Best Laid Plans

The best advice I ever got from a more senior military wife was to use the time during a deployment to focus on myself.

"Do all those things you've always wanted to do but never had time for," she told me. "Set some goals and use your time alone to meet them."

It's excellent advice. It really is. But it's advice I've failed to follow over and over again.

Every time my husband deploys (four times so far) I have these great expectations. I'll write a book! I'll lose weight! I'll train for a race!

Yet every time he comes back from his deployment he returns to the same old wife he's always had. No book written. No weight lost. In fact, usually quite a few stress pounds added. And I've yet to ever run a race.

It's disheartening. I hate to be a failure. It's tempting to just not set any goals for myself at all. Isn't just getting through a deployment with my sanity intact enough?

Well, no. To me, overachiever that I am, it is not enough at all. And so today I headed to the gym.

I nearly killed myself just walking for a half hour on the treadmill. But it is a place to start. Where else can I start but at the beginning?

Today I am concentrating on the fact that I went at all. It is so very tempting to not leave the house. It is even more tempting to stay in bed all day and let the kids watch DVD after DVD. It is yet even more tempting to curl up with a tub of ice cream, a bag of chips, and a gallon of soda and let the world melt away.

But I refuse. I am a survivor. Even if today the word survivor to me means nothing more than getting out of bed, leaving the house, and going to the gym.

I have plenty days alone left to build from there.