I will, at times, suddenly get tears in my eyes and want to curl up and disappear from everyone and just cry as hard and as long as I can. But I don't. I do take moments during my shower when I will just let the tears fall amidst the water, but even then I have to be careful becaues we have reached that comfortable place in our marriage that he feels he can use the bathroom while I'm in there either showering or doing my hair or makeup. The jury is still out on that one from me, but I digress.
In three weeks I will have to say goodbye. I don't have a choice and I don't have an option of feeling anything about it at this point. It is going to happen regardless. He will start talking about deployment stuff and I find myself drifting off where before every word out of his mouth was like water to a desert nomad. I just don't want to get near it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to plan it. I don't want to figure out what we are going to do. I don't want to know what I have to do in case something happens to him. I don't want to cry anymore.
But I do.
I cry everyday in my own silent way because the only man I have ever truly loved is leaving and I don't know if I will ever see him again. And no I'm not thinking about him not coming home to me physically, but what frightens me more is him coming home but never being him again. My dreams for the future all had him there....him, the man he is. What if he doesn't want our life anymore when he gets home? What if he suffered so much that he will never be able to love again or be loved? There are those that would say to not think of such things, but I am a realist. And realistically, those things could happen.
How am I going to say goodbye?
God, let him be ok. Bring him home to me at the end of this year of hell. I'll do anything, just bring him back. I know I'm selfish when so many other wives and family members are experiencing the same thing and those of them who aren't going to have them come home, but God please help us all get through this. If it can't end, then please make time go by faster. Make the nights shorter so I won't have to lay awake in our bed wondering where he is and if he's ok. Make my heart like steel so it won't hurt while he's gone. Freeze my tears and don't let them fall until I'm safe in his arms again. But God, if you have to ignore me during this year so that you can stay by his side, then I will find a way. Just bring him home again.
I had not written for awhile. I wasn't sure what to do because we didn't know for sure if he was deploying. Today, it became definite. I did know somewhere in my heart that he would be but yet I wasn't prepared. Strangely I feel a tad more peaceful because now I know what to focus on dealing with, but at the same time I have that going over the first hill on a roller coaster feeling in my stomach. There's no turning back and we only have a few weeks left. How do you do it? How do you act like everything is ok and there isn't this mind numbing loud ticking going on all around you.
I don't even know what to say. I'm scared to death and I'm not even completely sure why.
Being the wife of a soldier is frustrating! He's been gone so much during our marriage that I realized that I saw him more while we were dating. I want to be with him but the other part of me feels so angry and helpless to do anything about it that I want to shut him out. Keep him away from my heart that hurts so bad sometimes that I can feel it inside me. I can't talk to him about it because he just gets angry with me. Sometimes I feel like he wants me to love him but only during the times that he has scheduled for it. If I stray from that time period then he's mad.
So, you may ask why do I love him then. I can't honestly say anymore. All the things that were there before are either gone or so few and far between that they are only memories. But I still do love him and that's why it hurts so bad. And if one more person tells me I knew what I was getting into while I'm sad that my husband isn't here I will lose it!!!! Yes, I knew he was in the Army, did I know how exactly it was going to feel to miss him so much and be worried so much, and to not sleep so much, and to be scared so much, and to be frustrated so much, and to want to hide from anything that might hurt more so much.......NO!!!!! I DID NOT!!!! I'm sorry I may not be as strong as all those women out there that can look at me and tell me that, but they have never been married to the Army. They have never had to give up control over their own lives at the whims of "report here tomorrow...." "stay longer" "we don't know when we are sending you home"....and my personal favorite "spend time with your family before you deploy" (except they always tell them this while they have taken them AGAIN and they are there and there is no more family time left. I wish I could just dance around my days and sing that line to myself...."laa laa laa I knew what I was getting into.....laa laa laa" and everything would make sense and all my emotions and thoughts would go back to the way they used to be before all this, but stupidly enough, I can't or don't or whatever, but it doesn't happen. Maybe I could find a group that could teach me the ways of "staters of the obvious" but until then I'm left to my own devices and pillows to cry into at night.
Nothing smells like him anymore.....I can't picture him there anymore.....I cringe when the phone rings because I want to talk to him so bad, but I'm so afraid to....I'm afraid I'll give away the fact that I love him so much and I miss him and then he's going to get angry and be mad at me and we'll leave a conversation like that and I'll have to live with it until he calms down enough to call me again. But yeah, I knew what I was getting into.
I have decided....I know which is worse....it's definitely the up and down. I thought the deployment would be unbearable but I was wrong. I had actually gotten to the point where I was dealing with it and I was ok. I knew it was coming and all my worrying about it wasn't going to make it better or change it. So, I finally reached a place inside myself where I felt some peace.
BAMMO
I have good news. He was offered a job at the armory here in the states to fill a position that needs to be filled while they are deployed. So that was dropped on us last month. He actually told them he would have to talk to his wife about it before he told them if he wanted it or not. I looked at him and asked him if he actually thought I would prefer he deployed. Talk about wanting to smack someone. But in a poised and dignified response I said " Oh Dear, that would be lovely if you were to be able to remain home." Ok, maybe it wasn't quite like that, but I said that it would be wonderful. We both operated under no delusions and upon his going to the armory the next day we both knew that this was going to hurt us in the end, so we continued to live and have discussions as if he will be deployed.
