Recently I had a conversation with a fellow female soldier. She too, is a mama and so I thought it might be time to get some things off my chest. I had kept my emotions inside long enough and I felt sadness creeping in. The past week I have only spoken to people to directly answer the questions that were asked of me about my job or impersonal conversations. Nothing else. I live in a tent of 26 females and I went 4 days in a row without uttering a word inside that tent that was not work related. Two of those days, I literally said NOTHING inside the area where I work because I just didn’t know how to say what I had to say. I vented to this female just to clear my thoughts and she said she was experiencing the same things. This gave me some relief just knowing I am not alone in this.

I canNOT begin to tell you how many times I have been asked how I can leave my children. Most people say this in a very loving way, but there are some(close family) that say it to pretty much call me a bad mom. There is no way to explain the way this thing works. It’s a calling that you either have or don’t have. I don’t see people asking missionaries who leave their children these same questions. I answer with a quick response and then change the subject. I can’t explain it and they just won’t understand, so there’s no since in dragging it out.

I take the time to go on Amazon and order little gifts for my girls. Just so they get a happy in the mail from their mama. It’s not the same, but I know their eyes light up when they see mama thought of them. Amazon has kinda become my best friend while here. I’m mama so I’m the one who holds it all together. I organize birthday parties when I’m at home and buy the presents that they will like and also I am the one who just knows when she’s having a bad day. So I take every step possible to make up for the hole that they have in their lives while I’m away. They are so important and they deserve to know it with every chance I get.

The hurt is very real in my heart as well. I have committed my life to caring for them with all I have in me. I simply feel so sad at times that I literally ache in my chest and just want to call it quits. Anxiety adds to this tremendously and also the feeling that I am completely alone here. I don’t have the friends that I had last deployment and it has made things very hard to cope with.

 

Today is a bad day and I want to go home.

MY PEOPLE ARE THE BEST PEOPLE