Military Special Needs Network
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What’ll I Do?
I am under no illusions regarding my writing ability. In a sea of bloggers, I am decidedly on the low end of the food chain. And that’s okay; I only have one direction to go. I love reading my peers’ work. I learn so much from them stylistically and grammatically; to say nothing of their actual message!
And, so, I’ve learned that there are times when what I want to write has already been written – perfectly – by someone else. And I’m not going to mess with perfection. See, I’ve been trying to put into words my feelings about our upcoming deployment. These separations always leave me awash in emotions: grief, stress, worry, loneliness. Until half-way dinner, anyway, then these feelings give way to unimaginable excitement – to the point of being unable to sleep, even though we might still be 12-13 weeks out from homecoming!
As a true child of the 80s and 90s, my husband and I had made mix tapes for each other for his first couple of deployments. Try to contain your laughter, but we used to make them and then send them out back and forth, by way of snail mail. Imagine that! This was before email, of course, when you needed to head to your USO office and send a MARS gram. Anyone remember those? Good Lord, we’ve come a long way from fighting through letters that would be received out of order, weeks after the fight.
Thinking about how “tough” it was for us in the 90s made me think about the Greatest Generation and how they handled the insane deployments in the War. That led me to Googling World War II music, which gave me this somewhat appropriate classic. Although I am not really concerned about the “kissing” portion of the song, the grief and longing reflected in the music and lyrics are incredibly fitting.
Without further explanation or expansion, I give you Mr. Irving Berlin, and the musical stylings of Linda Ronstadt.
What’ll I do
When you are far away
And I am blue
What’ll I do?
…
What’ll I do with just a photograph
To tell my troubles to?
When I’m alone
With only dreams of you
That won’t come true
What’ll I do?
…
2 comments on “What’ll I Do?”
Comments, discussion and insight always welcome!
Military Special Needs Network 
❤ we'll help you through. I wish we were still closer to help you out.
I have 2 weeks left. Excitement and insomnia setting in!