"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.