I'm not one to cry in public places or in front of other people. Hell, I try my hardest not to cry in front of Habibi or Chuug- unless they hound me down. But I may cry as soon as we return home after our final goodbyes. I'll definitely cry once it gets dark and the realization that he hasn't come home from work sinks in. I may wake up a few times during the first night to cry, too. And the next night. Maybe even the night after that. And that's okay! Crying is a completely natural response to pain- emotional and physical. But when your sinuses are swollen (as mine always do), your face is sore, your eyes are raw and dry and you've made yourself into as hot a mess as you can get... Then what do you do?
This is where The Game Plan comes in.
If you read my blog, you've seen my entry about how I went crazy while Habibi was away at NTC for a month. Why? Because I had no Game Plan; no list of to-dos, to-trys and/or goals. I came to realize that THIS IS VITAL! EVERY GAL NEEDS A GAME PLAN! Like a mini bucket-list for Deployment. =)
Admittedly, I haven't worked as much on my Game Plan as I wanted. Sure, I've thought about it tons in my head, but I'm also one of those must-write-it-down kind of gals. STILL! I have come up with some plans... a few I've even grabbed from my own bucket list. (Yep. I have a bucket list. Also good for the soul.) Now, I'm not going to list EVERYTHING here- mostly because I can't remember it all off the top of my head (THIS IS WHY YOU WRITE THINGS DOWN!) but also because some of my goals are a little on the private side. -wink- You can wrack your brain on that one!
So here are some of the BIG goals...
GET IN SHAPE. So cliche, I know. But who doesn't want to get into shape? I've learned in the past that when Habibi isn't around, I'm more focused and driven. Yep, my husband is a lazy-drug. When he's around we just want to lay and snuggle all day and- while good for the heart and the marriage- it's bad for the body. Deployment is my prescription of Adderall. My goal here is to either lose 50lbs in the year that he's gone OR get back down to my original size 10 (I'm a 16 now- down from a 22). I say either-or only because women in my family are solid and we tend to lose inches better than pounds. Totally cool, though, because your measurements actually give you a more accurate account of your fitness than your weight does, since muscle weighs more than fat. But I digress... I'd like to have a group of gals to go to the gym and work out with, because I've found working out is easier to do when you have others there to distract you. But if I have to, I'll go it alone. All I know is I've bought myself a piece of "Skinny Clothing" and by the end of this Deployment, that sucker had better fit!
BECOME A DOMESTIC GODDESS. I do not have mad skillz in the kitchen. It makes me sad. It also makes Habibi sad because he comes from a family of crazy Cajun cookers! So my second goal is to gain some good kitchen witchery. I've got your basic Pita Pizza, Macky-Cheese and Paskettis down, but that is the unfortunate extent of my culinary abilities. I'd like to learn a variety of foods- starting with our own home recipes (because oh MAN you have no idea how much we missed gumbo for our first El Paso winter!) and branching outward into vegan/allergy-friendly recipes for myself. A mini-goal inside of this goal is to learn to cook with more meat, because while I may not eat a majority of critters outside of the seafood spectrum (though I cannot deny a good turkey sammich) Habibi and Chuug are blood-thirsty carnivores. So expect my blog to get a little Julie & Julia over the next year.
PAAAINT! No surprise there. It's been almost 10 months since I've painted (and even sold) a painting. Between living out in the middle of nowhere on the far west side of El Paso and juggling our funds, I've been suffering without my biggest outlet. I SHALL SUFFER NO MORE! Aside from painting any requests, I've got a couple of pictures I'd taken that I've been wanting to paint for months, now. You have no idea how badly I'm going to want to go running out to the nearest craft store and stock up the second Habibi's plane takes off.
GET SOME INNER PEACE. Meditating was a favorite of mine up until Chuug turned a year old... and then inner peace was something I could only achieve in my dreams. Four years later this kid is hopefully heading off to Kindergarten and I'll have a few hours of SILENCE! Much like exercise, if you can get 30 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week of zen- IT DOES YOU GOOD!
MAKE A TEMPORARILY PERMANENT HOME. Haha. Yeah, that does sound funny. But if you're a military wife, then you know what I mean! Our life is a never-ending cycle of impermanence... but I'm tired of living in a home like we're going to move out the next month. We never completely unpack, never hang anything on the walls and I always leave my pictures and books and candles and little knick knacks in their boxes. A majority of the things we own are also really old and broken, too. We've always taken hand-me-downs and shopped at Goodwill because we believed in function over fashion. But GEEZE... It's gotten to the point where I just want to have plates that match and buy a couch to own from the BEGINNING of it's lifespan and not halfway or three quarters through! I'd like to be able to sit in a chair and look around my livingroom at all of the beautiful photographs I've taken or my paintings hanging on the walls or sitting on shelves... I'd like for my son to have a totally themed out bedroom (I know, I know, cliche- but when you've never had it?) that he's proud of and wants to live in to the point I have to drag him out of it. I'd like to actually pull out that old rubbermaid container and decorate for the holidays and have people over... I've begun to wonder if the reason I never get attached to (or want to even live in) my homes is because they don't feel like they're mine. So I'd like to do that. Even if we're not going to live here forever, at least make it look like it.
GET LEGIT! Along with painting, I've been missing attending births like crazy. Back home in NOLA, I started on my certification, only to find that being certified wasn't an issue as long as you had the experience and did the doula do! If you were a good doula, then you were a good doula. Word of mouth was all that mattered. Unfortunately I've found that out here in El Paso- even though certification is a personal choice and not a requirement- it seems to matter a whole lot more to people. I wish all I had to do was take a test. Give me an exam for my certification- I'd test right through! But instead I have to work my way through the long process just to get a piece of paper that says "Yep, this gal knows her shit." -Sigh- On the plus side, along with finally getting my certification, I'm going to go ahead and also go for my Childbirth Educator's Dip so that I can teach Alternative Birth classes out here for the gals who want it. As irritating as the whole certification thing is... it'll look good on my Midwifery school application. That's a big plus.
KEEP IT GREEN! Saving money is always a priority with deployment. My goal here is to have AT LEAST $10k in savings by the time Habibi comes home. Simple, but VERY important!
Those are some of the major goals off the top of my head that I wanted to share. I've got some smaller ones, too; simple things like learning to play an instrument, knit a blanket for the kiddo's bed for winter, finally start a series of scrapbooks I've been putting off for the last six years... Things that I'd like to do, but won't kick myself over if they don't get done (Well... the scrapbooking goal is more like a medium-sized goal. I probably WILL kick myself if I don't get that started...)
The biggest positive I've found with making my goal list is that when I read over it all... it seems like SO MUCH to do in just one year. It's amazing how our perception of time changes when you throw things into the mix. When I think about an entire year without my husband, it seems like forever and I just want to cry (cue the sinuses clogging)! But then I think about all the goals I have that I want to accomplish... and now it seems like it's not long enough!
You can do it gal!!
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