On the road again

I was reading a friend's blog earlier where she posted pictures someone had taken when their family said goodbye to her husband before he deployed.

No matter how many deployments you've been through, they're never easy. You find different coping mechanisms to help you during the months your spouse is gone. Many times the crux is if you have kids, their ages, what you're involved in, etc..

Each deployment changes both of you. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not.

I don't think I've said goodbye to Jason without crying. His last deployment I ended up leaving with the boys because I couldn't stop crying. They didn't need to see me this upset nor did Jason need his wife bawling more then the other spouses. I'll also throw in how late it was and the company not heading out until the wee hours of the morning.

All of this reminded me of a bittersweet goodbye which also had us laughing. Jason had come back to Germany on emergency medical leave since Colin was in the kinderintensivstation, aka NICU. He stayed home for a month before leaving again. Colin was home for all of two days before we headed out to the airport at Rhein-Main for the second time that day.

We're sitting in the car outside of the terminal around 2am waiting for the flight. In front of us on the curb was a soldier and his girlfriend making out. I'm not talking a bit of kissing here and there. The only thing keeping them from having sex were their clothes. I don't think being outside would have stopped either one of them.

Jason commented he should stop them since the soldier was in uniform, they were on base and out in the open for everyone to see. Only he didn't because we knew his goodbye was imminent as were the soldiers. Oh yes, there were two of them making out. The other was in a car parked a few spaces away. They gave us quite a show too.

As we watched them make out, we joked they weren't married or had kids. They had the boundless energy of new sex with new people. Those were the days.