Engage. Educate. Encourage. EMPOWER.
Like most people, 2020 did not take me much farther than my city block. My husband was deployed, and I was busy working. It was nearly impossible to take a vacation. One of our absolute favorite things to do together is travel. We’ve taken a trip to Europe every year since we’ve together—until 2020. My husband came home at the end of the year, and we dreamed of being able to travel again, but it still seemed so far fetched.
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One thing about my husband that surprised me was that he told me he enjoys listening to sad music. As he put it, he wants to “feel all the feelings that life has to offer.”
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A year is a long time. As I reflect back on my husband’s year long deployment, there are a few things that I found to be deployment lifesavers:
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What does being a military spouse mean to you?
I have asked myself this question several times. And as I continue my journey as an army spouse, the answer to this question continually changes. Being a military spouse is not an easy role. When I’m having a particularly tough day, I like to ask myself this question.
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It took about one minute after saying goodbye to my husband for it to feel like my entire world was turned upside down.
Living just the two of us and our dog in our tiny condo, I had grown accustomed to having him almost within an arm’s reach the majority of the time. We spent almost all of our time together, and once he left, I found myself doing our usual routine but becoming overwhelmingly saddened by his absence at every point during my day.
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The week before a deployment.
When I look back, I barely remember that week. By that time, we had done all the chores we needed to do to prepare.
We had our paperwork in order.
His stuff was packed.
We had our new phone plan set up…
We had done it all.
Months and months of brainstorming and planning every way possible to prepare ourselves, and we had finished.
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Deployments are tough—there is no way to sugar coat it. Being the spouse of a National Guard member, deployments are something that I never really thought about. I always assumed that they were something that happened to other people—people who were much better equipped to handle them.
But sure enough, I was wrong.
I feel like I blinked and found myself fist deep in a tub of cookie dough, crying, because my husband was being deployed. I read countless books and articles, and I played out thousands of scenarios in my head as to what it would be like. I thought about things, like missing out on celebrating holidays and special events, and the fact that I now would have to take out the trash and take the dog out late at night (my two least favorite chores).
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Hi, everyone! My name is Sarah, and I am so excited to be a part of AWN.
I grew up in a small southern New Jersey town, and I am definitely a Jersey girl at heart. I hate (no, despise!) pumping gas, I grew up living “down the shore” in the summer, I am picky about my produce, and I put jimmies (not sprinkles) on my ice cream.
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