Deployment: 2 Weeks Down and it Finally Hit Me

I was wondering when it would finally hit me that he's gone, and it turns out that's what Week 2 of Deployment is for! Hear the one thing I'm missing, how a beer changed the course of an entire weekend, and a couple tips for the early deployment stage. 

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The Heart of a Milspouse Podcast is hosted by Jayla Rae Ardelean, Late Career Army Milspouse + Mentor. 

Grab your ✨free✨ deployment resource here: jaylarae.com/deploymentkit

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Episode Transcription Below:

Hey there, Jayla Rae here, and we are three weeks down in the deployment journey. And this week has been this past week has been a bit of a blur. And as I sat down to record this episode, I kind of didn't know where to start because unlike the first couple of weeks, nothing really noteworthy happened during week three to kind of anchor this conversation. However, there are a couple of things that happened. So I received my first brave crate. And if you don't know what that is, it's a monthly subscription box to count down deployments. And it was full of super cute things to do in the month of August. Every month has a theme. I highly recommend this. I've talked about using their deployment countdown chain as well to kind of mark the days, but this is a great way to mark the month and then to also set goals around the month. I'll include a link in the show notes.

(01:02):

If you want to check it out. I also went to the movies by myself for the first time, since I think my early twenties, I think I went to the movies like one time in my early twenties by myself. So this was a new experience. I got a free ticket during my birthday month and I thought, you know, what the hell I'll go and see something. And there weren't really many great movie options available, but I saw jungle cruise. I love Emily Blunt and the rock makes me laugh. So it turned out to be a great night. The day, however, was a bit challenging. And I think as I'm kind of processing it, I just think that all of my feelings about not getting the physicality of our relationship needs met right now, kind of came to a head and I broke down that day.

(02:00):

I'm just, I'm tired of the technology required to communicate and it doesn't really feel real and nothing is quite sinking in, and it's a really far cry from our usual intimate moments as a couple. I mean, am I glad that it exists? Yes, absolutely. And I'm also super lucky to even get the opportunity to text and video chat him when video chat is working, there were a couple of times this week where it definitely was not working. But it's not feeling authentic and I'm starting to get frustrated over that. So I know that I need to realign my expectations surrounding our communication right now, because I don't want to continually get in this pattern of feeling frustrated over what is available to us. I would like to get past this so that the next 11 months are not as difficult when it comes to communication.

(03:09):

So aside from that, I think if I have any words of wisdom from this week, it would be to challenge yourself to do something solo. I plan to go to the movies alone and by the time that hour of the day became, I was feeling really sad and frustrated, but I decided to go anyway. It was a free ticket. So really there wasn't any, there wasn't any like incentive to actually go, but I made the commitment to myself. So I showed up, I went and I totally stole someone's seat. Because someone had stolen my seat and then it was this whole chain reaction. And I moved twice throughout the theater in order to avoid sitting next to any other couples or like solo adventures because apparently Saturday night is a good time for solo movie goers. I was not the only one who was solo there. I was a little surprised. And both of the people I saw were males and I just was kind of, I guess I was just

(04:11):

Kind of confused. I was like, huh, Do people go to the movies alone now? And like, I don't, I don't know about this. So anyway -

(04:22):

So my challenge to you is to try something solo and whatever it is that you're missing doing with your spouse, whether that's going to the movies, going to the park, going out to dinner or whatever, just do it anyway, do it by yourself because what you're ultimately doing is building resiliency by doing that. You are proving to yourself that while it's amazing to do these kinds of things with your partner, it is not actually a requirement. It is not actually necessary

(04:53):

In order to learn more about your relationship or yourself. Cause this week I learned that I would rather go to the movies with my husband and feel embarrassed over how loudly he laughs then be by myself. But, you know, learning to appreciate the little things about him that make me just love him so much more was, was part of what I experienced this week. So think of something, think, you know, even going to dinner or going to lunch, if that's a little less a little less scary to you, do something by yourself and solo just to prove that you can. I also think that once you do it once, it's a lot easier to do it the next time, but you've got to get over that hump of doing it the first time in order for it to feel like much of the discomfort has passed. Am I eager to like go back and see a movie by myself?

(05:51):

I mean maybe if there's a movie that comes out in the next few months, and I know that I would really like to have the theater going experience then yeah. I'll probably go by myself. Eating alone is something I've always been used to doing, but eating dinner by myself is definitely different than breakfast or lunch alone. So I might try that and the next couple of weeks and, and see kind of what's open and, and scope things out. But yeah, I think that's really all I have for you. Definitely stay tuned for the next couple of episodes as we reach the one month timeline, the one month countdown, whew, one month that will just feel so amazing to have four full weeks behind us. So I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for listening. Bye.