Rookie Army National Guard Wife

Today was a horrible day. I had to have a conversation with my husband that I was trying at all costs to avoid, but it couldn't be anymore. It left me feeling dead inside like I do now. But then I came home and a story was on the news about Johnathan Cote, the contractor that was kidnapped in Iraq a year ago. Read his story here.

I sobbed so hard I had to leave the room so the kids didn't think something was wrong with me. I didn't know him or his family and yet if I was young enough to join the military, I think this would have been the incentive to do it. WTF????? They kidnapped him a year ago. His family has had to live with the unknown and the horrible unknown at that for a year! I've been going on and on about how I'm going to get through this year and all this time this family has waited for some word of their son/brother/etc. and not knowing anything. I can't imagine the hell that must have been for them and I just am so angry that these monsters put them all through that. I'm so pissed right now!!! I'm crying again just writing about it because it frustrates me that this is still happening when we've been there for 5 friggin years!!!! And every time you turn around you hear stories about how they have to get clearance from everyone and Moses just to be able to protect themselves in a warzone....it blows my mind. A few weeks ago the family received word that one of his fingers was positively identified as one of the 5 they received. Just weeks ago. They kept him alive for a year. They kept the family's hope alive for a year. They kept his hope alive for a year that he would be rescued and that those men would come to justice. And then they destroyed the lives of so many by taking the life of one and I want them to be punished for it. God help me, I just want to see some kind of justice in this life. For the families and little kids who won't ever see their dads or moms again because they went to fight the bad guys. The bad guys can't win anymore...they just can't. The one left at home need justice.

Who am I to decide what is justice. I don't know. I don't know what I want that will make me feel like everything is ok again. I don't think it's out there. I truly wish it was. His family has operated with grace and peacefullness through this whole ordeal and I wish I could too, but I've had enough. I've just had enough of the hell that has been residing on earth. I just want it to stop.

Tomorrow I would like to wake up and everything will be normal. Things will be ok again and there won't be anything else to worry about or think about. What I wouldn't give right now for the chance to be a kid again.

Just waiting....wondering.....hoping to wake up and realize all of it is just a dream.

It's not.....he's gone. I'm here. So much is happening right now that I want to talk to him about but I can't. How is it possible that this will get better?!!

Today, I am having a difficult time pretending I want to listen to people complain about things that I perceive as being stupid. I know, to them it isn't, but I just can't help it, I'm crabby. I couldn't sleep last night. I tossed and turned and felt more anxious as the minutes ticked by. Partly because I have a new opportunity that is a bit of risk, but I think I'm going for it, so I'm nervous about that. The other part is that I feel so conflicted all the time about my relationship. I love him, but I'm sick of feeling like I'm around so I can take care of things. He still doesn't know when my birthday is. Yes, it's trivial, but I know everything about him and I just feel like he can't even be bothered to remember a day that is the only thing I have that is just about me. I couldn't feel any less special. So, that started my mind on a journey into "things he's done to piss me off" land. Then I couldn't stop thinking because I felt guilty then that I'm being so selfish while he's getting shot at. But is it wrong to want to know you are the most valued thing to someone when you go out of your way to make them feel that way?

Being a relatively strong individual who really isn't afraid of being alone, I never expected to be feeling the way that I do. I'm almost in a panic that I can't call him or text him or even email with the expectation he will be able to read it. It's like we have been blocked off from each other completely and I feel it in my stomach all the time.

I check the time there all day long, trying to imagine "what is he doing"...."is he sleeping now?"...."when will I hear his voice again?".

He officially landed a couple days ago and it is really happening now. No more wondering or waiting....it's here. From the ladies who have responded to my blog in the past, I guess this will get better. There will come a day again, when I will feel ok, but right now, it's just hard.

My temper is amazingly short too. I don't want to let anyone in right now. Some friends think since he's gone now we should be able to go and do whatever all the time. I don't feel like it right now and I'm pissed that they think this is some kind of vacation for me or something. I'm pissed when people complain about stupid things. I'm pissed when someone asks about him that I know really doesn't care about the answer but I'm thier token "support the soldier" gesture.

I'm just pissed......this life isn't fair, it isn't right. Because stupid people out there decided we weren't fit to live because we don't agree with their beliefs we have to send people that we love and cherish into their hands so they can try to kill them! WTF!!!!!!! What made them think they have the right to decided who should live or die? How do they wake up every morning and spend their day planning the deaths of whoever they can take because they think it's what their god commands of them. I don't remember anyone asking me if it was ok to take my husband for year away from his family, away from me so he can trek around dodging bullets because they don't think he should be alive. I know what my answer would have been......and I'm certain it would be the same for all the wives and children and families who spend their days and nights alone wondering if everything really will be ok like their soldier told them before he/she left.

