Coping and finding a "sub"normal

I often wondered how families coped with the time apart from their loved ones during deployments. As I saw letters being closed and SWAK, the pride the little ones took in making sure the stamp was on "just right" ~ meaning that it was NOT perpendicular to the corner ~ and their names smudged almost beyond recognition before mailing them out, it dawned on me late one evening that it's a "subnormal". It's normal, but only under the surface. It's there, always lingering in everything they do. "They" meaning, mom or dad, whoever it is at Household 6 waiting for calls to gather everyone around the phone. Scooping up a poopy diaper in one hand, baby in the other as she trips to run to the computer when she hears Skype ringing her lovey's tune from the other side of the earth. It's the man who hugs his children, puts bowties in the girl's hair while wondering how he ever learned how to do it and why it matters so much that they match an outfit.

It's the grilling on holidays meant to remember those who serve, have fallen, or just those who have helped shape this great nation. The potato salad our son loves, because he IS his father's son. The finicky nature of the two youngest girls who love food, but definitely have their opinions on what is good and what is, well, not-so-good. It's Cameron's love for honey mustard dressing on his salad. This is ALL my subnormal. This is God's way of showing me John's existence in my life - EVERY DAY and in every moment.

I have lived as a military brat, married young and now am raising 4 children under the watchful eye of a daddy who is in a land far from home. The pride I feel in his sacrifice for our children to have a better future cannot be measured in magnets on a car, camo purses on my shoulder or ribbons on his chest, but rather in a more fluid measurement of peace and patience. I wait, because that's what we do at home. We wait, yet we continue to walk forward in our subnormal life. I keep feeling like I need a picture of a submarine inserted here: but I think you get the picture.

With the time that John has been gone these last few years, life has moved forward. We are walking along the same path, sometimes he leads and I follow and sometimes I lead and he follows, but we are always together. Yes, the distance between our leads may grow and then shorten, but we are always together - even if only held together by a can and a string as a means of communication.

I am frequently asked if I would change my life. I don't know that I would, because then it would be someone else's life and not mine. I live with the knowledge that I am not perfect and am probably way too open with my flaws, but it's the truth and it's honest. This is a hard life to live, it is not for the feeble or weak-minded. It is not for the woman who can't wake up without having someone beside her or tend to the babies nights on end alone. That woman CAN become a wife who is able to do those things. Military spouses aren't born with the ability to do this stuff, just as our counterparts aren't born with the knowledge of how to dial in a cannon or shoot a pistol - it is learned - practiced - perfected - and then lived.

I am in the perfecting mode of this life. Not MY life, but this life, the military life. This is my subnormal perfection. The smile on my face when my heart is crying. The cute outfit when my body screamed out for more sleep but instead I got up and put hemorrhoid cream under my eyes, covered them in white powder then some blush, don't forget the coffee!

It's ok to be angry at missing anniversaries and holidays, but those are days - not lifetimes and memories. It shouldn't take a special day to make one remember how special their loved one is to them. Valentine's Day shouldn't be the only day you get your SO a nice lovey card and flowers. Celebrate life, celebrate love, celebrate it all, every day - make that your new "subnormal" life.