I fought and fought to not even think of it. To not think that we would be together for our first anniversary, that he would be home for our first christmas as a family, that he would be able to help me decide what to do with the house, that we could go camping on the weekends, that he would be by my side almost every night when I fall asleep. No, I didn't think about all that stuff at all.
I'm lying to you all......I thought about it and got sick to my stomach because I knew I was setting myself up to be more hurt, more angry, more betrayed when it all fell out from under us. He was supposed to find out today if he got the job. When he called last night (he's away for training again) I asked him how they were going to let him know. He said he would be back in time to sign the papers. In my confused civilian way, I said "I'm confused" he said "oh I got the job." Just like that.....no guess what?!!?!? Nothing.....I asked him if he wasn't happy about it and he said he was, but I don't think he is now. I think he's going to feel guilty that he isn't going with his guys and he will change his mind.
My stomach is ripped to shredds. I have a steady diet of tums now. So many ups and downs. Never knowing how to feel. For I think the first time last night, I didn't want to talk to him. I told him he sounded tired and he should get some good sleep, but honestly I just didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want my happy bubble to explode quite yet. And I don't know how much more my system can take. I can deal with him staying (obviously) and I know I will find a way to deal with him going (like I was beginning to), but never knowing what will happen today is overwhelming me.
Besides, what will I do with this blog if he's here? Eh, I'm sure I'll find something to gripe about.
We talked a little yesterday about some things that were bothering me about what is happening to us. I know if there are any guys reading this you're probably feeling his pain about having to have a girly talk about feelings. But, I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't sleep and being near him was making me feel like a trapped animal. This is the man that I love and committed my life to and I couldn't be near him. Ignoring those feelings didn't seem to be an option.
Of course, as most men do, he shut down in the beginning. I explained to him that I can't live this way anymore. I can't do limbo. Either I have to shut him out of my heart completely or we need to work on this. He's always told me that together we can handle anything and our strength as a couple was grounded in our ability to talk to each other about anything. Yet here we were, facing the biggest and scariest thing in our relationship and we can't talk about it. I just had had enough. I told him I needed him and I need his help and of course he snapped at me about what do I want him to do. He doesn't have answers for me. All this time, he thought all I needed was to know exactly what was going to happen, what it would feel like, how long it would last, etc. That just wasn't true. What I needed was to know that he was feeling stuff too. I felt like I was so alone in how I was feeling and I started to feel like I was crazy. He said he thinks about stuff all the time and I told him I just need for us to be able to talk through this together. To handle this obstacle in our lives together. I just can't do it alone.
Once he was done feeling like I was just being a girl and really heard me, he calmed down and he promised he would start opening up more. This is all new to him too because last time he deployed he didn't have a family waiting for him at home. I can understand that, I can understand anything, just not pretending this isn't happening.
I really want my friend back. The one that I could stay up all night and talk to about anything and who could talk to me about anything. I don't need some fake bravado or "protection" from the truth. I want the real stuff. I want to feel normal again. I don't want to feel so alone lying next to my husband anymore.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Maybe that's why I haven't written, I just don't know how to put my thoughts into words. We watched the movie Home of the Brave last night. It was so hard to watch it because some of the things that were happening in the movie, I worry about with my husband. What will things be like when he gets home?
But lately, I don't even know what to feel. It's going to be happening soon and yet I feel almost a dead feeling inside like I'm anxious to get it over with, the him leaving part. I don't know what to act like with him. He's been different too. He says he's happy and still want to be married to me and have our lives together, but something inside him is different and it isn't good. I never used to feel like I had to do damage control with the kids because of him, but now I do. I never thought I would have to walk on egg shells with him, but now I do. The stress of all of this is truly wearing me down and I just don't know how much I can take.
Is loving someone enough? I know marriage is hard and we've had to wade through things that normal newlyweds don't necessarily face so early on, but will we be ok? Will I want to be ok? I'm just so angry and hurt and scared. I love him and want to grab on to him and hold him and at the same time I want to run as far away as I can, just to feel normal again. He says I'm the perfect wife, but I'm not and I carry these feelings inside me like I'm living a lie. I'm lost and right now, I don't want to be found.
I'm in a horrible mood today. So much has been going on in the last 3 weeks that I think I'm finally having my melt down about it and by melt-down I mean that I'm feeling angry and bitter and like a trapped animal that has to get away. My parents used to have a campsite that I would escape to and has been part of who I am since birth, but this year they decided to move the trailer to a new place that has more stuff to do because of the kids and it won't be ready until next spring. BUT, I need to get out!!!!! I need that someplace to escape to and since I have kids taking a unguided road trip and sleeping in the car won't be happening.
Now mind you, I have PMS this week and it's possible that what I'm feeling is solely related to that, but I also believe that the things that I successfully shove into the recesses of my dark little mind during my "sane" weeks comes out because I'm weaker and can't fight them as well.
