The Light Gets Brighter

During the long dark of deployment, I faltered, I stumbled, I fell. I cried a lot. I never truly lost hope, but hope got progressively smaller as the days stretched out, in what seemed an endless line.

And during the shadowy moments, when I would crumble, there was someone to remind me, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I clung to that, it got me through the tough days, and was there to brighten the good ones. And yes, there have been good days during deployment.

I had to make a life for myself, on my own, I had to find my own way, and slowly, day by day, I did just that. The life I have now, one of emails, messages, Facebook posts, Skype dates, will change all over again, and I will re-integrate into the us, and out of the me.

I stand on the precipice once again, between the deployment-me, the single mom, and the normal-me. The wife. I have no idea what life will be like now, with Layla on my hip as I sort through socks, put patches on ACUs, cook dinners instead of stopping at Sonic, and in the end, put us back together.

But I do know what I've come through… in a year I have; carried a child, and given birth to her, without my husband, I have balanced a checkbook, paid bills, sorted through family problems, balanced the needs and wants of friends over my own needs and wants, learned to sleep alone, learned to sleep with a baby on my chest, changed diapers, mixed bottles in the dark.

While I sat and wondered what it meant to be a Hooah, Fiercely Independent Army Wife, I grew into one. I learned to stand on my own two feet, when I did not want to, because I had no other choice, because I had to. With each crisis that blew my way, with each storm that I weathered, I learned about strength. Each time I tried something new, each time I did something I never dreamed I would, I learned about toughness. I created my own definition of the wife that I wanted to be, instead of waiting to be told what I needed to be.

The litany of things I have seen, weathered, and persevered through, as an Army wife, with a deployed spouse, that is my hat, I realize that now. I wear the marks of deployment, the gray hairs, the wrinkles, the extra weight that I can not blame on the baby, with pride.

I survived my first deployment.
I survived my first deployment while pregnant.

And now, as I sit here, I can count days. DAYS. Instead of months, instead of weeks, I can count the days. The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter with every passing second.

~Jennifer