You know what, it's not ok. It won't be ok until we all can hold our soldier close again and smell them and hear thier heart beating while we lay our heads on thier chest. That's when it will be ok again, and I'm so sick and tired of people telling me that this year will go by fast. Really....well are you going to curl up with me during the nights when my heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest and I can't quiet the voices in my head. Are you going to play with my kids and do fun things with them while I go have a good cry so I don't have to wait until they are asleep? Are you going to fly over there and see how fast the year goes by in a warzone? No....probably not, so stop expecting me to be flitting around like I'm some sort of fairy from happy land. Stop condemning me when I feel sad or when I'm worried or lonely. Stop trying to give me the snippets of advise that have nothing to do with my life, but help you get through your 1/2 hour of separation when you go shopping and hubs is at home.....awwww poor girl.

Well, time to slap on the happy, brave "I'm ok" face and get back to my life. Crap.

• Feedback on the phone when you are trying to have a conversation about nothing.
• The conversation is about nothing because you can't think of anything that seems even remotely important when hubs is in a warzone.
• Having to explain where he is or when you last talked to him a thousand times to different people all day long when all you really want to do is not think about it for a few minutes.
• Becoming an expert in the communications industry for international calling.
• People think you're joking when you tell them you've had enough.
• Picking up the phone to text or call when something cool happens only to realize, they won't get it.
• Balancing the checkbook only to check later and realize they took out more.
• Trying to find the perfect thing to send him, find it, send it, only to have him ask for something literally right after the package is mailed.
• Doing laundry and finding some of his clothes he wore while he was home and smelling them in hopes to get the last whiff of him before you wash it away.
• Realizing that you are every bit a girl even when you try to be so darn tough.
• Constantly doing the math in your head every time you look at your clock to figure out what time it is over there.

They keep postponing the departure date. Not that I mind the fact that it will be less time in country, but I know it is wearing on everyone. Our conversations are strained to say the least. There really isn't anything new to talk about, but yet we still want to talk because soon we won't be able to as much. I find myself talking about the dumbest stuff, just to hold a conversation because I can't stand the silence either.

When I look back on the last year, I realize that I still don't know what being married is like. I was married 10 years ago and that definitely was a mistake and jaded my view of marriage, so when we got married this past May I was excited to have my feelings about it change. But the situation has been such that I still don't know what it really feels like.

I still have people complain to me that they don't get to see their husbands as much as they would like because they work opposite shifts. How can they not stop and think that hey you still crawl into bed together everynight and feel them sleeping there next to you and you know they are safe. I don't. I crawl into our bed alone and soon I will be laying there wondering where he is, what he is doing, and if he is ok. How can they not understand it's like punching me in the gut everytime they say stuff like that?! Why do I have to point it out, doesn't anyone think outside of their own lives to be able to see when someone is hurting? I'm not going to tell them. I'm not going to ask for help. Yes, I am stubborn and in the long run I may have things to deal with in order to be normal again when he gets home, but I'm not going to run around trying to find someone who cares, knowing that just don't really know how.

Put on a happy face. Pretend it's all good. No one knows because no one is really looking into my eyes to know. Even I fool myself. I go through the day, thinking of all the stuff the kids and I can do this summer and how much fun we are going to have, like everything is normal and the sad truth is that it is normal. He wasn't around for so much time after we got married because he was always training. Our lives haven't really changed since I was single and when I really allow myself to think about it, I'm pissed. I'm angry that I allowed myself to love again when I only chose someone who wouldn't be there and I would be on my own again. I want to be pampered and loved and important to my partner, but how could I have all the things I always wanted a marriage to be when my husband isn't here? I know it's selfish, but it's how I feel right now.

I asked him if he thought our marriage was strong enough to last during a year of being apart and he said yes. No hesitance, nothing. Just yes. So, if he believes it why am I so scared?

I returned home after visiting with my husband to say our last goodbyes before he leaves on his deployment. Everything seems so surreal right now. Like I wasn't even really there and none of this is truly happening. He cried this time when we said goodbye. I was surprised. He is always so soldierish that I didn't think he would ever let it go like that. Oh, not that he was balling or anything but just to see a tear slide down his cheek was something.

