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How to roll with the punches so Deployments don’t control you
Remember that song by Steve Windwood? It is one of those songs where the chorus just sticks in your brain and you wish you hadn’t started humming it because if will be with you all day? That “you just roll with it, baby, come on and just roll with it, baby
You and me roll with it baby, hang on and just roll with it, baby.” The song you love to hate if your husband, boyfriend, fiancé is on deployment. How many times have you thought – oh I just have to “roll with it”. So many things of a deployment are so out of our control and yet in order to survive a deployment with our sanity we must find some trick to take control. How do you “roll with it”?
During my husbands first deployment to Iraq I learned a few tricks that let me take control of living without my best friend. I had to understand that I am just one person, that I have a need to stay balanced even though some days all I wanted to do was hide in bed or refresh my email every 10 seconds. I had to learn that my life here had to be as stable as I could manage in order to give my husband the support he needed. I needed to sleep, to eat, to work and to try and enjoy life without him here. I had to keep in touch with my positive outlook on life – to be happy, even on days where sadness just tugged at my heart. I also had to learn to handle everything – and to “roll with it” when unusual things were thrown at me. For me learning to “roll with it” meant getting back to that “single” person that was long buried. I needed to draw that strength of days gone by where it was just me, that self-sufficient independent self that could and did everything with out a “team”. Lucky for me she was still there. And she was strong. I had to rely on myself for everything. Sure I had friends and family that did support me; sure I could call the family readiness support group. But for me it was more important to show that I could “roll with it”. This was my deployment too. I wanted to conquer the toughest part of military life with flying colors. I wanted to succeed and show how strong I was. I wanted others to think “Wow” she has got it all together. I wanted my husband to come home and know that when he left again he didn’t have to worry about me. So what did I do? The most important part was to stay focused on some type of schedule. I knew that I needed to face each day normal. The toughest part of the schedule would be sleep. When you are in one time zone and your other is clear across the world in another sleep can be the toughest obstacle. I think a schedule can be loose or as tight as the person needs. Mine was a combination of both. My week days were scheduled pretty tight. I knew that in order to handle anything that was “thrown” at me I needed to be prepared. I knew that my house needed to be clean and orderly just like it was when my husband was home. I did regular chores during the week. I knew that if my house was a disaster and something was “thrown” my way it would be very difficult to focus on the problem if I was living in chaos. Each day after work I would make sure all the laundry was done, kitchen was cleaned and any room that needed dusting or vacuuming received it. I knew that when the weekend rolled around I would be free to do what ever I wanted. The weekend schedule was really loose. Weekends were for me. Whether it be shopping or hanging with some friends or just doing nothing at all. If I was thrown a “punch” during the week I knew that come Saturday I could deal and handle it. I learned that in less there was a true emergency anything could be done without panic. I wouldn’t allow myself to panic during the week because I knew that there would be time. Once I realized that I could use time as my friend instead of my enemy I became calmer. “Get on through it, roll with it, baby”
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May, 2012
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