Deployment crying is a little like pregnant crying -- it's going to happen whether you like it or not.
Oh sure, you can say "Not me! I'm a strong, resilient, awesome military wife. Crying about deployment is for sissies. I never cry."
Liar.
If you've never been through a long deployment you probably don't know that deployment crying is a fact of life. You probably don't know that it makes you feel better. When all seems wrong with the world, I've even been known to schedule a little crying into my day. I think it cleans the pores or something. Cue up Les Miserables and hand over the Kleenex and get ready for a solid ugly cry.
But spontaneous deployment crying happens too. You know what I'm talking about. There you are, minding your own businesses, and suddenly you see something mildly touching and here come the sneaky tears. This happens so often that you have mastered the art of stealthy tear wiping. You carry a secret stash of kleenex. Or, if you're really scrappy, you've taken to wearing decorative scarfs around your neck that double as handy hankies on the sly.
You could be embarrassed about it. You could tell yourself that crying is silly. Or you could laugh about it because the other option is to, well, cry.
Plus who needs to cry about crying when we are here to help you justify it? There's no need to feel silly about spontaneous deployment crying, because we say that it is OK -- especially for the following 10 reasons.
Top 10 reasons to spontaneously cry during a deployment:
1. When you wake-up. Isn't waking up without your servicemember just SO SAD? Somehow you've grown fond of the big lug's bed hogging habit. And now you just miss his warmth and inability to get up when his alarm goes off.
2. When you're bleary-eyed from not wanting to go to bed alone. There's something about the evening bedtime routine that wants company. And the company it wants leaves its combat boots in the hall where you may trip on them and break your neck if you get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.
3. When your watermelon has too many seeds. Some things are just more annoying while he's gone.
4. When you bump into the wall. Who put that wall there, anyway? And why is it out to get you? And wouldn't your servicemember laugh SO HARD if he saw that you had just bumped into it for one-hundredth time? Sigh.
5. When you watch a sappy movie. Frankly, if you watch a sappy movie during deployment you're just asking to cry. You should know that by now, silly spouse.
6. When you watch an action movie. Hello, some of those scenes where they rescue the girl and everything turns out OK are just so touching!
7. When your house is too quiet on a Friday night. Evenings seem to drag on and on during deployment -- especially evenings that used to be spent making out on the couch.
8. When someone invites you over and then you feel like a third wheel. People really are trying to be helpful and inclusive -- but nothing will remind you that you are alone more than being the only single lady in a room full of couples.
9. When no one invites you over. Why didn't those people invite you over? Being the single lady in a room full of couples would be better than being alone in a room full of ... nothing! Crimeny.
10. When happy things happen t0 other people. It's not that you don't like it when other people are happy. It's just that you want to be happy, too. You know what would make you happy? Deployment ending.
Kristen Lancaster, an Army wife and deployment crying expert, contributed to this post.
