It’s been a long time since I’ve done a personal blog. The truth is, its been such a busy last few months that I just haven’t really had the time. We put our house up for sale, it sold, we started the build process of building our new home, we moved, and now my husband has just left for deployment — our second one as a family. Not to mention, weddings, sessions, editing, a toddler to take care of… you name it, I’ve had it on my plate for the last few months. We’ve been in a season of BUSY and its time to crawl out of it and make time for these personal blogs again.

I wanted to start a new blogging series, ‘The Independent Dependent’ for those military spouses and those of you that aren’t and want more insight into what it’s like to go through deployments and seasons of missing half of your family unit. It isn’t for the weak…

The Independent Dependent just seemed so fitting. I’m a ‘dependent’ of my husband in military terms. I “depend’ on him in the eyes of the military. But who do I depend on when the Navy takes him away from us? The word ‘dependent’ just confuses me. There is no woman stronger or more independent than a military spouse. For several months out of the year, every year, we have to remain 100% independent. This means I play the role of mommy and daddy. That I cook the meals and do the dishes. I throw the trash in the kitchen trash can and take it out as well. I take care of the house and the cars. I do everything. Playing the role of two people doesn’t seem very ‘dependent’ to me.

The first few days of deployment are the worst. Our first deployment as a family, I cried, of course…but not nearly as much as I did when I said goodbye to my husband this time and watched him say his goodbyes to our daughter. She’s only 2, and as you can imagine, doesn’t truly know whats going on…but for some reason, she knew yesterday. She saw me hug him tightly as I cried profusely and she cried too. She reached for him as he walked away and cried while saying “dada” over and over. I cried so hard I could barely breathe. I watched my husband as he walked away from us, not able to turn back for fear he would lose it. The whole way home Aubree cried and asked me if dada was coming home. I felt it in my gut and thought I was going to be sick.

This morning I woke up and decided I wouldn’t cry as much today. I want to be strong for my daughter. I don’t want her to see me crying so much, and I want to instill strength and independency within her. She deserves to have a strong mom when her dad can’t be here.

I took time this morning to sit down and start writing in my Intentional Home Daily again. I prayed for my husband and our family and wrote out things that are on my mind, things I need to do, things I need to work on, etc. By keeping this journal, it will help me to not only become more organized and efficient with my time, but I think it’ll help these next several months go by a little quicker. If you’re looking for a great day planner that isn’t dated and you could literally pick back up using it after months of not touching it, one with scripture incorporated, Karen Stot is the creator of the Intentional Home Daily and I promise you’ll love it!!

Over the next few months, I’ll be blogging about deployment life and all of the struggles. I want to make one point very clear however: this won’t be a depressing blog series. I’m not complaining — I’m sad and I miss my husband but I’m not complaining or asking for sympathy. I am SO PROUD of my husband. When he isn’t here protecting our family, he’s protecting our COUNTRY — and thats an amazing thing, ya’ll. I love that man more than anything (other than our daughter)! I’m a proud military wife and will forever be grateful that my husband is doing something meaningful and something that gives him drive.

If there’s something you’d like to see in this series, let me know by commenting below and I’ll keep it in mind!

Until next time, cheers to all of the momma’s who are also daddy’s for part of the year, the women that are STRONG, and make their husbands proud! CHEERS to the independent dependents! ;-) XOXO!

PS: follow me on Instagram to see all things Aubree, photography, and the silliness in-between :) @jamithompsonphoto