Thankful

Friday evening at 8 pm Adam left for Fort Bliss.  What a strange feeling it was dropping him off at the Kilgore Armory for the last time knowing that we would not see each other for about 10 months.    The actual drop-off  happened so quickly that it almost felt like I was dropping him off for another day at work.  

"I'll see you at 5."  

I pulled the car up in front of the armory, Adam quickly unloaded his gear and we shared a good-bye that lasted only a few seconds through the driver side window.  I yelled after him noticing two bags he had left in the car and asked him if he had forgotten them.  He walked back, shook his head, and leaned in to give me one final kiss and then he was on his way again.  Next thing I knew I was starting my solo journey back to Austin.  To my surprise my eyes stayed dry for the entire four hour car trip.  I felt guilty thinking, "What is wrong with you?  If at any moment this year you are going to break down this should be the time."  Yet it never came.  Instead, strangely enough, I felt a sense of relief.  Not because I was happy that Adam was leaving or because I was happy that I wouldn't see him until next year.  God knows that I miss him and worry about him every single day that we are apart.  But I felt a sense of relief because the countdowns that had plagued this entire year up until this day were finally over.  

On Friday the only countdown that I had been looking forward to all year had finally begun, the countdown until Adam gets home.   

There was also one other critical piece that kept me from falling apart after leaving Adam, and that was knowing that I had a tremendous family waiting for me back home.  Even though bad days come and go I always know that my family is never far if I need them.  They have been nothing but supportive of Adam's career and of our relationship.   They made sure to reschedule their busy lives so that they could make it to the mobilization ceremony, they listen to me, whether they want to or not, when I need to vent, they hug me when I need some extra loving and my brother has been incredibly understanding and flexible as my boss knowing how important these last few months have been for Adam and me.  Not once have I ever felt that I could not lean on them for love and support.  With the addition of Adam's family in my life I feel beyond blessed.  Honestly, I hit the jackpot.

From the moment that I met Adam's parents and his siblings last December they made me feel like I was a member of their family.  Cathy and Rosendo warmly welcomed me into their home and I was immediately invited to family events.  After making it back from Kilgore on Friday I spoke with Cathy on the phone and she reassured me that I would be seeing them often.  She told me that I was always welcome at their house even if that just meant me coming to Georgetown to spend the night, and that Rosendo would be calling me to meet up for lunch.   This made me so happy.  Not only have I become close with Adam's parents, but I am very happy that I have become close to Adam's siblings and even his aunts, uncles, and cousins, too.  I am thankful for each and every single one of you, because at a time when it would have been easy to part ways and see each other infrequently you all have already made it a point to see me often.  

As I headed back to Austin this afternoon after spending yesterday in Georgetown with Adam's family it struck me how lucky I am to have been intertwined into all of these extraordinary people's lives.  With that being said, I want to take a moment to say to all of my friends and family, new and old, near and far, that I love you all, that I am so thankful for the relationships that we share, and that I am so grateful for all of your love and support that you have shown me and Adam.  It has been a crazy time in our lives but having you all around has made it much more bearable.  

Because of you all I am going to bed tonight feeling thankful.

Our Last Hours

"Finally, after months of preparation, changes in deployment dates, and what seems like an endless trudge to the slaughterhouse, the deployment arrives.  The weeks and days leading up to this feel like a loss of color-- everything I see is in shades of gray." -- Angela Ricketts, No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife

Hectic, emotional and draining are the words I would use to describe this past week.   Monday evening and Tuesday morning were spent running last minute errands, unloading Adam's truck, which looked like a mini tornado had passed through, doing laundry, making calls, packing, repacking, and trying to make our last night at home together as normal as possible.  We dropped the boys, as Adam likes to refer to our pups, off at my mom's house Tuesday morning and headed to Great Clips for Adam's haircut.  This has become one of our weird little rituals that we share on days that Adam leaves town for trainings, because it is always during our last hour spent together.  Then it was North to Georgetown and over to Fort Hood to purchase a few essential items for the deployment.

We ran around Fort Hood like headless chickens comparing bags at different stores and remembering last minute items.  "Oh shit, I forgot this," was the most commonly used statement throughout this "quick" stop.  We finally got back to the car after Adam purchased an Otter Box for his laptop, which I said and knew would be too small, only to try it out and realize that we needed to go back into the store to exchange it because guess what...it was too small!

