Math

For a nerd like me I take comfort in math. Numbers don't lie and can be very powerful. Here are some numbers for you:

27 months - the length of time Neilson and I have been married
15 months - the amount of time during our marriage we have not lived together

Why do I bring this up? Well, Neil just left today for a fourth tour in the middle east. He is scheduled for 12 months which for the sake of my calculations we'll stick to for now. So if I add 12 months to the above figures you get:

39 months married
27 months spent apart

It's sad for separation and deployment to be the normal status of a marriage/relationship. At this rate using my conservative 12 month figure it will take roughly 2.5 years from today for us to get to the point where we are 50/50 in our seperation/living together.

All those numbers are depressing but numbers can be comforting too. For instance, a vast majority of soldiers return home to their families. The KIA rate is very low. And before anyone jumps down my throat, any KIA is too many but it is a comfort to know that an overwhelming majority of troopers come home. To expand on these numbers a bit, out of KIAs, officers make up a very slim portion. And that is my answer to "How do you do it and not me consumed by worry?" The numbers are in my favor - everything is going to be okay.