Navy Wife. Nurse. Fur Mama.

A place for my thoughts on balancing my first deployment as a wife, being a new homeowner, building my nursing career, and giving our senior rescue dog a better life.

[casspauline]

T has been gone for about 9 months now and I’m getting so anxious for him to come home! I love hearing about all the friends he’s made & all of the places this deployment has taken him to. Although it’s hard to be away from home, it sounds like he is making the best of it. He is currently underway and I won’t hear his voice for 25 +/- days, but I’m grateful for emails. Things keep falling apart at the house, but it’s making me stronger.

[casspauline]

Buddy and I are keeping up on the adventures while T is gone. I work nights so on my days off I try to spend time with Buddy outdoors - he hates being cooped up! We found a new favorite walking trail along a lake near our house, we can’t wait to bring T! I find myself really missing him when Buddy and I are out doing something. Buddy always finds a way to cheer me up with his big personality and curious nature - he was sniffing around and realized there was water behind these rocks! He had to check it out! I’m so lucky to have him by my side.

[casspauline]

[casspauline]

I’m a Cardiac Stepdown RN at a metro hospital and I love my job. The thing I don’t love about my job is feeling replaceable. This week & next all of the metro hospitals in my area are doing informational pickets, our last ditch effort for a fair contract. Buddy and I picketed this morning wearing red shirts (our union color) to show solidarity. It was a great feeling to see all my fellow nurses come out and non-nurses joining us because they know how it feels to not be supported by management. I wish T was here to do these things with me .. especially if things don’t progress. He’s always been so supportive of my nursing dream & my career. I’m lucky to have his support from afar.

[casspauline]

[casspauline]

Back to Back

He has been on back to back missions out to sea lately, so we only get to talk on the phone for a couple days every 4 weeks. A lot has been going on with the house lately. We had water flood our guest room again & our chimney cracked so a bird flew in and Buddy murdered it trying to protect me. If you want something to break, send your husband on a deployment 😉 am I right? I feel so strong and accomplished with each task completed. I’m a badass woman! I fix each problem as it comes & I maintain the yard/house, while working 12 hr night shifts 💪🏼 sometimes I amaze myself. Buddy is well taken care of and we are doing just fine! We miss him everyday and can’t wait to see him, but we are managing while he is gone & that makes me proud!

[casspauline]

He finally called last night! It felt so good to hear his voice again! A lot has happened since the last time we were able to talk and I don’t think we will get through everything before he goes back out to sea (in 3 days unfortunately), so I’m just going to enjoy hearing his voice! He has sent me some amazing pictures and I’m glad he’s able to experience everything he has! This deployment has been a small blessing for personal growth.

[casspauline]

[casspauline]

4 months down.. 6 more to go. Not even half way yet.. there must be a bottle of wine around here somewhere!

[casspauline]

I’m hoping for warmer days at home soon because I’m losing my freaking mind. A deployment during winter months is a true punishment- time has slowed way down and we have more snow than I know what to do with! At least he has some better views finally!

[casspauline]

It’s been over 100 days since our last kiss - I am so sad lately. It’s crazy to think that we aren’t even halfway yet. I’ll be positive again tomorrow ..

[casspauline]

I’ve been so blessed to have this sweet boy to cuddle me during this deployment! I couldn’t imagine doing this “alone” 🖤 he always knows how to make me feel better.

[casspauline]

Has time stopped?

I haven’t posted in awhile because I feel numb. It’s been a little over 2 months since he left and it feels like 6. I can’t believe we are only 2 months in .. time feels like it has stopped. The #1 comment I get is, “oh the time will fly by before you even know it!” - I am here to tell you that is the most BS thing I’ve ever heard. I know they mean well but time is NOT flying by as I continue to live my life with my husband 5,000+ miles away. He is missing so much and it’s hard to keep him updated when our communication can be so spotty. I try to write things down so I remember to send them in the next email but things slip between the cracks and get missed all the time. I’m so grateful that he is in port right now so I can talk to him on the phone and hear that amazing voice. I couldn’t even be happy to see the 2 month mark because that also means we still have 4x that amount left. Some days it is unbearable to think about. I’m venting hard right now and this is the exact reason I haven’t been posting. Here’s to more wine, more dog cuddles, and 8 more f*^!ing months without him.

[casspauline]

“True love doesn’t mean being inseparable; it means being separated and nothing changes.”

- Unknown

[casspauline]

Meaningful Conversation

If you think about the different types of communication, it’s easy to understand why messages and meanings can be portrayed differently amongst different people. I’ve had text messages misconstrued due to the lack of inflection and tone in the message, therefore the reader created their own - even if it is completely different from how I wanted the message to sound. That’s why tone of voice is so important. T went underway on 12/16 and since then we’ve had minimal conversation. He has been working long days and only able to send a quick message before bed (usually when I’m sleeping for work), which makes it incredibly hard to connect. Don’t get me wrong, it warms my heart to see an “I love and miss you” message from him, but I’m really missing the deeper connection that comes from having an actual conversation (where the replies come sooner than HOURS later). I love and miss him so much - I’ve been staying busy to make time go by faster, but I have tears streaming down my face thinking about how little we’ve truly conversed this last week due to lack of time and a 7 hour difference. I’m grateful for any communication at all - so I’ll hold on to that. We’ve always been so great at communicating and taking the time to tell each other everything before he deployed, I think that makes this harder. I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t make me a little nervous that this will become our ‘norm’ - especially after his homecoming. I guess that’s something to work on and we’ll have to do our part to avoid that from happening.

[casspauline]

I’m not ready for “silence” again.. being able to talk and video chat with him this week has been so amazing. You never realize how much it means to HEAR someone’s voice when you communicate until you go awhile without it. His ship will be underway on our anniversary.. and it’s safe to say that I’m disappointed. I’ll hear more than once, “but you still get to talk to him through email,” and I’ll have to restrain myself from punching that person. I know other people are in worse situations.. an army wife just welcomed home her husband’s flag-draped casket for heaven’s sake, but I’ll be the first one to tell you that it’s NOT wrong to feel sad for your own situation. We are very blessed.. but I am sad because I’m ALLOWED to be. My heart breaks for that woman, while my heart also hurts because I’m missing T. I’ll probably shed a tear on our “last” phone call for awhile .. but I’ll smile each time I get an email because I know he’s OKAY somewhere at sea ⚓️

[casspauline]

After THREE weeks without hearing his voice, he called today! I am on cloud 9 and in all honesty I never thought I’d be this happy over a simple phone call. He sent me some pictures he took while underway and told me about life on the ship. I’m at peace today. Today is a good day.