I'm not sure what I'm feeling right now. Part of me wants to break down and cry for all that I feel like I'm losing but the rest of me wants to shove it somewhere away from me and just move forward. Part of doing that is so silly because things that happened in our relationship that bugged me that I never really dealt with with him are the things that are crossing my mind and I'm actually getting angry all over again. I've always known that the easiest emotion to feel is anger, but the timing seems a bit ridiculous.

So, this is the beginning of the real journey. I don't know where it will take us, but if you keep reading, I'm sure you'll find out all the good, bad, and the ugly.

Forgive me for my moment of being a girl, but......................


Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (jumping up and down clapping like a kid)

Tomorrow.......looking into his eyes........seeing him in front of me..............laughing with him over silly things..............just being together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh, I cannot wait. 3 days of being together and a 12 hour drive where he is all mine on the fourth day.........thank goodness for passes.

I will blog more soon, but for now, I have some reaquainting to do........

I get to see him this week and I can't wait!!!!!

If I were counting the days left I would tell you it is only 10 days away and I will once again be in his arms and all this blubbering I have been doing will have to be put away so I can enjoy our last days together before he is off American soil.

Sometimes I feel so proud of myself that I have made it this far and without any major public melt downs. Oh I have had them, but in the privacy of my room at night or the bathtub with bubbles and a beer. He still has no idea the hell that rages inside me every day. He said he will find this blog someday so he can know all of what I've been saying and I told him he is free to read but I would ask that he wouldn't until he is home for good. He asked why and I told him that the purpose of the blog is to get the things off my chest that I don't want to burden him with and if he read it now, it would defeat the purpose. He then apologized for putting me through this. A small part of me wanted to say that yeah, you volunteered for this....this was your choice to go and no one made you, but you felt an obiligation to the guys more than you did for us....but really, at this point, would it matter. So I said that I knew that he was going to deploy when we decided to get married. It was the catalyst at least to us getting married. That I won't lie and tell him that everything is roses but that this really sucks worse than anything I have experienced in my short little life, but if I have to go through this year to get to a lifetime of us being together then it will always be worth it. He said that's exactly what he needed to hear, and in a way I knew that it was. Did I mean it, yes...unequivocally, but I am still scared about this next year. This has only been 8 weeks so far.....there are still 52 more to go......WTF?!?!?!?

I have read other wives blogs and thought to myself that they have had it much worse and it's much suckier when your hubby is active military. I don't know if I could do it. I have always had a fascination for the military (no not just the uniforms, although it is a benefit). But I have to say that if, God forbid, our relationship doesn't work out I will never date or marry anyone in the military. Not because I don't respect and honor them for being heroes because I do, but I don't think there will be anything left of my heart to go through this again. I don't mean to sound disrespectful to our military heroes, but it takes just as much a hero to love them and I don't think I'm there.

It's been awhile...I had a fun time with the stomach flu that my daughter graciously shared with me.....but we are all better now. So the news for this week is that as of Friday it will be 2 weeks and I will get to see my husband again for 4 days!!!! I'm so excited and so nervous at the same time. I don't want him to see me cry. I've been doing so good while he's been gone that I can hear in his voice that he has regained his confidence in being there because he isn't worried about me. I need to keep it that way, but I just want to curl up in his arms and let it all out because he always makes me feel better and safer. I need to keep it together. I have so much to do before he comes home....I can't believe it's been almost 7 weeks already.....and I feel like I have accomplished nothing! Now I'm in panic mode.

Why are we so afraid to really say what's on our minds or really what's happening in our lives? Is it because we are afraid that we'll lose the facade of the loving wife waiting at home for her knight in shining armour and that all is well in the castle?

Here's my unsaid....I purposely keep stuff inside so my husband and I don't fight when he calls because deep inside I am afraid that he won't call back if we fight about something. I don't tell my friends and family that I sometimes cry at night so hard that my stomach actually hurts the next day because I don't know how I am going to make it a whole year pretending everything is ok. I am scared to death that when he comes home that I will lose it because I won't know how to be real again and I will be too scared of getting hurt to let him back in. Sometimes when people are talking to me inside I'm screaming to just leave me alone and that they aren't the person I want to see standing in front of me. I fantasize occassionally that I can get in the car and drive away into a new life that doesn't hurt anymore. Secretly for all the reasons that everyone is so proud of me because I have been calm and together so far are the same reasons that will eventually kill off the real me and I won't ever be able to come back. I am angry and I hate everyone who had anything to do with taking my life away from me just when it was getting started. I am angry with him because I don't think he will ever know really what this year will do to me. I feel guilty because I know if I was a good wife and a good person I would be more worried about what this year will do to him. I worry that when he comes home that he will be so distant and blocked off from me that I wont want to deal with anymore pain and our relationship will end in bitterness and anger and I will lose my best friend when all I really want is to have him back.