Adam, this is your reminder to always listen to me, because I am always right.  

Finally we made it on the road to Kilgore around 4:30 in the afternoon, making several necessary pitstops for food, coffee and restroom breaks.  After what seemingly felt like the longest 4 hours we finally pulled into Kilgore around 9:30 and headed to the armory for a quick check-in.  Then we headed to our new home, the Holiday Inn Express.

According to Adam's orders he should have left for Fort Bliss early this morning.  After a bit of confusion the departure date, we believed, was changed to early Saturday morning.  Now we know that this information was incorrect and that he will definitely be leaving tomorrow evening with the rest of his guys.  Unfortunately the uncertainty and last minute changes are not surprising at all and honestly I have not had my heart set on a certain date because I knew that it could change at any time.  Tonight and tomorrow will most definitely be hard but I feel lucky to have more time with Adam, even if that means for only a few more hours.  

So as of now I believe we have reached the so-called calm before the deployment storm during which we will spend our final 24 hours together.  Yesterday Adam had to work an incredibly long day at the armory from 6 AM to about 10 PM with a couple breaks in between, during which he so thoughtfully brought me breakfast and dinner.

He's a keeper!

Luckily, today he will be getting off earlier as we have the Kilgore Send-Off event this afternoon at 4 PM for his Battalion.  This means we will be able to enjoy our last evening together.  I am not sure how tomorrow will go and honestly I'm trying my best not to think about it too much until it is absolutely necessary.  For now I just want to focus on spending the last few hours that we have together as best we can.  

I would really appreciate it if you all would keep Adam in your thoughts and prayers as he travels on an 11 hour bus ride to El Paso tomorrow.

     

Mobilization Ceremony

T-2 days until Adam gets home.  T-6 days until we head northeast for Adam to report for active duty.  T-8 days until Adam leaves for Fort Bliss and we say our goodbyes for the next 10 months.  The final countdowns separating us from the reality of deployment are approaching rapidly and there is not much we can do to slow them down.

It has been easy for me during the past 5 months to get caught up in the "woe is me" mentality as I have been preparing myself as best I can for Adam's departure.  I have had my share of days that I do not want to get out of bed as a result of him leaving for two or three weeks at a time.  These are days that I do not want to do anything.  All I want to do is sleep and let the sadness engulf me.  The question that constantly crosses my mind during this time is, "How will I make it through 10 months if it feels like I can't even make it through today?"  Thinking about these feelings as I am writing makes me cry because I know that these emotions are waiting nearby and will certainly be back next week.  But today has been different.

Today Adam's parents, Cathy and Rosendo, Adam's sister, Gaby, my parents, and I traveled to the small town of Gatesville, Texas for a mobilization ceremony for the 3rd Battalion 144th Infantry Regiment also known as "4th Texas."  The ceremony was comprised of over 800 men and women who will be deploying to the Horn of Africa in October.  As a part of the Texas National Guard these men and women are not only serving voluntarily but they have regular 9-5 jobs along with the responsibilities that many undertake as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, etc.  They give up weekends that you and I take for granted in order to train, they spend evenings after long days at work to make sure military deadlines are met, and the greatest sacrifice of them all is that they selflessly put their lives on hold to deploy and serve their country.

Even though I was unable to pick Adam out of the 800 men and women during the ceremony (who knew it would be so hard to find a single person in a sea of camo!) I instantly felt overcome with pride as they marched onto the football field.  My person is among less than 1% of United States citizens who have chosen to serve our country.  Nobody forced him to sign up.  The military was not his only option but he pursued it because he wanted to.  Adam is not in it for the praise or to gloat and in fact I learned this quickly on one of our first dates.  At the time he was living in Georgetown but was working at Camp Mabry.  We planned to meet in downtown Austin after work and when we did I noticed he was still dressed in his uniform.  He told me that he had forgotten his regular clothes at home (which was at least an hour away with traffic) and that he wanted to go to a clothing store to buy a shirt and jeans.  I asked him why, secretly loving that he was in his uniform, and he told me that by wearing it out in public he would be approached by strangers offering their thanks or even offering monetary gifts.  Adam is by no means ungrateful for the support shown to him, but even these small acts of gratitude made him feel uncomfortable because as he saw it he was not deserving of this attention.

