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.....