My most distressing issue right now is that I'm sick of changing things all the time. Is he coming home this week, will he have to go somewhere else, how long will I get to see him, when is he leaving for real, how long will he be gone.......and on and on. There are NO answers and if you're part of the military you better just suck it up and deal with it. My life, that I had been so controlling of just a few short years ago is spinning our of control at the whims of other people and there is not one thing that I can do about it!!!!
I really just want to be a family and worry about stupid stuff like what's for dinner and is there enough detergent to do all the laundry today. No thoughts about war or living or dying or loneliness or fear. Just planning a family vacation for next year. Christmas shopping together without wondering if this will be our first and last christmas together. Oh sure, you all may think I'm messed up and I would have to agree, but this blog is about me being honest and honestly I wonder everyday if I finally found my sole mate only to have him ripped away from me after a short time together. We've been married for 5 months and have been together for 3 of them. Woooo......hooooo.
I love the man with everything that I could love him with and I would never want to be apart from him, but I hate this life and I don't know how to make the two work together without sacrificing something. I just have been feeling lately like I'm carrying my own rucksack and it's so heavy and I just want to put it down for awhile.
I just want him to come home. I miss having him around. He sounds so sad on the phone and I just want to go to him and hold him until everything is back to normal. But I guess, since he's deploying soon, this will be the normal from now on. I don't want to do it. I want my husband and my kids to be together in our home where we can laugh, fight, goof off, and whatever together. He's everything that completes me and I feel a little lost without him.
I have a job interview today. I realized as I was getting ready this morning that my husband wasn't there to check everything out and make me feel like I looked like I am put together. I won't get a text with some words of encouragement and love and I will be doing this alone. This is the first of many things that I will be doing alone.
I was alone with my kids for 10 years before he came into our lives, so how could I become so soft so quickly. He needed me to need him a little more and become less independent. I did that and now I am paying for it. Now I have to rebuild what was already a solid structure before. I don't know what to do anymore. I just want to feel normal again, but will I ever? I love him so much and I want to give him all that he asks of me but after what happened last night, I just don't think I should anymore. Can a marriage survive if you hold back on each other?
Well, I failed again. Today is day 7....until about an hour ago I was pretty darned proud of myself for not being a blubbering mess about my husband being gone. I had the mindset that he would be gone for 3 weeks and not to even think of him coming home sooner. So last night he kept asking me how many days until he got to come home. I honestly didn't know because I was being sane this time around. Well a week has gone by and today I sat at work and counted the days until I would get to see him again and I really felt sad because I missed him. So doesn't he call a little while ago and tell me they are sending him for another week. So true to form I show an emotion and he gets mad. He can call and tell me how much he misses me but I tell him that I'm sad because it's going to be even longer now and he gets mad at me and tells me I'm jumping all over him and what do I want him to do about it. I'm done. I honestly can't give any more of myself. I don't even know what a true feeling is anymore because I'm afraid to show any. If I don't show that I miss him then I'm glad he's gone and where's my new boyfriend. If I do get upset that I miss him then I'm jumping all over him.
He told me we would figure this out and make it work and my response although cold and very unlike me was that there was nothing to work out. There is no compromise to be had. He is a soldier and I am his wife. There are no choices in this military life. I told him that I enjoy being with him when he's here and I have to learn to block that out while he's gone. I don't know what else to do, but I'm sick and tired of being yelled at because I care. I asked him if he would think it was weird if he told me that he wasn't coming home for another week and I told him, "cool!". I mean, aren't I supposed to miss him? Then it dawns on me that if the roles were reversed he wouldn't feel like I do. He's never had to wait for me. I've always been there right when he needed me everytime he needed me. He's never gotten the phone call that I was going to be late coming home from work let alone gone another week. All I know is that I failed myself. I put up a wall that held strong until I let him in. Now I'm left with a pile of bricks, a tissue box, and a headache.
What is better than your husband's hands? What feels the same as his hand holding yours? What makes you feel safer than feeling him sleep next to you, his arm draped around you? What's better than making him laugh because you did something silly? What's better than him coming out to greet you at the car when you get home since he is almost never home before you? What's better than a stolen moment just to go grocery shopping together? What's better than the moment you catch him staring at you? What's better than him being with you? I miss him.
I'm doing ok. I don't understand it, but I am. It seems my husband and I have switched roles. He's away for 2-3 weeks training. Usually the first week he's distant and soldier like and I'm a basket case after we get off the phone because I miss his husbandness (yes, one of my many talents is making up new words!!!). This time is different. He's homesick. I've never heard him this way before. The National Guard is his life and I knew when I became involved with him that I was always going to be second to that. But this time is different and it has me worried a bit.
If you've been reading this blog you know how emotional I am about him and his deployment and truth be told, I truly am not a blubbering mess on the surface. Most of my friends and family don't even know I have these feelings. This is how I get them out, which is why they sound so raw and mushy, but I digress. I have looked at this training as my test of sorts. That if I couldn't manage to pull myself together now that I won't be ok when he deploys. I haven't done anything differently though, but I'm ok. I miss him, but I'm using this time as productively as possible and accomplishing a lot.
