Fire Life

Today currently marks 20 days with my husband being gone. I normally don't tell a lot of people that he's gone because you never really know who or what is out there. But it't my life, and the life that many wives have all over the country. Their husbands leave for an extended period of time to work and sometimes we don't know when they are coming home. I know it's the life we signed up for, as military wives sign up for with deployments, but it's never easy. When my husband got his first seasonal job he was gone for a maximum time of two weeks, and when our daughters were younger, they didn't really understand it all. But we made it through several two week time periods over the time of fire season. The next fire season, to my memory (that is not currently working well) we had a couple times where my husband was gone but I don't think it was for 2 weeks at a time. This season is the longest that we have had, 21 days tomorrow. Seeing it typed out is weird to me. 3 weeks.

I have seen and heard of firefighters being gone for longer times and it makes me sad. It makes me sad for the wives, children, and fire fighters. This 3 weeks hasn't been a walk in the park. My girls are understanding that daddy helps people while he's away and that they would want help if our city was in trouble. Sometimes I feel like fire kids grow up a little faster than other kids. I thank every single person who has contributed to technology to this day and allowed the small recharges that we got with a simple 5-10 minute FaceTime call. Yes phone calls are good, but seeing how excited the girls were to see daddy and his mustache (stachetober has started) brought tears to my eyes. Seeing how my husband was so excited to see the girls, was the best thing too. I love that FaceTime is an option in my children's life. I remember talking to my dad on the phone as a kid when he had business trips, but this is something totally different.

I get asked by my friends "how do you do it? how do you go that long with your husband gone?" My first answer is, I have no choice. I use that answer for "how did you manage twin newborns?!" A fire wife has no option to not do it. This is what helps us in the off season, this helps us continue our life, this is what my husband does for a living. This fire season I had the privileged to be a member of a fire wives group. They know what it's like. They help in more ways than I can list right now. If a fire family needs anything, these women make it happen. They support each other with fire life issues, personal issues, emotional issues, to obsession with football issues. Having these women to vent or laugh to is what helped me more than anything, because they understand it, they live it too. They make me realize, I am not alone. I have met several of them in the past few months and it has been amazing.

Now to the truth, I may come off strong but I am far from it. I keep my head together for my kids sake. They don't need to see me sad that I miss my husband, because it's too much of a burden for my 4.5 year old twins to deal with. When other things like school, bills, sickness, housing, and having my husband gone all pile up and up and up I am normally really good and keeping it together. Today I hit my breaking point. We had all intentions of renewing our lease on our house and we come to find out that the landlords want to move back in. This was our first HOME. This house was where we finally could relax and enjoyed being in. So that huge shock finally got to me and I broke down. I've had anxiety attacks that were small and after a little bit I was okay. Today I had the worst panic attack. I wish I could tell you how I felt, but it was such an out of body experience. I broke down. I called my mom crying saying I needed her to come over. I have never done this in my life. She came over with some lunch for everyone and having someone with me just was reassuring and helped me calm down. I learned today that it's okay to ask for help. I learned that sometimes I can't do it all on my own. It's okay to be a little scared of what's next.

I love the support system I have. I get all kinds of support and sometimes I don't even think they realize that what they did made a positive impact on my day. I have the best friends who know to check in on me when my husband is gone. I see them sharing "thank you firefighers" pictures, liking the updates on facebook of the fire my husband is at, and it gives me the warm fuzzies over how much they support what my husband and his co-workers do.

I never pictured my life like this- but I would not change it for anything. I love the people that I have met, my children have friends who understand it all, and most of all it's nice to know that if I ever need help- it is there for me.