These are all the things I keep inside and hide behind my "I'm a military wife and I'm soooo strong" face. There I said it.

I mentioned to him a couple days ago that I was reading the profiles to some of the other wives in our unit to get to know them a little better. What I ended up noticing was that I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. I kinda feel like one day I'm going to be walking somewhere and they are going to see me on the street and point and yell that I'm a poser. I shouldn't call myself an army wife.



I know this seems kinda weird. I really understand that and I'm not losing what little of my sanity I have left, but bear with me for a moment. My husband and I dated for a couple years before we got married. We got married this past May. It is now 9 months later and we haven't been together for most of our marriage. Prior to meeting him I was divorced and a mother of two. I went back to school (which I'm finished next month....yahoo) and I worked full time and took care of them and all that they had going on. I know how to take care of things on my own and that part of our separation doesn't bother me at all because that's the life I'm used to. This is where I don't feel like I fit. I just miss him. I just want him around because I like him as a person and I love him as a man. But I don't feel like I have the right to be put in the category as the other wives because they are dealing with everything on their own, some new, some again, but it's not the norm for them.


The other part is that frankly, I hear of some of the things the guys do for their wives to let them know they love them and my husband isn't like that. I know I'm not the typical girly wife and he's probably just used to me not needed that sort "love", but sometimes I do want to feel special and like I'm important to him just because of who I am and not just because I take care of him.

I don't think any of this even made sense, but it has been rolling around in my head and I just wanted to get it off my mind.

I would like to just say again, thank you for all the great support. It does make a difference.

I go from one minute thinking maybe I don't love him enough to the next day feeling like I can't do one more minute apart from him. I do feel that this separation is not helping our relationship grow. How can it? We aren't with each other. The longest conversation we've had usually lasts about a half hour..most of them are a few minutes. I feel so far away from him, like I'm not really married and he really doesn't exist and one morning I'm going to wake up and look at my hand and the rings will be gone and I'll realize this has just been one big "Dallas" dream.

Speaking of dreams, I've been having doosies lately, which isn't helping me at all. Every other dream is him ignoring me or pretending he doesn't know me. Or worse, he is someplace with someone else. Or last night was him telling me he just doesn't love me the same way anymore. So I guess as much as I put it to rest during my waking hours and go about my day, it never truly goes away. It just lies in wait until I'm not doing anything else and comes out to haunt me. I've really had enough.

I will be able to see him in 6 weeks. I'm actually really nervouse about it. Mostly of opening back up and feeling all the stuff I've hidden away for so long. How can a few days be enough to say goodbye again? And how do you say goodbye again? This time knowing he's leaving and he won't be in a safe place anymore. Letting them go to stay back home and wait day by day for some word that everything is ok. Broken conversations, moments that aren't long enough, the dreaded missing the call. A year of that is ahead of me and I think I'm already so tired of living this way. I still have a full year from now. How? I want so many lost moments back and I can't ever go back and it's killing me inside.

Oh, and just a word to those wives out there who have their husbands home and say to a military wife whose spouse is deployed that you hardly ever get to see your husband because you work opposite schedules and only get a few days per week with each other can bite my tired lonely ass when you say those stupid things to me and I don't fully respond with a poor you. Wake up people......

Ok, I'm fine with all the flowers and candy and all that crap....it really wasn't until someone's husband came to work to visit her and told her he got a chalet for the weekend for the two of them. We used to do that. That bothered me. Now I'm sad.......I want him back.

The great news is that he's coming home next month for a few days and then we are driving back to his base for his final ceremony. I really want to see him again, but what is killing me is how are you supposed to act normal during that time when you know you are trying to squeeze everything in in a few short days? I'm honestly scared that I will do something to ruin it because I will look at him and see again what I will be losing for a year. A year?!!! Who decided this was ok?

It's been a little over 3 weeks and my emotions have run amok. I've been angry, sad, bitter, scared, dead, and just plain confused. That can happen over a span of time or all the emotions running together at once. What is a year going to do? What is it going to feel like if we can only talk every few weeks? How do you sleep? How do you think? How do you function?

And now he will be with me and I am actually frozen. I want so badly to see him and be with him again, but I don't want to say goodbye again. Especially knowing this time it isn't just to send him somewhere safe....this goodbye is the one that has to last for a year. This is the one that is going to matter the most and how am I supposed to hug him goodbye and let go? How can you just let go to someone that fills every part of your soul and your supposed to just walk away and hope and pray that the next year of your life flies by so you can finally say hello again?

