Diamond Head

Diamond Head was named for something sparkly someone thought might be diamonds. News flash: it wasn’t diamonds. Hawaiians had already named it something more sensible: Le’ahi, which is the shape of the head of a fish the volcanic cone resembles. Anyway, the second namer discovered at some point that all that flashes and sparkles in the soft, setting sun is not gemstones, just worthless mineral specks.

That’s kind of where I’m at. Sometimes I just wonder what this was all for: the deployments, the moving around, being far from family, raising my kids alone half the time, the revolving door of friendships ended by moves; the stress of it all, and how it eats away at your patience until it gives out, then gnaws at your heart; the constant undercurrent of uncertainty, which ices over into stress, which slips up me first, then sends the kids skidding down next to me, elbows scratched and bleeding, bruising each other each time we try to scramble upright again.

One of the other wives on the detachment called me toward the end of a deployment this past year sometime, feeling frustrated, and shared, “I just feel like the harder they work, the more they get deployed, and the ones who don’t work get to stay home and end up getting promoted.” I wanted to be encouraging, but I’m frustrated by that too. And the cost is so high: years apart affects relationships–how could it not? And you want to think it will all be worth it, but it really isn’t, and those years are gone, and what do we have to show for it?

This post had been weighing on me for months, and even after I typed this out last May, it just sat in the drafts folder. Blogging is how I process stuff and kind of look for the good so I can end on a positive note, a hopeful way forward. I’ve lost sight of that since February, when Chris’ career took a different turn. The more we learn about what went on behind the scenes, the less justified and more personal it turned out to be. It stinks. People say they fought for us, but when the people in your own squadron flat out lie to you, it’s hard to know who to believe. Maybe they’re lying too. And it doesn’t really matter.

That’s where I’m at. It’s not tidy. It feels crappy. We’ve left Hawaii, and we’re in the Texas family cocoon where we go when we’re in transition. And I’m not totally sure what’s ahead in Belgium, beyond endless winter and cold and rain (and a few weeks of Christmas markets). Maybe some of the flecks will even turn out to be diamonds.