What I worry about now is that he is homesick, which is a first and I truly want him to be able to deploy and be who he has to be as a soldier so that he can come home to us and we can resume life again. Yes, I know there will be changes but I believe in us and what we have and I know we are both better together than apart. I don't want him to lose that instinct and be thinking about us while he is there and all his senses need to be focused on what is going on there. I don't want to be the weight that holds him down. So, what is my role? What can I do to be supportive and let him know we love him and we'll be here when he returns, but still encourage him to be a soldier first? I don't know yet, but when I figure it out, of course I'll let you know.
I'm in emotional limbo. Well not really. I'm still being a girl and still emotional about all this. But I feel so drained. I feel like I could not possilby cry another tear but yet they keep coming. He's been different lately. Withdrawn and quick to get angry. But he tells me he loves me all the time and still wants to fall asleep holding me. I think both of us don't know what to do with our emotions. I want to pull away sometimes just to stop feeling sad but then I want to cling to him and suck every last second out of our lives together before he leaves. I'm constantly in a battle with myself.
This week he leaves for his 3 weeks. I'm hoping that for both of us we can sort out our emotions and what's going on inside us and find some peace to enjoy the rest of our time together. I don't want to screw it up. I've heard so much about how the pressure gets to the families and they argue a lot before they actually leave. I don't want to see that happen to us. We had a talk last night lieing in the dark in our bed about how we've been feeling lately. He said he's scaired because it seems like all the guys he's deploying with or has deployed with are having problems in their marriages or have girls on the side. He said he's scaired that he won't be the same when he comes back and that I won't love him anymore. Ironically, I worry that he won't be the same when he gets back and that he won't love me anymore. We've always had some of the same insecurities but what has saved us from ourselves in the past is that we usually don't suffer from them at the same time. This time we are.
There are so many open-ended thoughts. I don't know how long he'll be gone. I don't know if I'll get to see him on his leave after training before he deploys. What will it be like when he comes home? Will we survive this as a couple? I love him with all that I am and yet I can't be naive and think that things can change. He's a proud man and if something happened to him I know he would try to push me away thinking that I deserve better. That's what scaires me so much. How bad it will hurt to love someone that has decided he can't love you back.
Today I don't like myself. I am weak and not at all who I used to be before I allowed myself to love again. I used to be able to shut anything off. Not feel it, or be affected by it unless I chose to be. But now, I am unable to do so and I am angry with myself.
It gets closer and closer and inside I am full of explosive emotions that I can't share and I can't let out because I have no outlet for them. I can't tell my family because they would just say that I knew what I was getting into, and I did...I know. I can't tell my friends because why make it akward for them to try to decide what comforting words they can offer when they have no idea. I can't tell my kids for obvious reasons....they're kids and should never be burdened by my emotions. I can't tell my husband because everytime I try he shuts completely off. So where am I left? Those family meeting will be starting soon. I have never been to any and I am loath to rely on a stranger in a time of emotional crisis. When we had to go to the church for pre-marital counseling I shook the entire day because I was so nervous. Stuff goes in....I was not built for it to come out.
So I cry in my car on my way home from work. I cry in the shower. I cry after he falls asleep. I cry while I cook on the grill. I cry when I walk the dog by myself. And yet I never feel any better because what I cry for I can never change. What if I am not strong enough for this? I am so scared that when he comes home he won't love me anymore. That our life will pale in comparison to what his life was for that year. That during that year while he is gone I will be afraid to talk to him and to only hear the soldier in his voice and not my husband. That I will crave his love so bad that I will become hardened from not receiving it. That I will find out that I am the most selfish wife he could have picked for himself.
He leaves this week for training for the next month. I want to be strong enough to make it without crying. I want this to be the practice test so that I know I will be able to pass the final. But I am so scared.
I am alone. My insides feel like they are going to explode outside my body at any moment and I realized that I can't talk to anyone about it. I'm scared to death of him leaving. All the what ifs that I don't need to mention haunt me now that the date is getting closer. So much is going through me now and I can't talk to anyone about it. My friends have been and have offered to be very supportive but they don't truly understand and then there's the comments about if I'm this worried now what is it going to be like when he's gone. Well duh!!!! That's my point.
I'm so angry that he has to go. That there are people that started this whole thing and now the people we love have to be ripped away from us. I'm so sick of it! I'm so sick of hiding how I feel all the time so no one worries or thinks I'm nuts. I want to scream at him to listen to me to try to understand how I feel and to not judge me when I lose it. But he has to be strong all the time so in his eyes I'm just being weak. I don't know....this is just a big crapfest of a day. Sorry you had to suffer through this.
Well, we have a date. Well approximately, you know how that is. But come February I will once again be by myself in my teeny house. Yesterday, I asked him not to go. I know you'll be shocked at his answer, but it was that he has to. I'm not 3 years old. I know he has to go, but I had to say it. My fear is building and it seems like the only thing I can say that won't diminish me to a pile of tears, but still let him know that I don't know how I'm going to live without him.
It makes me sick to my stomach every time I think of the "goodbye" moment. And for those of who think I could just not think about it, I can't. It's going to happen. It isn't a maybe anymore, it's real and I have no idea how I'm going to get through it. And that, above all, scares the crap out of me.
