Eventually, the honeymoon phase comes to an end. This doesn't mean that things are bad or worse in any sense. All it means is that the real world has come crashing back in. The kids have to return to school, everyone has to go back to work, and life returns to normal. That being said, it doesn't have to go back to the old normal.

One thing that people across the world crave deeply is community. In military life, this can either be easy to find or quite difficult. People often share that it is easy to make friends in the military because we are all going through the same issues together. We all move frequently, so we know that friendships need to form quickly. We all go through separations and need local people to lean on. The longer we are in, the smaller the military gets, so we often find old friends or acquaintances at our new bases. All that is great and true, but the ease of finding community often comes down to our personality and life stage.  

I want to share two homecoming stories to reiterate why Monday's post was so important. I will pull these examples directly from season five of Army Wives because I think these stories encapsulate everything I discussed in a best versus worst-case scenario. I'm keeping this in the fictional world to protect the anonymity of people who would certainly relate to one story more than the other.

We won’t spend too much time on the redeployment phase because the reality is that it lasts a short amount of time. We can focus on our dreams or let them go by the wayside. The choice is always ours. It is also true that during this time, we are one month out from a dream come true.

Here’s what is so tricky about the redeployment stage: it can make chasing a dream incredibly easy or downright impossible. As always, we have a choice in how we handle this time. But it starts with knowing where we are at and what our natural tendencies are.

I think we covered the sustainment stage pretty well. So, let's move on to the redeployment phase. I had never heard the term redeployment until watching Army Wives. So, I don't know if this is a standard term across the board, only applies to the Army, or is just a term used by military officials. Regardless, it is defined as the month before the service member is scheduled to return home.

While scrolling through one of the base's Facebook groups, I came across a post from a woman struggling to find a job. I cannot find this post now because I am in so many groups between the base we are currently at and the one we are going to. I also wouldn't link directly to it because this was this woman's personal story, and the group was private anyway. But I think the gist of the story is important to talk about and something that many military spouses have experienced.

If the sustainment phase feels like everyday life, at least as much as possible, then we can treat our dreams similarly to how we would if our spouses were home. I'm talking about the usual three steps to achieve a dream and adding the two steps before that process. Whether we find ourselves in the sustainment stage or living a "normal" life with our spouse at home, this is where we always begin and end when it comes to our dreams.

Happy Labor Day! I hope you are enjoying the long weekend and you're getting to spend this time with your service member. I am separated from mine at the moment because I went to Charleston to celebrate the bachelorette weekend of my future sister-in-law. My husband is still in a deployment window, so taking leave is difficult, and even if it wasn't, we don't have enough leave to spare with our upcoming trips. But that's not what I wanted to talk about today.

We've all heard the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." And for those of us with children, we've realized that the village usually doesn't just show up at our doorstep anymore. We may have an incredible village where we live, but many of us as military spouses have discovered that our village lives states away, if we have one at all.

Chasing a dream during the sustainment stage may actually be the simplest time to do it. Life feels relatively normal during this time. We have settled into our routines. And even though they probably look very different than they do when our spouses are home, they work for us. We know where we need to be on any given day. We know who needs to do what. We know when things need to be done. We’ve got a rhythm of life that makes room for hard days and factors in rewards for doing hard things. That’s how life should be.

Taking care of our dreams during the deployment phase is really difficult, but things become a lot simpler (not easier) during the sustainment phase. The sustainment stage is defined as the second month of deployment through the second to last month of the deployment, regardless of how long the deployment will be. That being said, I don’t think we should put ourselves on a timetable for when we enter the sustainment phase. If we are not ready, then we do not need to pressure ourselves because all that will do is set us back further.

I am leaning towards switching things up on the blog a little bit. I was listening to an unfiltered podcast from some creators I love (Sheila Wray Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach of baremarriage.com. They talk about very different things than me, but I am all for supporting and sharing my love of them whenever). They talked about how the format for their blog is that Monday and Wednesday are focused on whatever series they are working on, and they reserve Friday to respond to current events or things that have happened across the week.

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.

We've talked about the pre-deployment phase; whether it lasts six months or six days, we are prepared to keep our dreams alive during that time. That doesn't mean we will be perfect, and that doesn't mean it won't be challenging, but we are ready when the time comes.

We will move on to talking about dreams during the deployment stage next week. Since I used this space to vent last week, I wanted to share the other side of that this week. My husband called me today to tell me that we got a RIP (stands for relief in place, which gives zero clarity to what it actually means, but it is the precursor to orders) to Warner-Robins AFB in Georgia! This is the news we were waiting for and exactly the news we wanted to hear.

We talked on Monday about how no-notice deployments affect our dreams. While this may be more common for the military in general and your spouse’s specific career field, another type of deployment remains. I don’t really have or know of a pithy nickname for this type, but it is one where we get extended notice that our spouse is leaving. We may learn almost a year in advance like I did for my husband’s first deployment, or we may get a few months to prepare. Either way, we have significantly more time to stew on our emotions about the upcoming deployment.

As we unpack each deployment stage and its relationship to pursuing a dream, I want to look at each from the "make a plan, stick to the plan, ALWAYS DELIVER" perspective. Where we are in that process will mean different things, for the separations affect our dreams. To begin, let's look at the pre-deployment stage. Personally, I think this is the most challenging time to dream.