One of the curious aspects of Navy life is the rotation between sea duty and shore duty. Sea duty is hell. Shore duty is purgatory.
Oh, you thought I was going to say shore duty was heaven? Being on leave is heaven.
I'm exaggerating. Shore duty was pretty great. Especially the year Danielle was getting her master's and didn't have to even show her face on base except for the monthly muster to make sure no one had gained a hundred pounds or gotten a forehead tattoo.
Rotating from shore duty--seeing your wife every day, your wife seeing the kids every day--to sea duty--12-hour work days, week-long underways, six-month deployments--is rough, to say the least. The reason it's rough is that there is no adjustment period. You're thrust from your idyllic life on shore, to a tempestuous life at sea (I make no apologies for the pun: it was fully intended).
Now that we've been at it for a few weeks, we've largely made the adjustment. Sean knows what I mean when I tell him, "Mommy's at work on the ship," and I've once again learned how to sleep solo in a queen-size bed (diagonally! Just kidding: stay on your own side; it makes it less confusing when your better half comes home).
But the hours alone are still weird. The only face-to-face adult conversations I've had today were with my mechanic and with the checkout lady at the grocery store. I exchanged maybe 10 words with Danielle before she left this morning, for the week.
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Found it. Finally. Someone working for a company in Chelsea, Mich., thought of us husbands and designed us our very own mug. Available at the Norfolk NEX.