The ticking is getting louder by the day. I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel anymore and I'm finding that I'm just shutting down a little. I feel like every moment should be special before he leaves and that magic should happen every day, but that obviously stupid. Regular life is well, regular. No magic, no parades, no kodak moments.
I honestly don't know how I'm going to survive the year. That's so selfish I know. He's the one going through it and all I have to do is stay home and hold down the fort. But how am I supposed to act like everything is normal and great knowing that the only man I have ever truly loved is half a world away and in danger???? No, I am not the only one who has to go through this. Thousands of wives and husbands have done this and will continue to do this and somehow they survive, despite the outcome. However, I am scared and is my being scared an omen or just normal?
What is it going to be like to sleep in our bed alone? How many times will I look in his closet and try to picture him standing there in his clothes? How many sleepless nights and tears will fall? How many times will I freak out when I don't hear from him for awhile? How many headaches because of the stress?
I have already begun to make plans to keep myself busy. I want to have some things done on the house so that it will be ready to sell when he gets home. I want to start doing real estate part time again. I'll still be doing things in school. I'll still have the kids and the dog. I'll have a new career to take on. And yet somehow I have this feeling that when it is all said and done, I will still be laying in our bed awake and wondering and listening for that phone to ring, just in case.
It's the just in case that I know will make doing all that stuff harder.....
Ok, I haven't posted for awhile and as I thought about it last night I think it's because I've been trying to avoid the subject. But, of course I watched Army Wives and the men got deployed and I think I cried out my guts for a good hour or two afterwards. Thank goodness my husband was at work.
How do you say goodbye? I mean, all I keep picturing is wanting to give him one more kiss, one more hug, and trying to find "THE" best words to say how I feel that will last him until he comes home. What do you do when one more hug and kiss still isn't enough? I don't want to be a mess when he leaves and to have his last vision of me with a red face and runny nose and sobbing uncontrollably. Not the image I want him to carry with him.
I wrote him a note last night and stuck it in a pocket that I'm hoping he will find at the most appropriate time when he needs love from home the most. In it I tried to verbalize without being morbid that no matter what, I will love him the same as I do now. I waited for my first 30 years for someone like him and I can't and don't want to imagine spending my last years without him. And let's be honest, he is going to war. I have no guarantees that I won't or that he won't come home the same. But I wanted him to know that I would stand by him, and that I would love him forever. It seems kind of arrogant to speak of forever when everyone says that when things are good. I just hope and pray that the kind of person I want to be for him is the kind of person I will be for him.
A friend recently asked how I was handling knowing his deployment is coming up. My response was the only way I could think to answer her and make it make sense to someone not experiencing it. I said this: this part is like going up the first hill on the roller coaster, you know each click is bringing you one step closer to the drop, but you're on the ride and you can't get off now. Once you get to the top, you have to go with it because there are no options.
I love him with all my heart. There are no options for me because the alternative isn't anything I want to even consider. So, I'm getting on the roller coaster with him and we're on our way up the first hill. But when that ride is over, I want him to still be by my side so we can head over to some more boring rides....like vacations, doctor appointments, picnics, buying a house, whatever.....just no more hills......please.
Lately I have found myself having conversations that start out with "next year we should...." and then end in the oh yeah.....we won't be together next year. I don't understand how to live in limbo and how not to do it. I still will have my kids that will need to keep going on with their lives and I know he wants me to live like I do now and still be with friends and take vacations, but I really don't know how I'm going to do that. We had a huge discussion about taking a vacation without him. I don't think I could. He thinks I should. I don't want to be someplace soaking up the sun or having fun all the while he's in danger and living in horrible conditions at times. Maybe it isn't healthy. I don't know, I've never been here before. Man, I just realized that the only answer I seem to be able to give myself all the time is....I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.......
Back when my husband found out he was going to deploy we decided that instead of waiting until next year, we would get married this year before he goes. I knew I wanted to marry him and a deployment wasn't going to be a catalyst or a deterrent to that. And as I've said before, I knew that I would have to accept his life as a soldier if I wanted to spend my life with him and I made the conscious decision to do so. He originally told me that they had to go, there were no options. Come to find out that during the first time I got to meet his Guard buddies in their discussions the word volunteered was used quite frequently. At which point he turned to me and said "oh yeah, I volunteered to go." At the time, my initial reaction was anger that he lied to me about something so big. I have never stood in his way in his military career because it is part of him and to me it would be no different than him asking me to give up my kids, so I didn't understand why he lied. He said he didn't want me to be upset and think that he did it so he could get away from me.
So fast forward 5 months later. We are married and still planning for his deployment sometime in the next 6 months or so. So during this time I have tried to make it make sense to my "non soldier" self. But in reading other blogs I have heard the sentiment from other soldiers about them feeling like they need to be there and they actually miss it when they leave.
