Thursday, on our anniversary, WAND aired the updated video of our proposal story. I watched the video several times with various people over the past few days. The more I watched the four years ago me hug the four years ago him the more my mind replayed that feeling in my mind.
I remember the scratchy weathered feel of his uniform, the smell of his cologne, and the feeling of his broad shoulders under my arms as I reached around his neck to hold him. Then today I saw a soldier on a motorcycle. Something about his build and carriage reminded me of Chad. The emotions hit me so hard and so fast I almost lost my breath.
This deployment has been different. Honestly, ask any military wife and she'll tell you that every deployment is different. The marriage is different. The contact available is different. Your life is different. Our first two deployments though had more in common with each other.
Being a mom has changed everything. Taking care of Lil Bit takes every second of every day unless she has a good day and I get the first hour and last hour to myself. And then I am busy doing stuff that is life sustaining: showering, eating, restrooming (you can insert your own colorful verb here), dressing, flossing, etc. On excellent days, like today, when Lil Bit was just perfect, I have from 9:30 to whenever I get this done and get into bed.
I don't have time to miss him. I have days I get lonely, days I wish for an extra set of hands around the house, but the missing him button is buried deep and it takes awhile to get or just the right smell or sound or day. When it was just me, I had plenty of thinking time and spent a lot more of it on him. I just don't have the mental capacity. Lack of sleep and time means my brain functions at about 80% most of the time and things have to be triaged. I have to judiciously parcel out my time for myself and throwing a pity party just isn't on the agenda.
I feel bad, like I'm not a good wife, because I am not sitting here pining away for him every moment of every day like last time. I think about him a hundred times a day, I pray for him any time he crosses my mind and I have a second to throw a word or two in God's direction, sometimes just a wordless thought. God knows what I mean.
I am quite sure that being parents together is going to change our marriage. This summer we had both boys and Lil Bit. It was certainly different that our times alone, but we're used to having the boys and being parents in an on again off again way. They are here nine-ten weeks and then it is just us every night for most of the rest of the year. Being full time parents to a baby girl is going to be different for us together, so I guess I can't expect that it wouldn't be different for me alone.
I can't drop everything a run to the movies or on a whim run over to a friend's house. I am a little more isolated in that way, but on the other hand being so horribly, wonderfully busy makes the time glide by in ways it never did before. Yet, watching our beautiful baby girl growing and changing daily creates a longing for him to share it. In some ways this deployment has been easier than others and in other, harder than I could ever have imagined.
Either way it is different. And I just want him home, safe and sound. If wishes count for anything, now'd be good too.
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