Monday, February 22, 2010

There is no pause button

Joe's new bonsai

Joe and I had a very weird conversation yesterday about leaving for a year. He found a bonsai tree in the PX yesterday. We bought it and he's been babying this tree since. I said to him in passing, I sure hope I can keep it alive for a year. And then he made a comment about how much different it could be in a year.

We dont have kids to mark any sort of passing of time. The yorkie we have will look exactly the same in 12 months. But it dawned on us both that time doesnt stop here just because he is there. The lemon tree may be huge and producing fresh lemons. His bonsai could be adorable.
I know it sounds silly, and kind of absurd that we havent thought of this earlier. I keep telling myself that 12 months isnt a very long time, but in the context of some things, it can be pretty long. I dont know how mothers and fathers deal with this time. Kids grow so fast! How do parents deal with the fact they are missing an entire year of their child's life?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't care what anyone says - 12 months *is* a long time. But yes, life does go on and you learn to do things independently. My husband has been gone now for 33 days and sometimes it seems like it has gone quickly, but other times it seems to be dragging. I find what helps is making a list of things you can look forward to in each month. So instead of this big number like 365 looming in front of you, you can have mini countdowns to other things.

Julie Danielle said...

"How do parents deal with the fact they are missing an entire year of their child's life?"

It just totally sucks. Can't make it seem like it doesn't. To me it is apart of the sacrifice military families make. It just sucks though :(

My husband said goodbye to us on R&R when he was 3 weeks old and didn't see us again until he was 11 months old. It was because of the extension and I pray everyday something like that never happens to the Army again.

But even 12 months is a long time.

Amy said...

It does suck! While we're coming up on my husbands first deployment... he has been gone for long periods of time before and it's true that kids change so much. Even if it's just a couple months. I'm not sure what 15 months in going to feel like...

Rachel said...

I can really relate to this post, as I don't have any babies with my husband eaither. I too, keep telling myself that a year isn't that long a time in the grand scheme of things...right? Ugh. It's going to be long. Thank you for your comment, and I don't mean to make any judgments about any of the wives they are all really nice, I'm just too new to really make a judgement yet now that I have gone through more wives' blogs. Looking foward to reading more posts!!