What an Analogy

I ran into a friend the other day while walking through the isles of Walmart. We played catch up a bit and I voiced some issues I've noted with this newest promotion. There have been days where he's questioned the whole thing, and days where I'm frustrated as all get out but I know me complaining isn't going to make his life any easier. The job is still there, the stress is still there, me bitching will just add to it.

Things will get easier; this too shall pass.

In the meantime, a short vent to a fellow Marine spouse who apparently knows all to well what I'm feeling was just what I needed. She offered the most horrible but spot on analogy and I've fallen back on it many a nights since. She said something to the tune of, "I feel kind of like a battered wife. I've just become numb to it all. Y'know, they get beat down so many times they just become numb to the whole thing. I mean, one day it's meetings all night and not coming home until the wee hours of the night or 'Oh, I'm leaving tomorrow for a month or three' or 'I'm about to deploy again.' It never ends, it's always something. I've just become numb."

It sounds like a harsh analogy and nothing compares to domestic violence, but I get it, the becoming numb to it. How many times do you tell your kids "I don't know when he's coming home, and he doesn't know either" or that they'll see him on the weekends because he's gone hours before they wake and doesn't get home until after their in bed? I mean, I've done deployments- more than my share and I've adapted pretty well if I say so myself but this is different. Although the end result will be another deployment it's different.

It kind of sucks. And even more, I feel shitty for bitching about it. I mean, how privileged are we? This is a goal people work so hard to accomplish, he's done it. And yet we/he/I bitch.


As a side note, In the midst of typing this my phone rang, time noted: 2034. He's calling to tell me he's on his way home. He's got to study tonight for a class he's giving tomorrow, pack for a hump and find a few hours to sleep before making his way back to work for a 0430 formation followed by the aforementioned hump.
I still vividly remember what it was like to be a young arty wife, him as a Lance Corporal - it sucked. It's completely unreal now.