FADING...

Hello; Goodbye.

Well..

Isn't this just the saddest, most heartbreaking thing ever...

And what I needed the most..

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior moves. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

Mother Teresa

"God hasn't called me to be successful. He's called me to be faithful." - Mother Teresa

Who I am.

I am so blessed and thankful for the people who know me and who have stuck around to get to know me.  For my friends who have allowed me to show my sensitive self, and continued to accept me, even though I'm not that tough little broad I got out of the car as.  You all have allowed me to become who I always was and you have NO idea the amount of love and gratitude I feel towards you all, every day of my life.

For those of you who have been around long enough to know me, and have chosen not to get to know me.. shame on you. I am, for once, standing my ground and forgiving myself, to choose NOT to try and please everyone.  I am me.  I am a FANTASTIC wife.  A FREAKING FANTASTIC WIFE!  I stand by my man through hell and back.  You realize I said, "stand by," not, "I 'would' stand by," right?  That's because I HAVE DONE IT.  I love him, through sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, and I will continue to.  It wasn't a joke.  EVER.  It was always real... almost 5 years later, and we continue to prove that to you.

I am not asking for an award.  I am not even caring if you agree or disagree (that's over with), but I am saying one thing, and this is it: If you can't love me for me.. and appreciate what I do, then please do not expect anything more from me.

It's hard.

Let's face it... deployments are HARD.  Even the strongest military wives you know, have hard, and awful days. There are days when you can't imagine peeling yourself off of the couch.  There are days when the children just will not cooperate.  There are days when dinner gets burnt and hair just won't do what you want it to.  There are days when the dog poops on the best rug in the house and the cat claws (and ruins) a chair your grandmother gave you.  Then there's those days when your tire goes flat, or your car won't start... your dishwasher broke and your toilet overflows.

Face it, life is hard; Deployments are harder.

There are good parts too, though.  There's "you" time.  Sometime that us military wives, so RARELY get.  The time when you put the kids to bed and sit on the couch, and you literally have NOTHING to do.  It's a beautiful thing.  You can watch a movie that your husband never wanted to.  You can release your stress through a blog (hi!), you can read a book that you could never concentrate on before...

There's also the bond of military wives. You know, that girl that you barely knew a year ago, but now that you're both going through a deployment, you've realized your sisters at heart.  You can relate to each other on almost any topic and you call that person the second you have ANYTHING to say, to ANYONE.  You share your happy thoughts, negative thoughts, anything you want, and they don't judge you, because they have things to share with you too.  Yea, those are pretty amazing parts.

Over the next 8-10 months, I plan on sharing my ups and downs and all of the in between during a deployment.  I hope that it helps me to release some of my stresses and that it helps you all realize we're all alike, and we all deal with the same horrible, crazy, fantastic emotions.

Military Wives are sisters.  We should start acting as them. :)