Untitled because I am not sure what to call it

Recently a survey done by Blue Star families indicated that something like 94% of military families feel like the rest of America is out of touch with the sacrifices military families make everyday. Given my interactions with people generally, I feel this is pretty accurate.
However, I try very hard to insulate myself from this by trying to pretend my life is normal, even though it isn't. Don't get me wrong. I consider myself far more removed from the difficulties of military family life than most military spouses, because I have my own career; I don't live on the base, near the base or deal with military issues most of the time. Most days my first concern is spending some phone time with my hubby, and then everything else is work, school, and doing normal life things like paying bills and the like.
But because I chose to go to school and get a PhD in a non-portable career, I have also had to make some different sacrifices. I don't get to see my hubby even though he is on shore-duty right now and that hurts. I console myself by reminding myself that I saw him about as much as I do now when he was on sea-duty in engineering and had duty like every 3 days on top of it. I feel that some people assume I don't love my spouse because I have chosen to make these sacrifices. This is patently untrue.
A little over a year ago I thought my husband was going to be in Afghanistan for a year. I was living in a crappy little town in TX where there were no jobs and I couldn't imagine what I would do there for a year. We talked about it and made the decision that I should start my PhD, because he would be going back to sea when he got back from Afghanistan and since he had spent 1 tour officially in engineering and another tour partially in engineering it was likely that they would make him a Cheng (Chief Engineer) for his department head tours. After his last tour in engineering where he missed every holiday because of shit going wrong in the yards and he rarely was home for longer than to sleep, it seemed pointless for me to hang out so that we might occasionally see each other. We would be better off it seemed to spend that time advancing my education and then be able to give him a break when he was done.
Plans changed. The past year was a mess for a variety of reasons and so he was stateside and probably will be for the next year until he goes to department head school. There was no way I could have predicted that. And yes, over the past year I have questioned my decision, but after my visit to TX this past week I realize it was the right one for us at the time, even if things have worked out other than as planned.
I don't expect people to understand any of these decisions or the effects they have on my feelings or my relationships. That would be unfair. Is it too much to ask that people leave it alone if they don't understand? I know it is wonderful to be in love. I am very happy for this person, but every time she complains about being separated for a few hours or even a few days and acts like I couldn't possibly understand it hurts. I get the deep and abiding impression that she thinks that I love my husband less because of the choices that have set us on our current path than she loves her boyfriend, which is silly and hurtful. Today she was complaining about not being able to live with him and I said that Senior Jefe and I didn't really live together before we got married and she responded by saying, "Yeah, well you don't live together now either."
No. I don't. And everyday when I get out of bed, every time I come home to an empty house, every time I have to hang up the phone, every time I have to watch the distance between us grow greater when he or I has to leave, it hurts. It hurts like nothing you can possibly imagine, because I do love him. I love him more than anything in this world....more than sunshine, more than air.
But sometimes life isn't a fairy tale. Sometimes you end up loving someone who doesn't have a convenient job that keeps you together all the time. Sometimes you fall for someone who has committed themselves to a higher purpose and you either love them for who they are and work with the situation, even if it means conducting a relationship over phone and email. What I am doing is somewhat unusual for a military spouse in the 21st century, but if this were Civil War times, I would be considered sincerely blessed because 1) I know my spouse is safe, 2) I can see him occasionally, and 3) I get to speak with him everyday. I don't think those women loved their spouses any less for the separation. I am very tired of having my feelings poo-pooed because we don't have the opportunity to co-habitate right now.
One day we will have the house, the dog, the yard, the two-three kids, and get to see each other everyday, just like everybody else. That day is not today. But you know what, we have made it for 5 yrs through things most couples would split over...lost jobs (me) and income, deployment, long hours at work, serious illnesses and disabilities, surgeries, moves after moves and the associated starting over and over. And through it we have found that the strength of our underlying friendship is what keeps us going when we aren't together. And I have no doubt that we will be together when we are 90, if we live that long. I understand after being married for 5 yrs that different people need different things out of their relationships. I think some people need to see someone everyday to feel comfortable in a relationship. I want that, but after 5 yrs of not being able to get it due to the Navy, I have learned that I can enjoy and soak up every minute when I am with him and then when we are apart, I can get through it and be okay.
And actually that was the most important thing I learned from this last visit to TX. For the past year I have beaten myself up for not being right there every minute as Senior Jefe has been through this mountain of bullshit, but when I saw him he was different after all of it. He was stronger and more confident than he ever has been. The last year may have been hell for both of us, but I wonder if I had been there to fight his battles and hold his hand constantly if he would have gained those things which ultimately make him even more sexy to me. What I do know is that I love the new Senior Jefe and his new confidence. I loved the old one too, but he seems happier now that he has stood up for himself and lived to tell the tale. I have walked away from this year with pretty bruised confidence, which scares me, but part of me believes I needed to come here and do this PhD and play through the pain for myself both intellectually and personally to become a stronger person too. I think I needed to know that he would stick by me even if I went after my own dreams, because no one else ever has. Having his support and having him make the sacrifices he has over the past year to give me some of the comforts that have helped me stay in the game, having him be the only one in my family who cheered in my corner when I got up from my failure and decided to stay in the game has only strengthened our relationship.
And all in all, it has been a good 5 yrs, hard, but good. I know people don't see it. I don't ask them to understand, but I do wish that they would at least be compassionate and realize that just because we have a different relationship, doesn't mean we love each other any less. We are just doing what we have to do. And I really would give almost anything for a normal boring life like everyone else, but Senior Jefe and the Navy came as a package deal and so things were never going to be normal and boring like everyone else.

