Deep In the Middle

The second mile has always been the hardest for me.

When I ran cross-country in high school it was always the second mile of the three miles that really gave me trouble. My mind would start to push and push – slow down, walk, quit.

I’d have to push back with grit, will and determination.

Sometimes a deployment feels like a marathon. I tick the days off one-by-one in my little calendar and when I need a perk I flip back through the months of little Xs. What I have to avoid is flipping forward through the pages of clean white days.

When we first arrived in theatre, the guys here before us shared a funny little excel sheet called the “Donut of Misery.” It is a counter with a circle graph to help you while away the days (or hours, or minutes, or even seconds if that’s what you need).

One of the clever little pieces of programing is that the donut will tell you things based on how far along you are, yesterday my donut said, “Suicide is not the answer.”   Apparently, this part of the deployment is hard for everyone.

By this point you’ve set yourself up with a routine, you know your job, the people you work with, and have built your little home away from home.

You miss your family so much, but you’ve also been gone from them so long that they’ve now been actually living their lives without you, and you know that it will be challenging to plug yourself back in when you go home.

You look at photos of your 6-year-old who didn’t have front teeth when you left, and now he has two big beautiful corn-on-the-cob eating teeth.  

Your children are generally now noticeably taller in photos.

It isn’t much easier for the home front either. Jason and I both know he needs a break.  We keep reminding each other that we’ve got this…day-by-day.

If you’re me, you do things like try the spa and get some highlights and a pedicure (she cut my cuticles and I bled all over the place – lesson learned – don’t get pedicures in a war zone).  You try distracting yourself with movies.

One of the best cures lately has been the book “Happiness In this Life” – a compilation of writings from Pope Francis.

Care packages are little bits of glitter and happiness.

Our office has become downright wartime classy with lemongrass diffusers and jazz music playing.

I was getting incredibly tired of the same three workout shirts, so I bought myself a new t-shirt at the little mini-exchange here.  Even just a new and different t-shirt can make a world of difference.

When I think back to previous deployments, I can never remember the big chunk of the middle of the thing.  There are the nervous moments filled with anticipation in the beginning, and the joyous and happy homecoming memories – but this part in the middle never seems to play back in my head.

So here it is laid out on this blog post. The hard parts. Mile 2 – the part where you dig deep, adjust your pace, skip ahead to your favorite song – and plow through the crap.  Pretty soon you’ll be over the hill and cruising through the final mile.