Here's me in honest, raw form. Take it with a grain of salt and try not to hate me. He is choosing to deploy because "all his friends are going". He is not trying to get away from me or our life together, but he wants to be with them. I nod and pretend I understand and support him as best I can. Inside I rage... So he chooses to go....chooses mind you, and God forbid something happens to him. I know I will be angry that he chose them over us and now something has happened. I hate myself for it. I shouldn't even think that something could happen to him but I don't know how to deal with this almost jealousy over his choice. I guess him being told he has to go would in some way make it easier because there would be no choice. Because he wouldn't be choosing living in a war zone over living with me (ok I know sometimes I might be mistaken for the queen of a warzone, but we aren't talking about me). I can't help but take it personally and then I can undertand why he lied to me in the first place.
I do want to understand. I want to stop walking around with this guilt because I am the only one who knows he volunteered. Most of all, I want that day to come when I say goodbye and I'm honestly ok with his decision to go. That I can honor him for the soldier he is and not be thinking about the reasons he is leaving.
I know the soldiers out there who too have made the choice to go despite their families' reactions, may not understand how we cannot understand, but we don't. We aren't soldiers. The thing that calls us and motivates us and makes us feel like we matter is our calling to you. And when you want to go away I guess on some level we feel like we've failed. We haven't been able to complete our mission. I will continue to love my husband for ALL that he is. He is a grandson, a son, a husband, a step-dad, a man and a soldier. If any of those things are taken away, he wouldn't be him. And yes, loving him is worth it all.
I was watching this video and of course sobbing. But when I watched all those soldiers and the close ups of their faces I couldn't help but notice the faraway look in their eyes. Some of them made me want to go get them and give them a hug that would take all of what they experienced away and then send them back home to their families.
Is a soldier a "what" or a "who"? I think too many times people look at them as a collective unit. Faceless men and women who wear the same uniform and we put our magnets on our cars "for the soldier" and that's it. That's our proof that we care. But they aren't a collective unit. They are individuals who I'm sure in the darkest of nights hurt inside that they aren't at home with the people who love them. They may not admit to a tear or two falling but I believe they do.
I don't know what I'm trying to say. Sometimes it just hurts in the pit of my stomach to think of them being deployed and so far from home. What happens when they get sick and they need some TLC? Or when they are scared who reassures them all will be ok? I've been so caught up in how we deal with it back home that I forgot that yes, they may be soldiers and this may be what they train for and accept but they are still us. They still feel underneath all that gear. And I feel so ashamed for not acknowledging all that before.
I pray that when each of them needs that goodnight hug tonight and every night that God will somehow reach them and that they feel that warmth in their souls and they will know they aren't alone and that we wait here to do it for real when they return to us.
We have made it through the first full week of being together as a new family. There have been challenges and I imagine there will be many more to come. It is a lot of hard work though.
I'm pretty impressed with him though. He went from no kids and no family responsibilities to being with the kids during the day while they are home for the summer. Talk about being thrown into the fire. But he's doing well. The kids are being good and there seems to be more structure in the house than there was before, which tickles me to no end!!!
Still no puppy yet and it looks like the fridge will be first. Hard to cuddle with them though, but I'll be a big girl and be patient and wait for my puppy. Our new debate is that he wants an American Bulldog and I want a Boxer. The temperments from all that I have read seem to be very similar. Anyway, I'll keep you posted on who ends up winning this one. He keeps telling me I can pick the fridge but I think it's because he's setting me up so he can say well since I picked the fridge he should pick the dog. Ok, maybe that's really my plan!!!!
Tomorrow is July 4th!!!! Hug a soldier, thank them, love them and don't forget them. We celebrate July 4th as our Indepence Day because brave men fought for freedom they believed in. Today, brave men and women are fighting for freedom that they believe in. It is not free or even cheap. It is paid not with dollars and cents or budgets and bills, but by families, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and friends and those who willingly serve to preserve what many have done long before them. I hope and pray that God blesses you all in whatever capacity our world affects you and in the end you'll see the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there!!!!
I know that I have to enjoy each moment, each memory, each day one at a time. People tell me that all the time. What they don't tell me is how to shut off this time clock in my head of how long I have to enjoy this or that. Will it go away on it's own? Do I have to throw myself against the wall in hope of hitting the off button?
He's home from training. That used to be my time clock. Now it's the next training and then the deployment and then the longest and loudest ticking will begin. He does something that annoys me or something that a normal wife would be all over him about, but in the back of my head I hear the "don't ruin the time you have left" voice. This constant pressure to make sure everything is perfect will lead to my own destruction and I know enough about myself to know this is true, but I don't know how to fix it and I don't have anyone in my life right now that would know. If you know me you know that I am extremely anal and controlling of my environment and everything I do has to be perfect or the earth's rotations will somehow get off kilter and it will be my fault. I grew up knowing that if something was wrong in my house it was because somehow I made it happen. Then I entered a bad marriage to a not so nice man who re-enforced the everything is my fault default option so now that I'm married to a wonderful man who truly would move mountains to protect me he says the smallest thing and my world spins out of control of "see even I've screwed up his life" thoughts. Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs but I just have this vision that if I did that all that would really happen is everyone would stop for a moment, look at me, and say when you're done with that would you (insert task here).
