Tick Tock goes the Clock

Time .. minutes, days, weeks, months, years - they take on a new meaning when you have someone in the military.

Oh don' t get me wrong, in our regular everyday, ( read pre-military ), lives there are plenty of times when time and the calendar play a large role. We mark meetings, birthdays, vacations, special events and go on about our business. What I have found, post enlistment, for me, time has become a living breathing entity that has a constant presence. Time is both my friend and my enemy, sometimes at the same time!

It's as if there were suddenly all these tickers clicking simultaneously in my head. First, the countdown to his shipping off to boot camp... 3 months .. everything seems to be focused on that 3 months left.

Ship day comes and another clock starts - 13 weeks of boot camp, and the realization that there is another much larger ticker -the one that marks the end of his first active duty enlistment.. that's the big ticker that is on all the time running in the background. It's silent, but it's there.

Of course when the boot camp ticker starts, we move onto the marking off on the calendar of the weeks .. then days left in boot camp (another topic that will be written about in depth by the way). During boot there was the weekly letter ticker - Thursdays were a favorite day around here ! While this is happening we follow the training matrix as if it holds the answer to eternal youth. A week to rifle qualification, the gas chamber, the final written test, final PFT and the biggie .. gulp.. the Crucible.. a long 54 hour wait for anyone with a recruit in Marine Corp boot camp. Then the longest and shortest week - the one leading to graduation... a week, then day countdown. We get to see him.. and hug him.. and take him home .. hooray!

While we celebrate the day we've been waiting for, graduation from boot camp, we can't help but start thinking about .. only 10 days.. he leaves again in 10 days.. so there is a whisper in the background - Tick Tock.

The 10 days end and as if by magic.. here's comes that clock again - 29 days .. we have 29 days until we see and speak to him again. 30, 20, 10 single digits YAY.
now it's days to spend with him before the next ticker starts - how to enjoy the hours without the clock intruding? it's a balancing act.

On to school... again... tick tock ... how long until graduation this time? 9 months .. another big hooray.. time is now my friend. 9 months he's still safe, 9 months we can breath, 9 more months we can sleep. Though slowly the dark clock is starting to buzz.. the deployment clock.. 9 months until he heads to the operating forces.. 9 months until the reality of his being a Marine hits.. 9 months. During the 9 months were the little tickers.. how many days until the 1st class begins - ends? You can come home for a month?? Yippee !! then the 30 day clock starts again.. how much love, how much fun can you pack into 30 days? Answer is a lot.
Back to the school clock now it's 6 months ... oh wait ... the holidays are coming, he can come home?? how long ? tick tock - he's here- tick tock.. he's gone . tick tock a month to MOS graduation.. can we tell time to stand still? Can I at least try before reality crushes us? Tick Tock is my answer.

Wait ... you get leave before checking in to your unit? 18 days ... He's HOME ... he's gone.. tick tock

Check in day, time to settle into the life of a Marine "in the fleet". The EAS clock is ticking but mercifully all else is quiet. Then the call or text .. we were given our deployment window .. don't worry it's not for a while... like a steam train coming down the tracks...  ticking is threatening to drown out all else, drive all thought from my head. The D word? please not the dreaded D word. But it's inevitable and it's out there now.. so the clock starts again. But wait, look at the calendar - don't allow all this good time to be wasted worrying about what's coming. So the smaller clocks start again, visits, leave.... a chance for dinner. But those damn large clocks are clouding up the horizon.

Along the way, somehow the awakening begins, it starts quietly but then becomes a roar. Life can't revolve around the ends, it will steal from the now. Live in the what you know, not the what ifs. Nothing can put off the day that your Marine, Airmen, Soldier or Sailor has to leave for their next training, next mission or end of leave.

So I try to quiet the ticker that is counting toward the biggie, deployments, and celebrate the present.   It's a work in progress - but at least for the most part I'm somewhat back to the banality of time. I have gone back to the birthdays and meetings .. the lunch dates and holidays. The chance for a dinner with my Marine, visits with his parents and girlfriend... all the happy moments that we'd miss if we allowed the dark side of time to intrude.

Those tickers are always there in the background, quieter now, but never the less -Tick Tock goes the military loved ones clock