This Is How We Do It

As my husband’s unit prepares for their upcoming deployment, I am a hot mess of mixed emotions: fear, guilt, pride, sadness, happiness, residual anxiety from his last deployment, and most of all, relief.

Yes, relief.

You see, my husband was honorably discharged from service about four months ago, just as his unit was starting deployment preparations.

He isn’t going, but his battle buddies are.

My friends’ husbands are.

Our family is.

And it’s an awful feeling.

While my husband is readjusting to civilian life, traveling all over the state for his VA doctor appointments, and waiting, waiting, waiting for his benefits to begin (seriously, thank the Lord I have a good job), his battle buddies are training.

And preparing.

And packing.

And soon, they’ll be fighting. Again.

The other day, I was talking to one of my friends who is gearing up to say goodbye to her husband for the better part of a year again, and I said, “I don’t know how you do it.” I instantly regretted the words. They’re words I’ve heard all my life, and they almost always result in me mentally judo-chopping the person who said them.

I heard them when I was a single teenage mother with a newborn baby.

“I don’t know how you do it.” 

Well, I do it because I had a baby. Regardless of my age or my marital status or my financial stability, I do it because I have to, because being a mother is the most rewarding job on the planet, and the good far outweighs any bad.

I heard those same words again when, after seven years of wedded anti-bliss, I became a single mother again. This time, to two young boys, who I had to help adapt to their new life while also working a full-time job and taking care of an entire household on my own.

“I don’t know how you do it.”

I do it because I love my kids and because I decided that I’m worth more than what I settled for so long ago. I deserve happiness, and my children deserve to grow up in a loving home, even if that means there is only one parent there.

When my oldest son began suffering from seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 10, I can’t count how many people listened to me tell my story, their eyes full of tears.

“I don’t know how you do it.” 

I do it because my son has epilepsy. What would you have me do? Send him back? “Sorry, this one’s broken. Please send me a new one.” I’m pretty sure kids don’t come with a return policy. I do it because my child has a disability, the same way you would if it were your child.

Three years ago, I fell in love with a service member. For a long time, even right up until the day of our wedding, I had people telling me that I couldn’t do it, I shouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Good thing I’ve never been one to listen to others. When my husband deployed two months after our wedding, it turned into that old, familiar saying.

“I don’t know how you do it.” 

I do it because the man I love, my soulmate, the man I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with, is a soldier. It’s his job to deploy. Does he like it? No. Do I? That would be a no. In fact, please excuse me while I go have a nervous breakdown for the second half of his deployment. I do it because I have no other choice.

“I don’t know how you do it.” 

I hate that phrase, and yet, there I was, saying it to someone else. Even though I do know. She does it because her husband is a service member. She does it because she’s in love with a man whose job it is to defend our country. She does it because it’s what her life requires. Does she hate preparing her family for another deployment? I’m sure. Is it breaking her heart? Without a doubt. But it’s not like she has any other option. She does it because she has to, just like I would be “doing it” if things had worked out differently and my husband were deploying.

Like the saying goes, “you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”

When you love a service member, being strong is not an option—it’s a requirement. Military families endure more than most people can comprehend, so it’s understandable that they “don’t know how we do it.”

And if we’re being honest with ourselves, sometimes, neither do we.