Funny side note: That night at Allen's Boots a man graciously left money with the cashier to cover the costs of Adam's clothing.

Ultimately today and many days past have shown me that the anticipation of deployment may be hard at times but that I could not be luckier to have the opportunity to love and support a man who is the definition of altruistic.  He may not believe that he deserves recognition and gratitude, but he does.  I know that the adventure that Adam is about to embark on is much bigger than the sum of our relationship.  We might not ever know all the ways that his deployment ultimately shape and impact our community, but I know for a fact that it will.  Today's tears are tears of joy and happiness and pride.

Pre-Deployment

This blog started out as a way that I could share my photographs with friends and family, which I haven't done since 2014-- so clearly that's working out.

Things have changed quite a bit since the last post. 

I am no longer 24. 

I am no longer living in Eugene, Oregon.  

I am no longer taking quite as many photographs of my dogs.    

And I am no longer studying Russian, although that wouldn't be such a bad idea now.  

Currently:

I am 27.

I am living back in my hometown of Austin, Texas.  

I am the momma of pups Tucker & Augie.  

I am working as Director of Media for my brother's two bars in downtown Austin.  

I am dating the love of my life.  

And I am preparing to conquer a 9 month deployment.  

Deployment is still a month or so away but with drill, classes, and annual training I have slowly but surely become acquainted with the mistress (a term for the army coined by Angela Rickett in her book No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife) and the ups and the downs that accompany her.  Coming from a family who has no ties to the military, other than to the generation who honorably fought in WWII, it has been an eye-opening experience to dive into this other world.  

During WWII everyone was touched by war, directly or indirectly.  No one escaped.  Whether that meant dealing with a deployment, facing the death of a friend, or having a mother leave the house to jump into the workforce, no one survived WWII unscathed.  Today that couldn't be farther from the truth.  We, as US citizens, are so far removed from war and the daily impacts that it has on individuals and their families.  We have the ability to turn it on and off.  We don't deal with shortages in the grocery stores and there are no national efforts to come together to support our troops.  Consequently, we rarely think about those who are deployed, what that means, and what that actually looks like day-to-day for the individual deployed and for the family of that service member.  We catch the nightly news, and see a 1 1/2 minute sound bite about a helicopter that has gone down in Hawaii or a story about a Navy Seal who has been killed in an operation, but do the realities of these tragedies truly sink in?  Are we genuinely affected when these stories air or do we move on seconds later to the next thing that has popped up on our Facebook Newsfeed?  We take for granted the fact that we have the freedom to be outraged by a different story every five minutes.  Meanwhile the service members who are putting their lives and the lives of their families on the line to protect the liberties of you and me are rarely given the recognition and positive thoughts they deserve.  

I, myself, know that I have been guilty of all of these things.  That is until 9 months ago when Adam walked into my life.  

When he told me last December on our third date that he would be deployed later the next year I really didn't know what that meant.  Not that I didn't know what a deployment was, but I really had no idea what a deployment entailed and what the reality of a deployment would mean for our relationship and the two of us as individuals.  All I knew was that I really liked this guy and I wanted to see where our relationship would take us.  Deployment felt like years away.

Here are a few things I was completely oblivious to before dating Adam:

I had no idea that a deployment didn't only include the actual time that Adam would be overseas but also the time that accounted for training and mobilization.  I didn't realize that two weeks apart could mean a total of 15 minutes on the phone.  I didn't realize that travel plans could change at the drop of a pin, or quite literally at the the answer of a phone call.  I didn't realize that we might only have 57 hours together between obligations.  I didn't realize that departure days would be so stressful and that during the days following I would feel so low.  I didn't realize that the anticipation of deployment would be so emotional.  None of this did I realize until now.   

Now that I have come to terms with a few of the challenges that face us, I recognize that I will need an outlet during this next year.  Long story short this blog will be the landfill for all of my feelings during the next nine months.  I may write often or I may write only once every month or so depending on how I feel.  Follow along or don't, but this will be a space for me that I know I will need.

  

Eleven: Elijah Bristow

Ten: The Best of Tucker

Nine: Sleeping, Staring, and Selfies