Stress and Urban Dictionary!

Just for the fun of it, I urban-dictionary-searched (or as I'll say..urbied) "deployment". I am loving the results:

1. Spending 16 months alone with my daughter while my husband is in Iraq, Afganistan, Korea or Germany. It is my husband missing 1/2 of our marriage due to his "duty" and endless readjustments when he is home. It is the cause of so much marital stress. It is the reason for so many nights spent crying and each day spent worrying.

But I just have to add my own little spin on that:

1. The 12 months spent trying not to throw a pity party, but doing it anyways.

2. The 12 months spent reassuring family and friends that you haven't just dropped off the planet, you're just worried about tying up the phone line or missing a vital call.

3. The period of time where you clean your house and it manages to stay clean just because there's no man to come barreling through the door and throw his socks all over the place.

4. The months spent feeling guilty about your secret enjoyment of being able to keep said house clean longer than 5 minutes.

5. A vague amount of time that keeps changing in length (12 months? 15 months? Only 9?), wherein you have to "hold down the fort"...nevermind that you've been doing that for years anyways. But this time you actually get credit for doing it.

Anyways, speaking in regards to that first definition "Spending 16 months alone with my daughter" I can't help but feel a sense of alienation. You see, we don't have any kids. It's not our fault either. We did not plan for that to be the end result. Our non-children are a mistake...a mistake I tell you!

But it's come to my attention that a large portion of deployment checklists, support groups, events, and advice is geared towards kids. FRG events are geared towards mothers with children. Even on-base classes and events seem to be more "mother-friendly" than "wife-friendly". Entering into a deployment with not even so much as a week-old fetus is actually a bit depressing.

I would love to be super mom (or even half-assed mom...or even just "mom" for that matter). I would love to be able to have that stress of taking kids to school, dealing with deployment as a family, and being able to have that momentary distraction. But I don't. We don't have any kids, so I almost feel like I don't even have a routine to return to. I don't have much of a routine to begin with since I've been out of work AND school for over 1 year, but whatever semblance of a routine I do have certainly won't be "returned to" anytime soon. I don't have anyone to take pictures of to send him. Nothing to occupy my time while worrying or spazzing out. And it seems like EVERY discussion between military spouses involves their kids, every event involves kids and parenting and kids and what to do for the kids and keeping things normal for the kids...

To be honest, it makes me feel like less of a wife. What do I even DO as a wife? It seems like these days I do a lot of web-surfing, TV-watching, random house cleaning and organizing, and microwaving. That doesn't stack up to what my husband does. I need something else...something to call my baby. Like volunteering, or a part-time job. Something that makes me feel less guilty about waking up at way too late to be considered "normal", and throwing some soup in the microwave and calling it "dinner".

But whenever I try to do that I am struck with the sudden fear of not being good enough. The prospect of even LOOKING for a job after being unemployed for so long is downright terrifying. What if they don't hire me? What if they do hire me but I start to hate my job? What if I can't do it? What if I don't get hired? What if I'm...fired? What if the schedule sucks? Don't even get me started on going back to school. I have a terrible track record with school and I know I really should finish my writing degree before DH gets out and wants to use his MGIB, but I just get so scared that I will stop going to class or that I will have no friends or that I won't make any friends or that I'll end up on academic probation again..just all these what ifs that terrify me. So I stay home and do "wifey" things, hoping for something more..like a baby. Something to give me the satisfaction of doing more than just hanging out at home vacuuming. Because as it is right now, vacuuming is about the only thing I can do really really well. And I stopped getting the gold star for that ages ago.

I need to earn a gold star for doing SOMETHING other than writing a blog that no one reads ;)