Luckily my husband’s trip plans got rearranged and he ended up staying home for another week. My friends called it a “bonus week” with Mike.

However, we didn’t learn about the change in plans until one day before he was scheduled to leave. So after being upset the night before and waking up with a pit in my stomach, I was relieved but realized I would go through the same emotions in about another week. I had to ride the emotional roller coaster twice this time.

It is so hard to mentally prepare for my husband leaving. I feel everything from being excited for him because he gets a great opportunity to feeling sad, mad, frustrated, scared and empowered that I can once again do this.

I start thinking of all the things I will have to do by myself while he is gone like come home to an empty house after work, sleep alone, go grocery shopping by myself and spend weekends without him. This year he’ll miss me running the USMC Marine Cops Marathon and Thanksgiving.

While it is hard to not think about being without him, I have to push these thoughts out of my mind and focus on my day-to-day activities. The one thing I have found is I have to take deployment one day at a time; otherwise it can get very overwhelming.