I'm not fine.

Do you know that scene from Encanto where Maribel watches as her entire family (sans her) takes a picture together after Antionio gets his gift and she starts singing that she's totally fine?

Yes well...that's me. Except fast forward to the part where she's honest with herself because she is, in fact, NOT fine. And neither am I.

Now, family and friends please DO NOT rush to text, call, come by, or send smoke signals (seriously on that last one, this is California...we don't need any fires). Most days I really am fine. But when your husband, your best friend, your partner that you lean on for strength and serenity in the day-to-day crazy that is your life is deployed with only several weeks' notice and you have to mentally readjust the next 6 months of your life to entertain and keep emotionally calm your 4 kiddos who just went through this last year, it can take its toll.

Starting in January, my husband was going to be super busy, like 7 days a week busy. He told me ahead of time to prepare me and to make sure we set aside time each month to do a family activity and a date night activity. My mantra starting then was, "Just make it to June." Then April rolled around and, well, I now have a new mantra and it rhymes with, "The military can kiss my a**" (I'm only partially kidding).

I am 'mostly' kidding because really, my husband deploying again was SUCH a great thing for him and when he sat me down and told me the details about it, I was the one without hesitation to tell him he had to do this. And I would do it again. However, it does not make the days, weeks, months at home with our children any less stressful.

I do have a few things going for me.

1) It's summer break (Thank God!) The last deployment was over the holidays and, well, you can imagine how fun that was for all of us. The kids can stay up later, sleep in, there's no alarms that need to be set, no school pick-ups or drop-offs, no sport practices or games running our weekends, dinner can be pizza multiple nights a week...it's great. Plus...summer always seems to fly by so, fly baby fly.

2) I have an AH-MAZING tribe of friends here. My neighbors and my kickball ladies are here to give me adult conversation, to drive me to drop my car off when it needs work and I need a ride back with my youngest (sorry the pick-up took so long Erin lol), to help watch my kids if I have a doctor appointment, and literally anything I could need they are here for me. If there is one thing that I cannot praise enough about being a military spouse, it's the connections you form with other spouses and the ability to create fast and strong bonds of friendship that are just so genuine, it feels like they should have taken years to create. I have had more get togethers at my house with my kickball girls in the past two months than I have I think the past two years we've lived here. I love my tribe.

3) Family visits are always a good way to count down the months by giving us something super fun to look forward to. This summer we have my MIL and my momma coming to visit (separate months, that whole needing to look forward to thing really only helps if we have one major thing a month to set our sights on). By the time our second visit is over, school will be back in session and the last month of summer will pretty much be over. Which means it'll practically be fall already. And fall is going to be a great season this year.

There are so many more things that I am thankful for. I'm thankful for the time to devote to ME. Believe it or not, I do enjoy when it is just me. I can watch what I want (not the things I really want, like Stranger Things, because we said we'd watch that together...but I'm one good fight away from saying F-U and watching it without telling him...)

But I digress. I have also been working out 6 days a week and I am FINALLY seeing results that make me feel good about me again. I've also finally figured out the sourdough baking thing (which has been a delicious endeavor by the way). My deployment to-do list is still pretty lengthy, and I'm hoping I'll get to more things when the kids are back in school, and I only have 1 versus 4 to manage.

There are the positives to look at. But sometimes, like tonight, when I go on to the squadron Facebook page and I see pictures that have been uploaded from events they've had in the past week or two and I can spot my husband in the crowd, and he's unaware that the camera is there so he's not paying attention so the shot is candid but he's just there, it hits me how much I just miss every part of him. And the tears start.

When my friends and neighbors see me and they ask how I am I say "I'm fine" because honestly, most days I am. Most days I really am okay. But the problem with deployments is that they last so long and 'most days' doesn't add up to 'all days'. So here I sit, 2 out of my 4 children are in bed, getting ready to start a sourdough dough to bake tomorrow morning, trying not to cry because I saw a picture of my husband in his PT gear (I mean really? Because IFYKYK what they look like but yes, tears to my eyes), and knowing I'll be fielding calls and texts tomorrow because of this post. It's been months since I've written. I haven't felt like I've wanted to. Maybe not feeling fine was the push I needed to get back to doing something that makes me happy.

I'll wake up and I'll be...fine. I got this. It's just a little surface pressure...right?