say goodbye to everyone they have ever known and for making everyone say goodbye to us and not being able to give them any idea of when we will get to see them again. My sister asked me this week if we will be home for Christmas, I laughed and said I have no clue when we will be home again. All we can do is pray that we will get stationed on the same coast as our family again, and if we don't... well we will deal with it and save up for summer vacations back home. This is the life we have chosen and no matter how much parts of it just down right suck it is a life I am honored to live. It is one that I will look back on and tell my grand-kids this is what your grandpa did and I will hold my head high and be proud even if I am missing years I may never get back with my family because at the end of the day I am still blessed to have my husband and my kids with me, and an amazing family back home who supports every decision we make. We have been blessed with such an amazing support system and people who love and care for us. People who do not resent us for up and leaving them, and for people who know that now as adults KS and I's family, this sweet and wonderful family of 5 that we have and hold so dear is what comes first in our lives. Our jobs are to raise our children the best way we know how and if joining the military is what we needed to do to give them the experiences and life we have dreamed for them to have then so be it. We can only hope and pray that at the end of the day the kids see the sacrifices we have made and they realize that we have done it all for them.