I would like a tall glass of rational

Senior Jefe was diagnosed with sleep aponea back in IDK October? Yea! This means no more snoring and better health outlook for him.
He was sent to a medical board, which came back a couple of weeks ago: Fit for duty.
Then there was the assignment screening done by a bunch of aviators who have only seen ships in pictures: No ships no deployments.
Then there was a question about where that policy was written. It turns out there is no such policy. LT CDR fuckhead made an arbitrary decision and I called him on it and he tried to pull rank on ME. (Hence previous post).
This makes life difficult for the detailer as there is almost no job a SWO can do that avoids all ship duty.
This leads to Senior Jefe calling some people to find out what the deal is and the sleep center in San Diego (which I didn't know the Navy had) got involved and said the medical people here are full of shit. They told Senior Jefe to talk to his PCM and try to get this resolved at a lower level.
That went nuke-cue-lar...sorry the situation seems so "Decider-esque" I couldn't help it.
So now it may be that he will have to take leave and go to San Diego in order to have the sleep center overturn the local slack-jawed yokels.
Throw in a few control your wife comments and you get an idea of the past couple of weeks for me and him...although they did return his medical record to his base when I threatened to go sit in my Senator's office this week and open a whole can of whoop-ass on them.
Is it really, really too much to ask people to be rational. I understand no one ever wants to be wrong, but these people in TX are making me wonder if the only way you get detailed there is if you got your medical degree from a cracker jack box. When the head of the sleep center for the West Coast fleet tells you you are making a mistake, you should back down. This is not rocket science. Hell, it's not science period. It is common sense and using your thinking cap...alas I do not know if they issue thinking caps in basic anymore.
Anyway, because all of this is getting drug all over, the detailer can't even give us options for where to send Senior Jefe. This makes life difficult, because if he is staying stateside, we need to get him a car. Being stuck on base with a car is depressing; without a car it is positively lunacy. But I don't want to add a car payment to our lives if he is going to end up abroad, so I am stuck.
And the AC went out in a heat wave this week, so I got it temporarily jury-rigged, but will have to fix/replace it. And I cannot seem to make headway on painting the house.

I remember why I moved to KS

The reasons are:
1. Tricare Remote is way better than Tricare at any MTF. Real doctors are honest, courteous and respectful, and don't automatically assume you are stupid because you married a guy/gal in the military. They do not try to pull rank on you when, if you joined the Navy tomorrow you would outrank them several times over. And if you complain, they don't call your spouse and suggest s/he control you and keep you from complaining about their disrespectful, inappropriate behavior.
2. Is all basically a subset of 1. Bascially my blood pressure is lower in a high stress job than it was dealing with these freaks on a daily basis.
3. I can have a reasonable, rational conversation with most people at KU. Reasonable and rational are things they weed out of the majority of officers long before they are commissioned and replaced with some sort of ridiculous god-complex, which is kind of hysterical for a bunch of guys who might have a master's degree, maybe a professional degree, but very few of them got them at top-flight universities or in things other than underwater basket weaving.

But aside from wanting to throttle a bunch of fools who think they are smarter and better than me without half the education, I had a good vacation. I just need a vacation now from their ridiculous antics :). God, I am so glad I moved away from dealing with the daily barrage of BS from these people. I know that the clinic in Corpus Christi is FAR WORSE than any hospital I dealt with anywhere else, but still it is wonderful to live with civilians who may not understand the stress I feel sometimes due to the separation and the helplessness of being unable to positively affect the situation for my spouse, but at least they are not complete horses asses on top of it.

Thank god Senior Jefe is getting transfered. I am SO over this place. I don't know if it is so far from the BIG NAVY that they think they are a law unto themselves or if the heat just kills off all their brain cells, or the worst people get stuck here to keep them from f-in up real ops, but I have never dealt with such a pathetic group of people in my life. And I will be happy to have Senior Jefe almost anywhere away from here. Hopefully the money they found today to resume PCSs from BRACed bases will hold out long enough to get him out of here. Yikes.

