Time To Breath Together Before He Deploys

In the crazy, busy, stressful days right before deployment, we found it completely necessary for our individual and family sanity for Daddy and all of us to take a break and stop rushing around for a few hours and just have some fun, relax and do something different.

The To Do list before deployment is massive and it's probably best to just realize it's never all going to get done before he leaves. We all make a good effort and get most of it done, but it's never going to all be perfectly arranged before he leaves. It's just not possible for us to control so many environments, other people, situations and tasks. We can't slow down the hands of time either and those days feel so rushed with the sense of a ticking countdown clock beating in your ears every waking minute.

So despite the fact that we felt so rushed and panicked, we learned that taking two, three or five hours to just stop all the craziness and go play and picnic on the beach or go to a movie or a long walk was just what we needed. Being out in nature seemed to be the very best thing we could do. It was so good to turn down the building anxiety and reconnect with each other. It relaxed us all, helped us feed that desperate need for together time before he left and gave us all a chance to collect ourselves before we jumped back on the high-speed, chaotic pre-deployment hamster wheel.

I am so glad we did, even though it seemed so scary to stop everything and not be crossing things off the To Do list every moment of every day before he left. The memory of the intense stress, fear, frustration and exhaustion have faded some, but I carry in my heart the sweet memories of those moments we took to love and enjoy each other, to calm the freak down and just be together. Those are the moments I will always remember and cherish most about our days before he left.

So the moral of this story is, when things get crazy stressful, it okay, in fact it's the best thing you can do, to slow down, take a breath, be in nature and spent time with your nearest and dearest. It will give you energy to continue the journey and give you sweet memories to cherish as you continue down challenging roads.