"Normal"

It's been such a long time since I have actually wanted to sit down and let my mind pour out. There have been so many negative people in my life lately that I've had a hard time letting the weakness shine through at all. I'm trying so hard to stay strong, stay solid. Even when my guard comes down a little bit I get someone to tell me that I'm bitchy, weak- that "I knew what I signed up for". I get so tired of it, its unreal.

I do know what I signed up for- this is something that I have loved. For 7 years- this has been my life and I have never once doubted our decision. I have traveled to amazing places and meet amazing people. I have been apart of groups that made differences long after I was no longer there. But here- it's been different. I know that a lot of it has to do with the deployment- but the negativity that other army wives exhibit towards one another has baffled me.

All of that I can get over and I have. I have found other places where I'm needed and wanted and where I'm not judged and that feels wonderful! I started volunteering off post and became emerged in being a mommy again- something that was hard to do with my previous job. I'm able to enjoy them. And most recently I got a job at the child care center on post. It's a job I have always wanted but because of the cost of child care it was always impossible.

What has really been bothering me is all of this is happening without my husband. I hate the idea that I have built this entire life without him. I feel like he's going to come home and wonder where he fits in. That's something that it heart breaking to me. To think that this person, this man that has been my entire world all of the sudden is no longer apart of it. And yes I am aware that he will come home and we will get back to "normal" I just can't help but to be saddened by the fact that so much of our life together is on mute and that when he comes back there will be pictures he is not apart of. There will be memories he will not be able to share with us. There will be new traditions, new skills developed in the kids and new interest of mine that he wasn't there to experience.

So my question is- how do you get back to normal? How do you make him feel at home in a place that he has never considered his home? How do you pick up where you left off the previous year?