Celebrate, praise whatever God you worship, and grab a cold beer because FINALLY I can see the end of deployment. I’m about ten months in, and even though the dates for homecoming keep shifting, there is about a week span that we’re pretty sure Lucas is coming home! (That is the most army-wife thing ever- never knowing anything for sure so just ideas make you excited.)
One thing that happens towards the end of deployment is finding out a lot of your friends and neighbors are getting ready to send off their spouses, filling in your shoes and function alone for a year. I wish I could give them more, but in reality it can be very difficult. I spent weeks not knowing what to do at the end of every day, These are some of the things I did, and what I tell other spouses about. A note I want to mention as well though, I always remind them that it’s almost impossible to avoid the pity-party you experience the first few weeks. My advise- have the dang pity party. Cry if you need to, complain to your friends if it helps, and deep dive into Netflix as long as you want to. That phase won’t last forever, and once it’s over you can start with your ideas.
-Work out classes-
Alright, this was one of my favorite things for deployment. I went to four different yoga studios, but in the end I joined a gym that offered a variety of classes. I tried ALL of them. Zumba, pilates, spin, even an odd MMA-style class. I also want to mention that your MWR probably has lots of classes as well, mine had the yoga on the water classes I thought were quirky and fun. This is one of those things that translate super well to having things to communicate to your spouse. My husband also tried a few classes, and we would compare notes and build a plan of things that would be fun to do together when he came home.
-Streamline your Life-
Now, I could probably write a million posts about the details of things I figured out worked for me during deployment. What I’m trying to focus on here is one of the few silver linings of deployment: becoming more efficient. This happens because you have no other choice, but I welcome you to embrace it! When I bought my robot vacuum and found a dog food the puppos loved that could be delivered I would always immediately run to my phone and GUSH to my husband about how exciting it was. While Lucas was home I could manage the time to sweep, mop, etc. the house once a week, but when he was gone full-time working + parenting made that chore so much more difficult to get to. I know the temptation to get frustrated with how much more difficult getting to things are (trust me, I cried about mopping once) but I always wish I could go back and look at those issues with different eyes. Finding ways to make life work is so rewarding on deployment, and I was always proud of a new way to retain my sanity.
-Hobbies-
Okay, I will be the first to admit that I am no good at hobbies. I married a man who has a thousand things that interest him, whereas I just like food and my bed. When deployment started, after Leon went to sleep, I was lost. I had no idea what to do with that time. For awhile I just sat around, being sad. There is absolutely a time and a place for that, but it couldn’t be like that for an entire year. So I started small and bought a puzzle. Then I bought ten puzzles. Then I realized I did not want to do puzzles every night, so I explored other things. The gym occupied a lot of my daylight free-time, but after dinner was done I would be restless. In the end, I became obsessed with doing my own gel manicures (perferrably color changing polish) and skincare. I mean, I had a few terrible nail days and definitely had some orange hands after experimenting with self tan, but it was a good time overall.
