Friday, September 7, 2012

The constant compromise of me

I definitely have a hard time letting things go. When I'm fighting with you, I want to finish it. When I have a problem, I want to solve it as soon as possible. This has proved problematic in two areas of my life -- my daughter and the Army.

While my husband has been deployed, my daughter has been acting out. I took the proactive approach and got her into counseling. It took a long time, but we are finally in a better place. That's not to say all is perfect. She still has the occasional freak out and tries to argue with me. The therapist has told me to ignore it. Let her freak out and get it out of her system as long as she is in a safe place. As I've written before, sometime the freak outs get ugly with hurtful phrase thrown at me. In those moments I'm supposed to send her to another room and let her come back when she is ready to make reparations. I'm also supposed to welcome the apology and move on in a positive way. THAT is the hard part. When you hurt me, I can't bounce back immediately.

The Army is another offender. I'm a planner, a problem solver. But the Army rarely works on hard deadlines. Everything is subject to change. Plans need to be in pencil and most civilians don't work that way. We can't just pick up and go at a moment's notice (especially with kids). There are vacation request forms, arrangements for babysitting/pet sitting/house sitting., not to mention the how you're getting there. It's like a thousand piece puzzle that's always missing that one last piece.

Life will go on -- I just wish it was simpler.

1 comment:

  1. Well put! Still, it makes me feel better to know others feel these ways. Sometimes it seems every other military spouse has got it together WAAAAY more than me... and you would think I'd have more of this down by now...

    --Liz K.

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