I wasn’t nearly as organized as I appear to be now; and even now, the chaos I sometimes allow myself to live in still overwhelming. Let’s just say I’m a work in progress. When I was in the military, I was disorganized. I was honestly, disgustingly, disorganized. I felt like I was running a marathon on a treadmill, and I still feel like that from time to time. Life flashes all around me, I am stationary, running as fast as I physically can to catch up and enjoy the life flashes. I realized the extent of my problem when we first moved to Florida and my son’s autism hit a staggering low.
On paper everything was good to go, but when we got to the new state, the new house, and the new school, we quickly realized that it was not “good to go.” The school situation was a mess, and just as school was starting, my husband left on deployment. In the move, we lost my son’s birth certificate. We lost much, and there was little organization to his school reports. I was not prepared for a battle with the school district, and a battle it became. The first 5 months were so harrowing, I don’t have many memories of them. The only thing I do remember is spending much of the school day walking around my home like I was a zombie or in a trance. I attempted to get a job, but it was an extremely low-paying, part-time job, and it didn’t help me feel more fulfilled.
On paper everything was good to go, but when we got to the new state, the new house, and the new school, we quickly realized that it was not “good to go.” The school situation was a mess, and just as school was starting, my husband left on deployment. In the move, we lost my son’s birth certificate. We lost much, and there was little organization to his school reports. I was not prepared for a battle with the school district, and a battle it became. The first 5 months were so harrowing, I don’t have many memories of them. The only thing I do remember is spending much of the school day walking around my home like I was a zombie or in a trance. I attempted to get a job, but it was an extremely low-paying, part-time job, and it didn’t help me feel more fulfilled.
About 18 months later, after everything was settled, my husband received deployment orders, again. It was then that I determined I needed a plan. In the days leading up the deployment, I developed a daily checklist. I figured that if I got one thing done off the daily checklist, I wouldn’t feel like I was stationary while the world moved around me. I picked three projects, three goals, and three fun things to do for the deployment. This created my own dash-one (a dash-one is something that pilots use as a checklist to determine what needs to be done during pre-flight, take-off, while flying, and during descent). I made a dash-one for my life.
The three projects were:
1. repaint my daughter’s room
2. repaint my son’s room
3. repaint the baseboards (they were peeling off, because they were not finished correctly).
My three goals were:
1. to continue to exercise and prepare for my next marathon (it appeared when my husband left, my life stopped)
2. change my attitude about this deployment, I was determined to be happy
3. do something for myself during this time.
My three fun things were:
1. go to the beach the first day of deployment and enjoy it
2. go to Disney World on day 100
3. if I accomplished one thing on my list of not-so-fun things, have a glass of wine each week.
Did I complete my dash-one? Kind of. Let’s just say I had the deployment from hell. It started with a sick kid, then everything went downhill from there. I did end up getting my entire living room repainted, because they had to completely remove a wall. We did go to Disney World a few times during the deployment, but my mom ended up having a Lupus flare up and we left early. I did, for the most part, keep my fitness up. I only gained 4 pounds instead of 20 when he deployed the last time. I did accomplish at least one thing off the list each day, even if the one thing was getting up and showering, so I got to enjoy my glass of wine each week. Even though my life didn’t precisely go as I had precisely planned it to in my dash-one, it wasn’t like the other four deployments, or like the initial long training TDY. We all got through it in one piece.
Suggestions For Home Dash-One:
- 1 large 3″ binder. I selected one from office depot that allowed me to decorate it pretty.
- Power Point
- Goal pictures (here are mine– weekly: a glass of wine, day 100: Disney World picture, and deployment: beach scene)
- Sit down, write out your goals, and then write out how you are going to accomplish them.
- A ton of paper, a ton of ink, and a day of writing and printing out
- When I finished a day, I put the paper in a bin, and at the end of the month, I burned it and ate s’mores :).
- Come up with a title for your Dash-One, other than Dash-One (I called mine Going 180 in 180 Days– as it was almost 180-day deployment, and I decided I was going to do a 180-degree turn from how I previously dealt with deployments).
- And if it doesn’t go as plan, don’t worry about it, just get ONE thing accomplished off the list, even if it’s just getting up and brushing your teeth.
The three projects were:
1. repaint my daughter’s room
2. repaint my son’s room
3. repaint the baseboards (they were peeling off, because they were not finished correctly).
My three goals were:
1. to continue to exercise and prepare for my next marathon (it appeared when my husband left, my life stopped)
2. change my attitude about this deployment, I was determined to be happy
3. do something for myself during this time.
My three fun things were:
1. go to the beach the first day of deployment and enjoy it
2. go to Disney World on day 100
3. if I accomplished one thing on my list of not-so-fun things, have a glass of wine each week.
Did I complete my dash-one? Kind of. Let’s just say I had the deployment from hell. It started with a sick kid, then everything went downhill from there. I did end up getting my entire living room repainted, because they had to completely remove a wall. We did go to Disney World a few times during the deployment, but my mom ended up having a Lupus flare up and we left early. I did, for the most part, keep my fitness up. I only gained 4 pounds instead of 20 when he deployed the last time. I did accomplish at least one thing off the list each day, even if the one thing was getting up and showering, so I got to enjoy my glass of wine each week. Even though my life didn’t precisely go as I had precisely planned it to in my dash-one, it wasn’t like the other four deployments, or like the initial long training TDY. We all got through it in one piece.
Suggestions For Home Dash-One:
- 1 large 3″ binder. I selected one from office depot that allowed me to decorate it pretty.
- Power Point
- Goal pictures (here are mine– weekly: a glass of wine, day 100: Disney World picture, and deployment: beach scene)
- Sit down, write out your goals, and then write out how you are going to accomplish them.
- A ton of paper, a ton of ink, and a day of writing and printing out
- When I finished a day, I put the paper in a bin, and at the end of the month, I burned it and ate s’mores :).
- Come up with a title for your Dash-One, other than Dash-One (I called mine Going 180 in 180 Days– as it was almost 180-day deployment, and I decided I was going to do a 180-degree turn from how I previously dealt with deployments).
- And if it doesn’t go as plan, don’t worry about it, just get ONE thing accomplished off the list, even if it’s just getting up and brushing your teeth.
RSS Feed