You should know, I'm very happy to have my husband home. It's so good to hear him laughing and to see him goofing around with the kids and to reach over and grab my hand or touch my leg while he's watching tv or reading just to let me know he still needs me there every bit as much as I need him. I enjoy each of those moments and countless others and none of my memories have an expiration date on them.
"Everything has to be perfect." This has been my mantra all this week. My friend told me that you would think we were dating still and I wanted to impress him. Well in a way, it feels like we are still dating because of the lack of married life we have spent together, but on a deeper level I don't think I'm trying to impress him as much as I want him to always want to come home. I want him to feel as though he was missed and that we look forward to him returning. Whether it's for this short 3 week training session or a long deployment. Everyone should know how much the people in their lives care for them.
So I make no apologies to getting all the laundry done so I can focus on his when he comes home. I make no apologies for making more room in my house for his stuff so he can start to feel like it is his home too. I make no apologies for changing the decor of my country bedroom into country meets classic car models so he can look around and see his stuff too. I make no apologies for shaving several times to make sure I'm as smooth as I can be so he can relish in being around a woman instead of a bunch of men. I make no apologies for planning the dinner menu a thousand times to pick the best option for him. I make no apologies for loving my husband and putting his needs before my own because I know he'll take care of me too.
And to all my skeptic friends who thought I was too independent to ever put myself in a position to do "wifely" things for my husband I say pfffffffffftttttttttt! I'm a complicated book people. This chapter is titled "The Softer Side of Me".
My husband is finally coming home tomorrow. I can't wait. Now we can get on with the business of being husband and wife and seeing what that's really like. There just wasn't enough time before he left. Other than the rings I wear and knowing that my heart totally belongs to him, I don't feel "married" yet. It still sounds weird when the Guard guys are in the background asking him if he's talking to the wife. The wife. How funny.
I started writing this blog as a means to get out my feelings about my husband's upcoming deployment without burdening him or my friends when I'm up in the middle of night. I assure you my reasons were purely selfish.
However, what I have received thus far has humbled me beyond what any words could describe. I have received comments from other wives (you know who you are) that have made me feel so comforted. Wives who have experienced it all at some point and selflessly offer their support and encouragement to a stranger that felt as though I was only yelling into an empty room. I had to take some time to just let you know how important you are to me. How encouraging you have been and how much my heart goes out to each of you for your sacrifices, your tears, your lonely nights, and your fear.
Our husbands are heroes in every sense of the word. Mine in particular would be my hero even if he never put on a uniform. But you all are heroes too. The silent heroes who slip in the things they forget in their bags, who brave the day to day decisions on your own, who hold vigil until you hear their voice or hear that other wives have heard from their husbands, and who will stand at attention waiting for their soldier to come home.
I hope that when my time comes, I too can be a hero. I hope I will one day be able to make you proud and honor the traditions that come with being a military wife. So thank you all for reaching out to me and being a friend and for making me feel like I didn't just marry into his family, but I married into an even bigger and even more amazing family.
I've been notorious in my circle of friends that I don't sleep well. It drives my husband crazy because he feels like he's responsible. I guess it's because when we were just dating he would come over we would settle in for a movie and I'd be heading to sleepytown almost instantly. I just always felt more at ease inside when he was there. That's why I have always called him my hero because he is the only one, including myself, who has been able to slay my dragons. But I don't, nor have I ever, held him responsible for my not sleeping. Well maybe a couple times, but we won't go into that.
So here's the interesting turn of events. As you know I miss him immensely. I would move heaven and earth if I thought I could bring him home. However, for some odd reason I'm sleeping. I am in bed and asleep by 11. Not 1, 2 or 3 in the morning but 11. No tossing and turning, no reading to make the loudness in my head go away, no lieing away thinking about all the stuff I should be up and doing. Nope, I'm asleep. This is such an odd experience for me that I had a dream that he came home and I fell asleep. When I woke up he was gone and his truck wasn't sitting in the driveway anymore and I knew he would be gone for awhile again and I missed him, all because I was asleep.
So what is this feeling of doing something wrong because I'm asleep. True, I know he is safe and he is only on training and he will be home in a week, but somehow I feel like I should be holding vigil or something for him. That because I am able to sleep, I don't care or something. I truly am messed up. My best friend told me that since we got married that my face is so much more relaxed and I just seem calmer.
I do feel calmer on some level. I know he'll be coming home soon and he'll be coming home to me and our life together, finally. Time to go looking for a fridge and a grill and a puppy.....together. I love that word!!!
Have you ever looked at a picture of empty combat boots? I mean really looked at it? I have a hard time looking at them. I'm not really sure why though. I think that when I see them it starts me wondering who was in those boots. Are they happy? Are they safe? Who loved the person that wore them and are they together now? What have the boots seen and experienced? Did they help them escape danger or take them to the waiting arms of someone who loved them?
I never expected to look at boots and wax philosophical about them, but I can't help but wonder what their story is. When my husband's boots are in the hall, sitting empty, I know he's home with me and I'm happy. When his boots are gone, there is a huge empty space where they once stood and I am sad.
I hope everyone gets to see the boots of someone you love, empty and in your halls.
