Breaking News (7 /7)

My father has been in the Airforce my entire life. When I was just six months old, my mother, who was younger than I am now, boarded a plane and joined him overseas.

I've always had a funny relationship with his work. As an adult, I boast about how well adjusted and how suited I am to moving and adapting. I name drop Airforce bases like I'm some cool, nonchalant jet-setter. What I don't talk about is all the sacrifice that my family has shouldered over the past twenty years. I'm not an optimist by nature, but this has always been one of those things I try to see the best in.

I found out earlier this afternoon that my dad will be deployed to Qatar later in the year. Probably in October, for six months-ish. Which means depending on the likeliness of him visiting me and the lining up of my school breaks (will my October break be before he leaves? Will my Spring break in March be after he gets back?) There's the possibility that I won't see him until May-next summer.

He's been there before, though I don't remember exactly when. Between the missed Christmases and birthdays, it's hard to keep the deployments straight in my head. I swear, the man used to go to Turkey and Saudi Arabia like he vacationed there.

For some reason, I got it in my head that after moving back to California, he would be done with all of this business. He's been talking about retiring there for a while, and since my parents just bought a house, I figured we were done moving.

So this news hit me especially hard today. In April of 2010, my dad went on remote to South Korea for a year. He missed my 18th birthday, my high school graduation, and my departure for college. This is nothing I hold against him, having long since accepted the fact that it's work, and not a choice. But just because I know he would have rather been there, yelling embarassingly loud as I walked the stage, doesn't.change the fact that I'll never forgive his work for doing that to me.

He returned April of 2011, just in time for the summer after my freshman year. Between his return a little over a year ago and my long distance schooling, I've spent a grand total of 5 months of the past two years hanging out with him.

I was home for a little less than two weeks this summer, and he took time off of work to spend with me, but the limited time I spend at home has to be divvied up among my extended family. Which meant our plans to have extended father daughter time didn't work out how we wanted.

I guess this is why the news has been so upsetting. I haven't been home for Thanksgiving since I left for school, the trip from coast to coast has never been feasible in the short vacation I'm given. After my semester at sea this fall, I'll have a long winter break. I was really, really looking forward to spending the holiday at home, with my family, arguing over chores and stuffing ourselves at the crowded table.

I'm trying to accept the fact that this won't be happening for me this year, the way I planned and imagined in my head. I know that it's getting to the point where my life is diverging from my family's, but I feel like I'm just missing out on so much- my brother's graduation, his eighteenth birthday (which is actually today) and now I'm missing out on the time my dad will he at home. It's hard, and right now I feel like a child- something that looks like it's getting more common the older I get.

Every deployment brings new challenges. When we were in Oklahoma (4th-8th grades) they were especially difficult because of the frequency of the orders. It prpbably wouldn't be terribly inaccurate to say he was deployed for as much time as he was there. I was braver then, taking on the role of mom's little helper over that of an upset child.

It's always tough on my mom, and I remember distinctly pulling my siblings aside on occasions when she was beyond stressed. I would clench my teeth and speak to them in a low, menacing tone, saying things like, we need to help the best that we can right now, we need to behave to make it as easy as possible for Mama. While fighting the urge to have a knock-down-drag-out with them.

And I guess after all of those times I tried to make it as easy as possible, I'm just worn out.

My dad is especially fond of telling people how I used to act when he would leave for work when I was a toddler. He would walk out the door as I dawdled in the living room, watching my vhs tapes. The second he was gone, I would burst into tears and run to the door to follow. He always laughs when he describes how I would stick my little hands through the mail box slot and wail after him. His telling normally includes a few mimicked cries, and a laugh I know better than my own.

I can really identify with that younger version of myself, I'm probably shedding as many tears as I write this as I did every morning when he left. Only now, instead of waiting on someone to pop in a new Barney tape, I'm waiting on someone to hit pause on my accelerating life so I can spend time with my Papa.