Damon left for deployment yesterday – so yeah, that sucks.  In the pandemonium that has been our lives recently, I didn’t really have much opportunity to dwell on his inevitable departure.  A good thing, I think.  After all, it is what it is.  Damon deploys.  We go visit him at port calls. He comes home.  I totally got this!

So how did our first night of deployment go ? A little wired, I stayed up way past my bedtime.  I should know better.  At around 1:30 AM I was jolted awake  by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake.  Are you freaking kidding me?  An earthquake to kick off deployment for me?  I’m from Southern California.  Earthquakes don’t faze me.  At least, they didn’t until I was home alone in the middle of the night with a baby to worry about.  Panicked, I sprinted a whole 10 feet into the nursery to find Elisabeth sleeping, naturally.  It took me about an hour to calm down enough to go back to sleep (What if there are aftershocks!?!?), but just as I was drifting off, an extremely loud, extremely high-pitched beeping shocked me awake, heart a-racing.  The smoke detector. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?The detector’s battery is going to die at me in the middle of the night after an earthquake the first night my husband is gone!?  Of course, I can handle removing a battery from a smoke detector.  Sort of.  At our last house, this happened while Damon was away, and I failed to properly put the detector back together again.  I just left wires hanging from the ceiling, hoping we didn’t have a fire, until Damon came home.  I know, I know, I’m setting feminism back 50 years.  Whatever.

So in the spirit of last night, I give you the Top 5 Reasons Deployment Sucks (in no particular order):

1) I’ll miss my husband.  Duh.

2) My husband will miss watching and experiencing little Elisabeth grow over the next several months.  This is also an obvious one.  But now we’re getting a little too sentimental for this blog, so let’s move on.

3) Earthquakes.  What do earthquakes have to do with deployment?  Nothing, really.  Except last night reminded me we live in an earthquake hot zone.  I am clearly not rational enough to handle natural disasters on my own. I’m going to throw “volcanoes” in on this one, too.  Who knew Mt. Fuji was an active volcano?  Not this gal!  Hopefully it will have to courtesy to erupt at a time Damon is home so there will be someone in our household that remains relatively level-headed. Better yet, it can hold off till we move outta here in a few years.

4) I now have sole driving responsibility.  If we were in the states, that would not be a problem.  Here in Japan, that is a terrifying prospect.  I have another blog post coming about my driving experience in Japan, so I won’t go into details here.  But me behind the wheel = sweaty palms, spiked blood pressure, and lots of cursing.  No fun for anyone.

5) If anything breaks, I’m screwed.  And I’m not just talking smoke detectors.  I’m talking Diaper Genie.  That thing has broken (or I have broken it?) approximately 15 times.  I have been able to fix it approximately 0 times.  That contraption is not intended for use by frazzled, sleep-deprived moms!  I should probably be a self-reliant, resourceful, independent woman who doesn’t need her man to fix things.  Blah blah blah.  Normally I am self-reliant, resourceful, and independent.  But not when it comes to anything involving tools.  I can’t pretend to be who I’m not.  So I repeat, if anything breaks during this deployment, I’m screwed.

Now in the spirit of trying to be a glass-is-half-full kinda girl, here are the Top 5 Reasons Deployment Doesn’t Suck:

1) It is a great excuse to watch crappy television and gorge yourself on ice cream (which is exactly how I spent last night, pre-earthquake) and no one will judge you!  Except maybe all of you readers.

2) I can take as long as I want putting our house in order.  As Damon’s deployed soon after we received our house, we didn’t quite finish putting it together.  Damon is a major neat-freak and HATED our living conditions.  But now with him deployed, I can read the entire Hunger Games series instead of unpacking, and not feel guilty about leaving our house a mess.  (Not that I did that or anything…)

3) Online shopping, here I come.  Supposedly servicemen save a lot of money while deployed.  As the one now in charge of our finances, I feel it is my responsibility to make sure we’re still doing our part to stimulate the economy.  Plus, Elisabeth and I will want to look our best for Daddy/Husband when he comes home.  And maybe we should surprise him with some new decor as well.  Just a thought…

4) I’ve heard a lot of spouses talk about using deployments as a time to get in shape, as a goal to focus on during the time. I’m going to take the opposite route and finally attack some of those amazing desserts I’ve pinned.  Why not do that when Damon is home to enjoy the fruits of my labor?  Well I have a lot more time on my hands with him gone.  That is, if Elisabeth ever takes a nap longer than 20 minutes.  Maybe I’ll even try some of those DIY projects!  Yeah, you’re right.  Probably not the DIY stuff.  But desserts, yes.  Definitely desserts.

5) No more ESPN constantly on as background noise!  If only deployment had coincided with football season…

Well whaddyaknow.  I just got a call from Damon who had to fly off the boat and back to base for a few hours.  Supposedly he flies out tonight for good.  Which means tonight will be my actual first night of deployment.  I guess I’ll have to break out the Ben and Jerry’s again.

For all you military spouses – do you find anything positive in deployments?