In all honesty, though, my impatience has worked in my favor. When I wanted something, I went for it with tenacity. And that includes relationships (romantic or otherwise), my career, and occasionally material possessions. I’m not saying I’m some model of ethics, but if I wanted something I wasn’t about to wait around to attain it. I simply found a way, (legally, at this point) to obtain the treasure I sought.
And all this was working out for me quite well until I met a veritable opponent:
The United States Military.
And therein lies the proverbial rub-the military doesn’t care one bit if I’m impatient. Impatient for orders, impatient for where I’m going to be living, impatient to get my husband home safely.
When my husband and I married, we spent one week together before he embarked on a seven-month deployment. Two-thirds of the first year of our married life was spent on separate continents.
The scary thing is-that makes me lucky. I’ve read stories of couples in the military married four, five years that have only clocked in about eleven months together. Unlike the gym of my elementary school, I can’t just walk up to a frustrated and overwhelmed Executive Officer and inform him that, “guess what? When you weren’t looking, my husband completed his seven month deployment, so it’s time to send him home with me.” Even if I stand behind him or her at the dinner table, he or she is probably not going to budge. No matter how much I sigh or bark or whine.
This frustrates me to no end.
I have witnessed spouses stand behind deployments with pride, finding peace with their partners being gone, knowing that the sacrifice is well worth their pain. Boy oh boy do these individuals have my admiration. I look up to them, really. But, I’ll be totally honest with you-I am not often that spouse.
