The Impending Deployment

I couldn't figure out why I wasn't as excited about Christmas as I usually get during the holidays. I did whatever I could to try and help but I just wasn't feeling it. One day I was finally able to own up to what was keeping me down and it had nothing to do with the holidays and everything to do with what came after them.
Phil will be deploying later this year for a while. We've known it was coming but since it was in the next year it was easy to put off thinking about it. Whenever the thought crossed my mind I told myself I'd deal with it after the holidays. I didn't really want the holidays to come this year because I knew after they were over there would be so little between us and another longer separation. Once this realization finally hit me I was able to cope with it and enjoy the season a little more. Now that the season has passed, I'm feeling a bit more prepared to handle the mental preparation that has already begun.
After Christmas I picked up a copy of Jane Eyre. It's a book I've been meaning to read for a while now. Several chapters in I ran across a quote that has definitely stuck with me.
" I, that evening, shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief."
I could never have put it so eloquently but that is exactly what I had done and what I continue to do in part. We deal with what needs to be dealt with and process it all a little bit at a time. But for the most part, that flood of emotions gets held at bay by exactly that: "shutting my eyes resolutely to the future." Well, at least for now.