Because I raised a real person...

The last few days, I've had a sort of epiphany - I've raised an actual human being, an adult. A child who has been confident enough to leave home and move to Washington state to go to school and be near his girlfriend. A child whose dream is to keep playing baseball, so he signed and committed to playing for a the best NAIA team in North Dakota at Mayville State University. He found a home for him and his friend to rent right near the school. He's taken care of everything related to the GI Bill so he can pay his rent and buy food (enough with the gas station hamburgers, kiddo.)

It's like someone hit me upside the head, and all of a sudden, the kid who Adam said is basically me, is an adult, paying bills and going to class. Before he left for Washington, we had been away from each other for maybe a few weeks for his entire life. (He went on vacation with Grandpa and Grammie.) He calls me every day, we text throughout the day, we FaceTime when he's not busy, but it's still not the same. I wake up from a nap in a panic, feeling like a horrible mother because I fell asleep, until I realize that it's just me here, alone.

My baby is a man. He has chin hair and looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He won't get a haircut because he says he's growing it out and then getting a mullet when he comes home for Christmas. I can't make him get in the car and take him to get his hair cut any more. I can't be hungry and say, "Let's go get something to eat, because you know I'm not cooking, and you're driving." Going through my first deployment without him here is hard. He's the one who makes me laugh constantly, like the time we were in Target in Savannah and he said, "Look, there's a cat down that aisle!" so I turned back around and looked. He was messing with me, which he learned from his father. One time we were at Wal-Mart, and he took a filter for a Brita and put it in the cart, nonchalantly, and said, "I need this for school." I kept walking until it registered in my brain that he was totally messing with me yet again. He may be like me, but he's also just like Adam. They love to  mess with me, and I love it.

We may not have the usual mother/son relationship - we shove each other around and tell on each other to Adam. We team up on Adam when he texts us on his Iphone 4 1/2 and each word is on a different line because his phone is so small he can't text in one sentence. We have the type of family I always wanted to have. The last 19 years have been the best of my life, raising my chubby baby into a toddler, to a kid who went to school, moved, graduated, and is in college.

Some days I feel lost. My greatest dream growing up was to be a mother and wife. I achieved it. Now Addison is off at college and Adam is deployed. I'm basically a dog mom who works from home and sits outside at night in the warm Texas night, reminiscing about the great times we had as a family, and the more to come. Some day I will be a grandmother (I hope Addison knows what he's in for if he actually leaves his kids with me and Adam).

I want the best for my only child, my son. I want him to be happy, I want him to earn a living wage and be comfortable and love his job, I want him to know that true love exists regardless of distance and time, I want him to know there's a God who loves him. I want him to put his toes in the ocean and feel the way I feel when I'm at the beach - the world is yours for the taking, Boy. Work hard, be honest, don't take any shit from anyone, and above everything, always be yourself, because you're one hell of a kid. I am proud to say I was part of raising you, because I'm proud of you every day.

Because That Day Finally Came...

The day finally came. Almost four months into the deployment, and I started ugly crying when I got into my truck in the grocery store parking lot. Maybe because I feel like shit because Texas has some mad-ass ragweed. Maybe because I missed a party with friends and a meeting with my fellow 3CR ladies because of my stupid body failing me again and again. Today was the day I lost my shit, and cried.

What the hell, Erin, do you go through life as a robot who doesn't cry? Sometimes. When and if I do cry, I get a little teary, then wipe my eyes and continue on, because I have to. I'm like anyone else - I work, I have a child, a husband, a home, dogs, responsibilities. It just happens that after 22 years of living the military life, I've hardened, because I had to. I make no apologies, ever, for how I feel. You cannot ever tell someone else how they should feel - to me that is the cruelest thing you can do. But you should be used to it, Erin, But doesn't it get easier with every deployment, but, but, but...the list can go on forever.

I can go days, weeks even, and feel good mentally. Of course the antidepressants help, but they don't suppress feelings, which I DO have. My husband is in a hostile country, and has been for each and every deployment. Don't tell me how I should feel as he's on his 16th combat deployment since 2001. Don't tell my husband I must be 'losing it' because I'm not used to a longer deployment.

Imprinted into my heart and soul are the wrenching sobs of the father I sat next to at his son's memorial ceremony. I will never get it out of my heart knowing that a wife was now a widow before she knew, or that a father lost another son before he knew. Military spouses are the strongest people I know, because we keep these things in our heart, and don't talk about them, until we need to. Some things haunt us, and knowing that on that day, someone's life would be changed forever, changes you. You feel guilty that your husband is okay. We volunteer to help the families in our units, because we care.

We all go through life as military spouses in so many different ways. This is my way. I fall apart one day and the next day I put the pieces back together. I have to, because that's my way. These are my feelings, and I'll always stand by them, because feelings don't lie. I'll wake tomorrow and remember two heroes, Jason Dahlke and Eric Hario. I'll think of their families that I know and love like family, and drink a beer with hundreds virtually for Jason.

I started writing this as a way to get my feelings out, because writing is how I do it. I let my brain work and my fingers type. Maybe I said too much, maybe I didn't say enough.

I'll be fine. I had my cry, I got it all out. My allergies will go away. My son will come home to visit at Christmas. I'll do what I have to do to get through every day, I'll be watching crappy Lifetime movies or reading a good book, because it's what I do.

"This life isn't fair
It's gonna get dark, it's gonna get cold
You've got to be tough, but that ain't enough
It's all about soul."