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The Wife on the Roller Coaster has done it again ... read this account of a lunch date that turned into something much more eye opening!

Our trusty Wife on the Roller Coaster once again reminds us why being a Military Spouse is an adventure!  Read on ...

Our friend and Blue Star Families contributor, Wife on the Roller Coaster, profiles The Home Depot Foundation's housing initiative for our military veterans. 

Military spouses have a distorted sense of normalcy. We think it’s normal to speak in acronyms. We think it’s normal to send Christmas cards to friends all over the world. We think it’s normal to pack up and move every two to three years. And sadly, most of us think it’s normal to live without our husbands.

My husband is home. The deployment is over, and our family is settling in quite nicely through the post-deployment stage of getting to know each other again. However, there’s another person who is greatly affected by the end of the deployment as well: my surrogate spouse.

At one point or another, most of us have relied on scientific theories to reassure ourselves that we’re normal. Specifically, stage theories break down events into categories and describe appropriate behaviors for each. These theories exist for most life-changing events: marriage, pregnancy, child development, even grief.

by Wife on the Roller Coaster I always wear a watch. And I have an annoying habit of repeatedly consulting it, regardless of whether or not I even need to know what time it is. Sadly, two weeks ago my favorite watch died, and because running errands with my rambunctious 2-year-old is restricted to only those essential to the upkeep of our household, I have yet to replace the battery.

by Wife on the Roller Coaster

I looked around my house. Bags packed. Kids anxious. Boarding passes printed. The scene looked entirely too familiar. But this time, it wasn’t preparation for my husband’s departure. It was preparation for mine. I was going on vacation.

Vacations are never easy to organize when you’re married to the military. Last year I altered our travel plans three times to accommodate my husband’s work schedule, until finally I had to book the plane reservations without him so I could squeeze the trip in before my son started school. But this year was different.

Deployments get a bum rap. Military spouses, including myself, share endless stories of loneliness, exhaustion, sadness, and that evil Murphy’s Law that shoulders the blame for leaky faucets and flat tires. I’m not saying that deployments aren’t tough on the loved ones left behind.

I’ve been writing letters to my husband, and I thought it only fair to write a letter to you as well. After all, you are currently the most omnipotent presence in my life. I can’t ignore you.