I have been sitting here today, chatting with some great "virtual" friends. I call them virtual because we have never met. We talk on Facebook, Twitter and through our blogs. My husband deployed last April and came home as scheduled in Nov. Everyone knows those months in-between the leaving and getting home are incredibly stressful, emotionally draining. Even when things go as planned it is hard and when bumps in the road happen along the way it becomes even more stressful. Right before my hubs left this last time I decided to check in on my defunct Twitter account I never used, never really understood and decided to give it a chance. I can't even remember how it happened but I decided to search for the term, military wife. Well there were tons! So long story short, I met a lot of great folks in the first few weeks before hubs even left, and some of them literally kept me sane through the following 7 months. There is something comfortable about chatting with someone that "needs" nothing from me, who I can talk to with no fear of being asked a favor, "can you watch the kids?" , "can you pick me up to go to the commissary?" and all the other things friends ask when sometimes all you need is a, "how are you doing today?".
So this isn't really about that, this is about how I was thinking of my mother today. My mother who watched my dad go off on a ship for somewhere in Asia (as she would find out later it was Vietnam), not sure where but needed to go anyhow to be with his "buddies". I thought of my mom, knowing nothing and living in Philadelphia since she had 2 small children and wanted to live close to home while my dad was gone and her being utterly alone. How hard that would have been. No one to talk to, no one to share similar experiences with. How when I got up in the morning I had at my fingertips a whole network of people that were available to listen to me and to tell me when it was OK to feel bad and when to get over myself. She didn't have that.
I feel lucky for the people I have met, that know me somehow better than a lot of my "real" friends. I wish my mom would have had that.
4 comments:
I so agree that spending time with others who "get" what you're doing is so helpful! Even if they are just "virtual" friends. I understand that some people are more comfortable around family during a deployment, but for me...give me my fellow military spouses. We've all been there and we really DO know how it feels.
You got that right, it is definitly something you have to live to know.
Oh man, I'm so thankful for you and my other Twitter pals. I'm pretty sure I'd have gone completely bonkers during this deployment without y'all! I have no idea how our ancestors did it with zero communication.
I think about that a lot too, how past military wives must have felt so all alone unless they had a support system right around them. Since we are stationed at a very small, joint air base I have more support from other military wives online then I do in the same state.
how did people get by without twitter?!
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