Rookie Army National Guard Wife

The conversations have already begun to be distant. He already isn't the man that left just a week ago. The Army prepares the soldiers to become soldiers. They make them into someone else so that they concentrate on the job ahead of them. They leave who they are behind and they go as another entity.

We don't.

We remain. We are still home. We are still doing everything we used to do. We still get up every morning to the same pattern and we remain the same. But we are missing a piece of our lives. They aren't missing anything in this new life of theirs. I know they have to survive and I would give them any tools they needed to do so, but how do our hearts and emotions survive this. I want him to miss me and I really want to hear some emotion in his voice when he tells me he loves me. I have had a dream almost every night this past week that we were splitting up. While I may go on my day to day activities, and I have been busy, I guess this fear still sits in my gut until I go to sleep and then it lets me know it hasn't released me.

I saw a soldier in the store yesterday and I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to see my husband's face when he turned around. I wanted it to be some horrible mistake that I thought he was gone, but that he was really home and everything was ok. But it wasn't his face and I my heart sank. I have a hard time looking at couples holding hands or doing something silly like he and I used to do. A friend reminded me that it has only been a week and things will get better with time. But will it? Will it hurt less when he calls and inside I am screaming for some show of love but on the outside stay strong? Will it be ok when we don't talk for weeks and I'm wondering if it's because he doesn't want to or can't?

My hope is that I can look back at this blog a year from now and be able to say that I have learned something about myself. I hope I can say that I am stronger because of it. I hope I can put an end to this chapter and find myself ready to start a new life with my husband by my side. I guess my biggest fear is that that won't happen.