5 Things to Think About When Keeping a Dream Alive During Deployment
Now that we've survived day zero of a deployment, let's talk about day 1 (the morning after they leave) through the end of the first month they are gone. After that time, we enter the sustainment phase, but we'll talk more about that later. A lot happens during this time. We anxiously await our first phone call, email or letter from our spouse. Hopefully, it will come quickly. We begin to establish new routines. As difficult as this time is, we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel because one day, this will all end.
As our hopefulness grows, this is the best time to think about our dreams. I do not want us to rush back into them, though. Our dreams deserve all the time and energy we can make for them, and if we aren't ready to provide that, we shouldn't force ourselves to. We have to rush into a lot when our spouses leave, but we should give ourselves grace on things we don't have to do right away.
We need to figure out how to get the kids to school, get ourselves to work and rush around to every after-school activity we signed them up for when we had two parents around for support. We have to figure out dinners, lunches and breakfasts. We must keep the house from going too much into the dumps for the sake of our sanity (although most people let the house slide a lot for the same reason). We have to deal with whatever thing Murphy's law has thrown at us. If we don't have time to give our dreams space right now, that's okay.
But this time is perfect to start over making a plan. No matter how long we have worked on our dreams, we are constantly reworking the plan. A deployment means that the plan will need a complete overhaul. Once we get settled into a routine of managing our life without our spouse at home, we can make space for our dreams. This may happen on day one of the deployment, or we may take the whole first month. We'll have to rework the plan a few times during the deployment as well, depending on how long it lasts. Our life goes through cycles within the year, and we need different plans to deal with summer breaks, back to school and the holiday season. So, how do we prioritize our dreams when we are dealing with a workload of life that two people usually handle?
1. Plan ahead
I know we hear it time and time again, but planning ahead will be one of our biggest supports during a deployment. When we see what is coming in the following days, weeks and months, we can be more prepared to handle those things. Knowing when big trips will be means we have a good timeline to book flights, reserve hotels or ensure that our car maintenance is up to date. The same applies to all the important and unimportant things in our lives. Knowing ahead of time that there is a school musical means that we can line up babysitters, help our kids rehearse, and ensure we have all the supplies for the costumes. And this means we stay ahead on the non-routine things we don't think about until after they become an issue. We make sure to get the exterminator out before scorpions come into the house (this happened to me during month two of the deployment).
2. Have a schedule
While planning ahead takes a big-picture look at our life during the deployment, having a schedule keeps us on track for our daily lives. This is where it is essential to factor in time for our dreams. We can block out the time to work, the calls to make or the reading to do and ensure that happens every week. The biggest key to the success of our dreams will be our consistency of action, even if that action goes through cycles of waxing and waning. Our schedule ensures the trash goes out the night before pickup, so we don't have to worry about it first thing in the morning or wake up to hear the garbage collector flying by our house. Our schedule keeps us on track and holds us accountable for when we let too much stuff get onto our plate at once. When we can see the overlap problems, then we are much better prepared to figure out what should stay and go in our schedule.
3. Have a backup to our backup
Babysitters cancel. Cars get flat tires. We get stuck at the doctor's office for far longer than we thought possible. We need to have backups to make sure our life continues to function as much as it did before. And we need backups to our backups because all those things that happen to us also happen to them. We need to have people on call to get our kids from school. We need backup babysitters in case ours gets sick. We need someone nearby to check on our house after a storm when we're out of town. We can never be too prepared when it comes to having people in our support system, and we get to return the favor all the same when they need our help.
4. Be flexible
I will hammer this topic to no end because we have to be flexible with our plans when it comes to our lives and our dreams. We need to recognize that the things that work Tuesday may not work Wednesday. And the plan that worked in July may not work in December. We need to be willing to change our plan at the drop of a hat when we realize something isn't working. When our pace of life becomes unsustainable, we can maintain it for a short time, but we need to begin working on a way out. And we need to give ourselves the grace to recognize when things aren't working and adjust. Just because it wasn't the right plan doesn't mean we made a wrong choice, and it also doesn't mean that we have to stay in it. We are all doing the best we can with the information we have. When our information changes, our best changes, and that's okay.
5. Say "no"
It is 100% ok to say no to things that we do not have the time, energy or emotional capacity to handle. It is even ok to say no to things we usually would say yes to. I have friends that cut out all after-school activities when their spouse is deployed. It is far too stressful and exhausting to run the kids to three different places four nights a week and make sure that they have everything they need. So, they just don't, even though if both parents were home, letting the kids sign up for soccer wouldn't even be a question. As much as surviving deployment is about saying yes to new and different activities to make sure we stay busy, it is equally about saying no to the things that don't interest us or cause too much trouble.
The first month of a deployment is probably the most challenging time for most people. We could definitely make a case for the last month as well, but we'll get to that another time. Chasing our dreams is absolutely possible during a deployment. We can achieve some fantastic things whether our spouse is home or not. But we must prioritize it. It is very easy to get into survival mode during a deployment. It is easy to only focus on the problem in front of us. It is easy to just take the hits as they come. But we can also thrive during a deployment. We can live life to its fullest even if it isn't as full as it would be with our spouses at home. We deserve to thrive through a deployment, and I hope we all find the strategies that help us do just that.