Yes it's irrational but I want someone from the military to explain to me why it's ok to take our husbands away and leave us here alone to worry and be lonely while they do battle with enemies that are cowards and can't even face them when they fight. They have to hide and set things off and run away like little bullies. Our men stand there and take it and they have to go through all this red tape just to be able to defend themselves. Well, if no one is going to let my husband protect himself so he can come home to me so that we can resume our lives with each other, the way it was meant to be then get out of my way and let me do it. Let all of us do it. Or just bring them home where they belong.

I want to rage, but there is no one to rage against. I want to beat the crap out of my demons but I can't tell where they are coming from. All I know is that one morning I woke up with my husband by my side and that night when I crawled into bed and cried myself to sleep, I was alone and he was gone. That is my reality right now and I hate it.

It's been awhile since I last wrote. So much has happened and not happened. I was re-reading my last post and it seems the tide has turned. I was talking about how much he had changed and how it wasn't fair to those of us left behind, but let me tell you, something has changed in me. I don't take crap from anyone, including him now. I don't know why. I'm not mean or a witch about it, but if something isn't ok with me, I say it. Before, I would keep my mouth shut and shove it down in my gut and go on until I exploded about something else. Part of this change though hasn't been good for him. He said I don't tell him I miss him as much as he misses me and last week he blew up about something really stupid and when he got off the phone the guys tore him a new one about it because they heard him. After that, I told him exactly what went through my head the next couple days. I told him how I wasn't going to live the next year in fear of what if we fight and then we can't talk or then he gets hurt or anything and it wasn't even something I did. I won't do it. So I'm shut down. We talk and he has been his old self on the phone. Counting the days until we can see each other for his leave, telling me he misses me and all the stuff I wanted to hear so badly a couple weeks ago and now I don't know how to respond. I know that I feel the same way. I love him with all my heart and soul and I want him to come home so bad so we can just be us again, but I can't let those feelings come out. I'm not going to lose it this time. I am not going to spend this year crying and being afraid. I'm doing exactly what he told me to do, but now he doesn't seem to like it, but I can't find the middle ground. I'm nervous about seeing him next month. I want him to know that I love him, but in all the times in the past when I would show it while he was away he would get mad, so I'm being perky and funny when we talk like we're old buds, I don't know what else to do.

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.

Out of all the emotions I should be feeling, why am I feeling angry? Why is everything that bugged me about him before coming to the surface and bugging me now. This is when I should be bending over backwards to show him how much I love him. The other night he called to ask when my birthday was. I felt so valued. Insert sarcastic sound here. I know everything about him and he can't even remember when my birthday is? Anyway, I was really sick to my stomach that night and I had to go, like immediately, so after answering his question I said I really don't feel good and I have to let you go. So he starts about how I don't want to talk to him. I explained that I wasn't feeling good and he actually said so you are admitting you don't want to talk to me. I told him he could call me back, but I really had to go right now and I love him. He mumbled it back and hung up. I haven't talked to him since. So I've been asking myself why I bend over backwards to get him everything he could possibly need or want and show him I love him and how much he means to me and he can't understand that I was sick. He never even called to make sure I was ok. It really hurts that I will be putting my whole life on hold for someone who doesn't seem to really care all that much unless I'm not meeting his needs. And I'm angry that I feel like this because I do love him and I'm scared and I miss him and I hate that all that has to be marred by feelings of guilt. I give up.

Wow, so much has happened over the last few days. He left very early Sunday morning. I took him to the armory around midnight Saturday night. It was so weird. Trying to think of something to say that would truly represent what I was feeling about him and the next year and every emotion I could lump into one phrase. But I couldn't. All I could do was hug him and try to remember how his arms felt around me. How his lips felt against mine and try to committ that to my memory for the next year. Then we said "See ya later...." and I watched him walk into the armory. And I got in the car and drove away.

All the emotions came over me and I sobbed while I drove home. Then I walked into the house and his work boots were sitting next to the bed and his jeans with the belt still in them that he was just wearing a few hours ago hung on the closet hook and I the strangest feeling hit me that he would be home in a few hours. He really wasn't leaving for a year. And then the deepest sadness I have ever felt hit my stomach and my chest and I felt I had just lost my best friend.

So far, I have left the jeans and the boots where they are and his basket full of clean laundry that is by his dresser. I just can't let it go yet. As much as I want to clean, I just want things to remain the way that they were when he left. This has been much harder than I thought it would be. I thought after a few weeks is when it would hit me because I was used to him being gone that long, but it's already the hardest thing I've have felt.