The journey of an intense experience

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog! 
There are many reasons why I began to start this blog.  My first and foremost reason is to help other men and woman who are going through the same thing I am by informing them about my expierence as a military wife.  Another reason I really wanted to do this blog is to help me.  I get so full of emotion and don't usually know how to express it. And I hope that putting things down on paper (well on blog) will help me cope with the intense expierence I'm about to go through.

To begin, I must inform you that I am not a military wife...yet.  I'm getting married to a Chinook and Helicopter mechanic on April 9th, 2011. 

Bernie and I have been engaged for two days over a month now and have been together for three and a half years.  We met in high school of our junior year with a graduation class of 20 students.  I'm sure you'll hear all about wedding details thoughout this blog because I am actually going to school to be an event planner, but I won't graduate until December of 2011.

Because of Military protocal, I will not be given any top secret details about where my husband will be based, or when he will be coming home for some R and R or home for good.  What I can tell you is that he is in an avation unit based out of Grand Island, Nebraska and is in the Nebraska Nation Guard.  Bernie is scheduled to deploy in the end of May, however he will be in the States for two months before going over to Afghanistan. He'll be gone for a year.

Yesterday, I went to my first FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting in Grand Island.  It was nice to know that I'm part of something; I'm part of a group of wives who are all having to part with their spose or boyfriend or father of their children or family member or best friend.  The lady leading it all spoke about the emotional cycle that we should all prepare ourselves for and in all honesty, it's a ROLLERCOASTER of emotions.  I won't go into too much detail there are 7 stages.
1st- Anticipation of departure
2nd- Detachment and Withdrawal
3rd- Emotional Disorganization
4th- Recovery adn Stabilization
5th- Anticipation of Return
6th- Return Adjustment and Renegotiation
7th- Reintegration and Stabilization

Thoughout my expierence, I'm sure you, as a reader, will be able to pick out what stage I, myself or you or my husband will be going though.

At the meeting, I caught myself wanting to burst into tears and the Military Family Life Consultant didn't even say anything that was intense.  Later, I found out that Lissy (who I will mention later) was feeling the exact same thing. She explained, "This is the first time I've felt uncomfortable about their deployment." 

 Lissy is a wonderful person! Genuine all the way to the bone and the biggest sweetheart I have ever met.  Lissy has been married to John, a flight engineer, for a little over a year now.   John and Bernie are brothers and are deploying together in the same unit.  John and Lissy live in Grand Island close to the base, where John works full-time.  Lissy is like a big sister to me.  I'm sure there will be tons of trips to her house with comfort food and movies.

Basically, I'm scared and not really sure how everything is going to play out.  I'm excited to marry Bernie in April, but terrified of him leaving less than two months after we've started our new life together.  I'm glad I'm not going through this alone.  And I'm glad I have readers, somewhere out there, who are listening to the journey of an intense expierence.

Thanks for reading,
Mol

*Where families can get help: Military OneSource, DoD's 24/7 Call Center (1-800-342-9647, http://www.militaryonesource.com/)