Vacation, what vacation?

I am thrilled to see Senior Jefe.
I am unthrilled by everything else that is going on. I am unthrilled by LT CDRs who think they have power they don't, who pull rank on me and send my blood pressure through the roof before 11 am.
I am even more unthrilled that I had lined up someone to watch my dogs, then a friend offered to do it, and I offered to pay her and I told her how long I would be gone and even gave her my itinerary, and yesterday she tells me she thought I would be back before Sun, not Monday night and she thinks it is unfair to my dogs that they are crated except for the three times a day she comes over and feeds and plays with them. And so she wants to take them to her house where they won't be crated, even though Gabbro tends to pee everywhere when he feels insecure and Sasha tends to chew everything.
I told her that if she was uncomfortable with the arrangements we made, and/or she didn't want to continue watching the dogs for any reason she could drop them off at the vet's kennelling facility and I will pick them up when I get back. Now she is not returning my messages.

I know I sound like a brat, but I never, ever, ever get a vacation. And J/D gave me this time to try to mentally recuperate from some of the crap that has happened this past year and they expect me back in top form when I get back to school. How am I supposed to do that when the Navy is once again dicking everyone around and to compound it, I now have to worry about whether my pets are being taken care of at all. WTF? Am I not entitled to 10 days of drinking Mai Tai's, sitting on the beach, eating seafood and just chilling with my hubby?
I knew things would be imperfect, because he couldn't take leave and he is in the process of dealing with the detailer (who dare I say actually seems human). I really didn't expect medical to be the fly in the f-in ointment. But I could even deal with all that if I knew my puppies were safe and well cared for.

I guess this is yet another lesson to me.

The last year never happened?

Commence scratching head....
USN determination for the Senior Jefe application denied and more puzzlingly, not to be recorded in his service record. It is as if the whole year has not happened.
This is a good thing I suppose for Senior Jefe. By the time he finishes his required time, he will almost be at retirement and at that point I can't imagine he won't just finish it up.
But the whole thing has left us scratching our heads. Why? Why delete a whole year? I am not bitching. I am just trying to be supportive, but I just find the whole thing puzzling.
So now we wait for all the paperwork to evaporate and then we find what's next.
Weird, huh?

Life v. 3.0 is looking a lot like life v. 2.0

So Senior Jefe's package was denied. His medical is up in the air, because they think he may have a neurological problem. However, the likelihood is that will be denied. I say this because his CO asked him what he would like to do next, Iraq or Afghanistan?
So it looks like I know what the next year of my life is going to look like. I can't say I am shocked, but that said, I am not thrilled either. However, at least I can stop worrying about him having to get a job and all of that. Of course I feel shitty for saying that.
So here we go. I guess he and the CO are talking to the detailer on Wednesday and I am guessing that things will move very rapidly after that and whatever happens will happen by the end of summer. I just hope that they will not ship him off somewhere while I am on a field trip in the middle of nowhere in late August. That would blow chunks.
So my goals for this week are to get the car fixed...because the car always breaks down when a deployment is coming at me, get a bunch of lab work done, paint the house, and contact some people in the area who have a clue about what this is like and see if I can start building a better support network. It's not that the people at school don't care, but they don't understand, which is not their fault.
Today, I am analyzing data, prepping a method for next week, and if my back stops killing me, I will be priming some of the walls. It turns out I am starting to feel old and cannot do physical labor all day and just bounce out of bed the next day. Sad.
So there it is. I am not sure what else to say.

Salvation and suffering

Well, I got some very good feedback from one of my committee members. He is giving me an opportunity to unfuck my grade, which is incredibly generous, but it means I have a ton of work ahead of me. It is a chance at salvation, which is supremely generous. I will probably still face academic probation and potential financial loss, but it looks like I will have a chance to keep myself in school. I just have a very deep hole to dig out of.
But he said something very interesting, in addition to the very detailed feedback, which was very much appreciated. He told me that I would not get a PhD until I had truly suffered, which has not yet happened apparently. That is an intimidating comment, but on the other hand, it is fair preparation for the pulverization I am undertaking. Why didn't I just sign up for Marine Corp bootcamp? Just kidding, but I think mentally, it will be about the same thing, only much longer.
I think I am going to take a couple of weeks vacation to mentally prepare for being throw out into the deep end, but I have to get through my committee meeting first and redraft this paper, so I have a couple of weeks of brutality to get through first. But I think I am going to go pack up and see Senior Jefe. I need his calm centered demeanor, which is something I have yet to fully develop.
So wish me luck. Hopefully, I can get out of the hole and start hitting homeruns again, or at least not repeatedly striking out.