**As my family and I are nearing the end of the deployment I have done a lot of reflecting on the last six months. I wrote this a few weeks before the half way mark and wanted to share it. I tapped it out on my phone bawling my eyes out after a particularly draining day at the grocery store.**

Hello.

Today I am going to fight.

My husband is off in some far off land so foreign it might as well be Tattoine.

He’s fighting for freedom.

He’s fighting the war of blood and nations.

I am fighting the war of keeping a family intact in an environment that is a bit dry and inhospitable to successful relationships.

I am fighting to keep a bond alive between a son and his father, a daughter and her father.

Their little hearts do not understand what could be so important that it would take their daddy’s arms away from them at night. What could be more important to Daddy than the nightly ritual of him singing them to sleep?

Mommy, if I am good enough Daddy will come home and praise me.

Mommy, if I cry enough Daddy will come home and comfort me.

Mommy, if I am naughty enough Daddy will come home and discipline me.

Mommy, why am I not enough today?

They see the still impossibly amount of sleeps left on the calendar until his return and wonder when eternity will finally come to an end. How many days left today Mommy? Can we just say it’s halfway already even though it’s not to make it feel better. Mommy, how can I make it feel better.

I wrap my arms around them, tears silently flowing as I wrack my brains for answers to take away a little of their pain, even when I know I can’t. I love you. Daddy loves you. Over and over and over and over. That’s all I can say.

Through my own lonely ache I must go on, through my own tears, I must go on, through my own tiredness I must go on. Through my own struggles of am I enough. For them. For me. And also for my husband out there fighting.

If my husband is worried about his home, he may be distracted while doing his job. His job is to keep people alive. I must do my small part to keep people alive.

I am unsure of how to proceed as the head of household, I must exude confidence, though I miss him and some days feel lost.

I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this.

The internal constant chant to me, to him, to the kids, to the universe. Even in the unraveled moments when I certainly do not got it.

I’ve got this. I’ve got this. I’ve got this.

Some days it sounds more like

I’m a hot mess I’m a hot mess I’m a hot mess.

But I fight. Because I’ve got this.

He fights in wars for us. So the very least that I can do is fight here for us.

If you see us in the grocery store, be understanding if my three year old has flung herself prone on the floor as she wails after I say we don’t need the popcorn kernels.

We have some at home already.

But she wants to make sure there’s enough just in case Daddy

comes home tomorrow to watch movies and snuggle.

Please understand that I don’t know what to do with her except put one foot in front of the other as she cries and screams through the rest of the aisles. We still need to get the milk, we’ve been out for three days. I don’t have the luxury of dropping everything and leaving the store. I say no, but I still have to shop through the wails.

Please hold space for me when I call you frustrated over some trivial thing that in my mind I’ve blown to epic dramatic proportions. All the emotions are raw, magnified. They are also frequently on my sleeve since that’s who I am anyway. Sometimes I need to do the adult version of my three year olds tantrum in the grocery store. Hold space for me there.

Some days my enough is the bare minimum, just survive somehow. Some days that looks like popcorn and candy for dinner. Some days I have to remind myself that the children, the dogs and I are all alive and full and that’s a success.

That’s a battle won.

I don’t want pity, or sympathy, or thanks or praise or platitudes of “I don’t know how you do it” and the like. But please if you can, I ask that you hold special space. I don’t mean to say that I need space, but instead acceptance of all these emotions that my kids and I are going through. It’s not something to be fixed. None of it is wrong. It just is. It’s hard and sometimes we all just need to yell or cry.

I am not some kind of super mom doing it all and doing it stoically or even always with a smile on my face. All I am doing is putting one foot in front of the other, and giving myself grace when all I can do is crawl that day. That’s how we fight at home in this desert of lonely changing unknown landscape. By holding space in the now for the tiny steps, the set backs, the dropped plates, all the emotions. That’s how I’ve got this. Even while I might be a hot mess.

That’s how I fight so that he can fight.