I feel guilty. I can't help it. Today has been hard being away from him. So, I thought I would try to put things into perspective by reading blogs from wives whose husbands are deployed. So far it has made me feel guilty about feeling the way I do, but it hasn't lessened it.
I guess what it boils down to is that I am selfish. I want my husband to be by my side. I want to fall asleep and feel him next to me. I want to come home and find him there, waiting for me. We were married for a couple weeks before he left. I don't feel like we've even been able to be husband and wife yet and I feel angry that the first precious weeks of a marriage are gone and he isn't here. Then I feel guilty again.
I knew that he was a soldier when we met. I knew that as I fell in love with him that I was taking on more than just a relationship with a man, I was handing over my ability to control my world. I am so proud of him and the man he is and the soldier he fights to be, but I'm sure it doesn't sound like it while I'm whining.
He will deploy. He will leave for a long time. He will not be able to call everyday. He will not have the ability to be mushy. And I need to deal. I need to grow up and face it and move forward as a whole individual capable of handling what befalls us. Yet here I sit, tears streaming down my face because he's gone for 3 weeks and I miss him. Three weeks!!!! What is wrong with me?
I'm sorry to all of you out there who's husbands are gone for being this selfish and so amazingly myopic in my view of all things "me". What you must endure, what you face, and what you handle is beyond my current brief moments of absence from my husband and yet I sit and whine.
Hopefully, he will never read any of these postings and know how cowardly his wife truly is. I don't ever want him to know this side of me. But, if he did I would want him to know that despite the tears, the frustrations, the anger and the fear that it all stems from the very core of who I am. And that core is the one that has grown from a small seed of love for him into an unending jungle of respect, awe, faithfulness, hope, amazement, and yes love. I love you and I always will.
I miss him. He's been gone for 8 days now. Last week was hard. He wasn't very happy and I felt like I was responsible, but we finally really talked yesterday and I found out what was really going on. I wish I could know when this would get better. When I will be the wife that can't wait for him to go out or find something to do so I can be alone. I hate being without him. Why does that have to change? Most of the women I know that have been married for awhile keep telling me to just wait and it will happen. But I don't understand. Why get married if that person isn't the one you want to grow old with? Believe me, he isn't perfect and I definitely am not and we have disagreements and get on each others nerves, but I can't imagine not wanting him to be around. I was married before and I did feel that way for my ex-husband and this is so different.
Anyway, this was his first father's day as a stepdad and he feels bad for being away. But my thoughts are drawn toward the fathers that are in other countries that weren't able to be here when their children were born. How they faced today having arms that have held weapons, but never felt the softness of their child's newborn skin. How their eyes search the countryside for danger but never get to gaze into the wonder of their child's eyes when they truly see for the first time. Sometimes I wonder what kind of world this is now. I don't truly understand how daily men and women hug their spouse or loved one goodbye for the last time not knowing if they will ever hold them again. How can this be ok? Where does the strength to let go come from? Will I find it when it is my turn?
To all those out there who have been there and have survived, you are my heroes and I can only hope that someday I will be able to make you all proud.
Thus we begin the journey together....
I am new to blogging but I thought it would be a beneficial avenue to get out my feelings in the middle of the night so that my friends still will remain friends with me! I am newly married...just a few weeks now...and already my husband is gone on training. I know, I know...it's not like he surprised me and told me he was in the military after we got married, but it hasn't made it any easier. I miss him. Most of all, I miss who he is when he isn't wearing that uniform. He changes when it's on. I know he has to, but it's hard to watch the loving man I know get locked away. When he calls I want so badly to hear him say the sweet things that he normally does and hear that he loves me in his voice, but I don't and it hurts sometimes.
He is supposed to be deploying next year and I can't help but wonder, who will he be when he calls me from over there. Will I know him? Will he still love me? Will he miss us? Will he come back and return to the way he was? I get so scared when I think about it, but I realize that what he will experience while he is deployed is something that I will never have to experience and therefore can never fully understand the inevitable changes that will take place inside him because of it. Oh, believe me, I want to understand. I want to be able to have the magic words to make it better. Or wrap my arms around him so tight and squeeze all the bad out, but I know that just isn't possible. So, in the mean time, while he is just away on training I sit here and try to make myself stronger so when he deploys I am ready. I'm failing, miserably. I hate looking at our bed and wanting him to be there. Getting a wiff of his cologne on the pillows and wishing my head was on his chest and I was safe and happy again. He only lived in our house for a week after we were married before he left and yet I feel his absence so acutely.
During the days I work full time and I go to school full time 2 nights a week and there's a house to take care of and 2 kids who have lives to attend to and I keep going and doing and I'm fine. But the nights are hard. He calls and I want to spill out my feelings and tell him how much I love him and miss him and yet I know I can't because he is there and he is a soldier. He tells me he loves me but it doesn't have the passion it does when he is home. Oh God, I miss my husband. The one not in the uniform. The one that I can fall asleep better knowing he is beside me. The one who will absent mindedly rub my leg or my hand when we are sitting close just to let me know he's there. The one who makes me laugh and holds me tight when I cry. The one who if he saw me crying right now would wrap his arms around me and just love me....I miss him.