Monkeying around...

Oh, their tears...saying good-bye!


Tonight my all four of my daughters and I made goodie-good-bye bags for the girls on the gymnastics team. We all enjoyed filling the bags for their friends. At the same time there were lots of tears tonight. I haven't seen my girls this emotional in a very long time. I guess I didn't even realize what these relationships meant to my sweet girls.

I took it for granted that since we were looking so forward to this upcoming move that the life we leave behind wouldn't be such a big deal! I couldn't have been more wrong. And oh how I wish that I would have been right!

The military life is very difficult in many ways. Most civilian people don't have a very good understanding of what it means to be a military "brat" (don't like the sound of that name, but it is what most dependant children are referred to as with no nastiness intended), or a military spouse. This life is very hard on families. The only consistency in our lives is that nothing is ever consistent!

It is once again taking it's toll on my sweet children. It is never easy to say good-bye to anyone that you care for and my children are facing the dreaded term good-bye earlier than they thought that they would. They are so sad. Tonight, for some reason (probably the good-bye bags) The river of tears began to flow.

As a mother, there is nothing more heartbreaking to me than when I can't make my children feel better. I hate when I can't just put my arms around them or simply kiss away the boo boos on their hearts. I hated the frustrated way I felt tonight of not being in control or being able to fix it for them. For that particular moment in time I couldn't see anything good about the military life at all. Not one "benefit" could I even draw upon to make this part of the military life good let alone balance out. Ughh!

When the children were little the transitions that we faced every 2 and 1/2 years were a breeze. The excitement of going some place new overshadowed any feelings of sadness about leaving. Also when they were little the attention span of their emotions was very short lived if that makes any sense. (it does to me, but I am not sure if I am conveying it here properly) I also think for now in this particular moment in time in their lives that it is hard to look forward when your sadness is blocking your view.

Oh sure these days will be over soon and we will be moving on, but for now I guess I will be giving lots more hugs and drying a lot of tears :( I have heard so many people over the years tell me how incredibly lucky we are that military provides so many benefits for its' families. I wonder if those same people who think that we have it made with all of our benefits ever consider that these supposedly wonderful benefits never seem to outweigh the negative side of this life. The side of that never lets you settle for any length time anywhere, or that you are separated from relatives, and at least one spouse during deployments. The fact that you have to say good bye to people before you can even make good friends most of the time and that if you do happen to make a friend you still have to leave them behind.

After 15 years in the military, I am still trying to figure out how to justify these benefits to myself and my family, never coming close to convincing myself. My family knows first hand that there are not nearly as many pros to this life as there are cons. But alas we have made a commitment and it would be stupid to throw in the towel after 15 years! So for now until retirement we will be nursing our heavy hearts and I will continue to wipe away the many tears that come from saying good-bye.