Drakken

I really started out so strong. I thought I had the idea on how to do it all right. But honestly? I was more wrong than I thought. I could call up the current job trend, I could point a finger at what it is to be a stay at home dad to a military spouse. But what it comes down to is excuses.

Who didn't have a ****** family? On the other hand who had the best parents ever and found themselves in the same place?

Did we all find the life that we wanted? I would be a dime a dozen we did not, but the booze numbs the edges of where we "thought" we would be. It gives us the crutch to point the finger.. " You did this to me! DAMNIT! It is your FAULT!" I had the best or worse chance, I had the dream life or the dreggs, but it is YOU! That phantom. That inescapable monkey that is holding you back.

So that is a bit up to speed on what has run through my mind as of late. A new place, an new town! It was all I wanted after our last base, from her deployments to the PCS's to her job and the isolation of it all. It would be a new chance! I could find a job there no problem! I damned near finished college. I have the experience! It is my time....

And then comes life. The job market has changed. A stay-at-home dad.. "Wow". If I only knew what came of that stigma on a resume. I would not for a moment change the time, the gift I had with both of my boys, but if my organs where just a bit different? It would have made it a bit easier.

( I will apologize now. This is an eclectic ramble to say the least. But to be honest? I have nowhere else to turn that I have found.)

For those of you that know my past, ( I am a bit of a noob here ), I will not bore you with the details.

The simple fact is I am back and I am looking for hope. My wife has a huge burden on her shoulders from thing that happened with her last deployment. She really might not make rank. And if she does not, we really do not know what we will do. I know she is looking at me to save it all, but I have no idea what to do.

From everything we have been through, from all the sacrifices, it has been a really long and lonely journey. We have both made some real mistakes in it all.

We learned that being honest on the job is not always the best way to be, but that also came at a price. We learned that being guarded whether you want to be or not could save your skin. While shanking our heads as those above her and me drank like fish and still got ahead in the military. But honestly, I guess that is neither here nor there.

I smoke too much. I still drink after a mere 4 days sober. I have no excuses for it. I could call it lonely, but who is not? I could call it " my rut ", but again, who is not there?

I only wish I could step out of this home-hubby role and back into another type of life. Balancing a life at home with an active military spouse taught me things that I do not know if you can learn anywhere else. It showed me a new level of delegation of skills and time management that I would honestly think would best some of the best fortune 500 CEOs.

You can never understand what fortitude means, you can never understand the percussiveness of what makes us human, what drives us to be better until you have acolicky a child that is crying for their mom that is 2000 miles away.

That is why I want to stop this, that is why I want to make it better. I have my own demons, my own issues that have put me here. But I do not want this anymore.

The best CEO's the best commanders, be it at all will tell you, they never did it all alone. They found the leaders, they acknowledged their strengths to better not only them, but those around them as well.

I am really tired of looking for them. I wish I had a better way to find them. Smart or not, my marriage is failing. My kids are my joy, but they see the beer every night. I might sleep in the bed with my wife, but she is not there.

The drastic change has to come from me, but to be honest? I have not seen the cards, let alone where they will lay.

That is really all I have to give or say.