Bad days are bound to happen

Some days are better than others.

Today was a bad day.

Of course some days are going to be better than others when your husband is deployed. But bad days can happen even when you are blissfully happy and together. That's just life.

But when you have a bad day and you're alone with your children, there is no chance of relief.

Not only is there no other adult here who loves you to offer casual affection or at least a distraction, there is no adult to step in.

There is no one to take over the bed time routine when you are so fed up and angry with your children you want to scream. There is no one to step in and help with homework when your last nerve is fried. There is no one to declare in his booming work voice, "You heard your mother."

There is no back up.

There is no good cop to your bad cop.

And so you get harsh with your kids when you don't mean to. Or at least I do. And I hate myself for it.

My friends say I put too much pressure on myself to be perfect. They think I put way too much pressure on myself to be strong and stoic when my husband is gone.

But to my way of thinking, that is my only job. My only responsibility is to keep these kids growing happy and healthy. I have to minimize the damage their father's long absence will inflict on their lives.

And I'm not going to do it by yelling at them for missing that note over and over again during violin practice.

This deployment has been so different from the others we've been through. I miss my husband, by not with the aching, burning need I have in the past. I think we've just developed a new sense of what is normal. I may have been down a bit here and there, but I haven't had the time to stop and cry.

Tonight I want to sob. I want to yell and scream in hatred at myself. But I can't seem to. I don't have the energy. I'll just go on quietly hating myself until I have the energy to turn myself around.