Day 60: Still hurts

Today, I wanted to chat with my husband. We sent simultaneous emails yesterday, but didn't get to actually chat. I left my computer open next to me while playing a board game with my mom, niece and nephew. Between helping count spaces, read rules and corral baby, I didn't see that he came on to chat, so I missed him by about 30 minutes when I moved the mouse to stop the screen saver

The first time he deployed after we started dating, I missed a phone call while here at my sister's house. It was the first phone call I had missed. I cried. I knew he was standing in line for long stretches of time to get to a phone and he didn't have a computer for internet usage. If he wanted to email, he had to wait in another long line. When I missed a call, I felt horrible. It was my first experience as a military significant other, and to me every missed phone call might have been my last chance to hear his voice. While it still is, I think I've realized to keep those emotions a little more under wraps. I can't walk around so raw all the time.

This deployment, he has his own computer with internet in his room. While too slow to use for Skype or video chatting most days, it is fast enough for voice calls on some days and emails and instant messaging on most. It isn't quite as devastating to miss a call, but it still feels like I've dropped the ball somehow. I have a lot of responsibilities here, and I know he doesn't expect me to sit around waiting for him to be online. I don't do the frilly care packages and Martha Stewart boxes. Honestly, I am good enough to get him a few cards and packages a year. But I try to (on days I don't have school) schedule my day around the times he usually is available.

It is a little thing that I can do to make sure he knows he is loved and missed. I think we've reached a point in our marriage that we don't spend a lot of time worrying during deployments about cheating or what the other person is doing, but we've also reached a point where we've gotten really good at being apart, so much so that we both worry just a little about not needing each other quite so much. I don't want him to worry that I don't need him or miss him or want him every single day because I do.

I think that I miss him most when I visit my family or his. I feel like part of me is missing more so than I do at home. I guess at home, I keep so incredibly busy I don't have time to think about it. But all the quiet here brings him more and more to mind. Also watching my sister with her husband and family makes it more obvious that here I am alone again. The fear of losing him also grows the closer we get to the end and the countdown gets to be almost a daily prayer of blessing, thanks and continued concern.

I missed his message and it still hurts. I hope that I will get a chance to hear from him again before he leaves for his day of patrols/missions. But even if I don't, I will most likely get another chance tomorrow, and if not, we always end every communication with, "I love you and miss you!!" just in case.

Day 348

Even with a short week, I, like most of my colleagues, spent the week wishing it away. We desperately couldn't wait until Friday! Then it got here and I sat at my desk at school, half trying to work, half watching a video for class, half playing "Words with Friends." I know that is three halves, but I teach English for just this very reason. Other than money, numbers are not always my friend. You can't be a distracted mathematician, screws up your equations. My mind is kind of like a circus. If you sit quietly and absorb the things happening, it works, but if you try to focus on one aspect in all the noise, lights, clowns - nothing gets done. I think that is why I crave silence so much, it allows the "voices' in my head to do what they are doing and get it over with. School is obviously not a quiet place so I find it hard to focus sometimes and by the time I get my classroom empty and quiet at the end of the day, I am so wiped I have a hard time working.

Gee, a little ADHD already!! Here I am a paragraph in and have gone from A - B - Q. I was sitting at my desk when a friend walked in. Liz must have seen something in my eyes, because she was just dropping by to say goodnight, but walked all the way into my room and asked me how I was. Until she asked, I didn't even know I was having a moment. Just a few seconds earlier the thought of the weekend filled with my little girl had made me grin. She has really started giggling. I watched the thirty second video from last night over and over today. Her laugh lightens my heart.

However, the same weekend without my best friend, knowing he isn't coming home, may not even be able to call or email feels like a prison sentence. I like a little solitude, heck, I like a lot of solitude, but the pressure of my own thoughts, of the hurts and failures that hang on my heart like a soul albatross get very heavy. As soon as she asked me if I were alright, the tears sprang to my eyes. I don't know that I made much sense explaining to her what was going on. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings.

This life of an army wife is sometimes so effin ineffable! There are days I just live. I pray for Chad's safety, but my day is so full that the missing him gets pushed to the back burner. Then the weekends come and the aching pain rushes in like high tide. One minute I am fine and enjoying some of the freedom that comes from this life. I ate peanut butter, raisins and chocolate chips in a ramekin for dessert. I am listening to xylophone versions of The Cure, The Ramones, The Stones over the baby monitor. I may not get everything right, but she is going to be exposed to all sorts of music! I get time to be myself as well as a wife.

On the other hand, we do this so often, that it sometimes feels more normal for him to be gone. Then I feel guilty because his absence doesn't feel too strange, and the next second, I am sobbing because hearing his voice in the recordable book we bought for Lil Bit makes me ache to have him here. We never get a normal. Everything is honeymoon because he just got back, then we have a few hiccups in sharing space and he is off to training, then he just gets back, then gone for the National Training Center, then he gets back and is gearing up for deployment so everything is honeymoon because why argue when he is leaving. A year of email and phone I love yous and absence that makes the heart grow fonder passes slower and quicker than you could understand. And we do it all over again.

I literally can be loving life one second and awash in tears the next. I hope Liz wasn't hurt when I said I didn't know how to explain it. I don't think I have even scratched the surface here of how challenging being an army wife is. I am expected to be able to be strong, buck up and find ways to enjoy myself during these long separations, but also be missing him and creating a welcoming home for him too. As much as I am balancing between all these extremes those circus tightrope walkers got nuttin' on me, gurl!

If I was feeling this down, this alone when I hadn't even left work for the weekend, I am going to be a complete wreck by Sunday 2:30. And there is no one here to catch my fall. One night, had a total break down right after Chad proposed and one of my friends commandeered my life, came over with no warning (no time to clean, fix hair, wipe off mascara rivulets) and brought beer and pizza. It is hard to be that vulnerable to people for me, but that was a great night. H - luv ya guts! And we're back to friends as a topic. Guess no man is an island.

Maybe I am just losing my mind?? Maybe some days you win, some days you lose, some days you live through and some days you wine! Any day I can count down until he comes home still counts as a victory no matter how hard crossing the finish line was. For my literary peeps, three allusions in this blog. Find 'em!

Day 360: Frozen

I missed him today. He was online and I wasn't in front of the computer. By the time I realized he was on, he was gone. I feel guilty for missing him. He needed me to find and send him a document, and I didn't get the message in time to help him. This is one of the hardest parts of surviving the deployment. How do I balance living my life, doing my best to pass the time and being available for him to chat. Their schedules are sometimes so random and vary often. Between the craziness of his schedule and the 9 hour time difference, it is so hard to be there waiting every time he has a chance to talk.

I know it is ridiculous for me to feel like I have to sit here frozen to the computer or my phone every second and that he certainly doesn't want it that way, but the disappointment is palpable when I miss him. While perhaps a tad exaggerated, each time he calls or emails could be the last time we talk. We don't have the luxury of pretending that we have second chances. He is nearly as likely to be killed driving onto post (maybe more, have you seen those people drive?!) everyday as he does in Iraq, but not falling into bed next to him each night, losing precious years with him makes mortality tangible.

I remember the day we got married. His mother came into the bride's room and asked me if I were sure I wanted to marry him. I don't remember what I said exactly, but I remember feeling that the only regret I had was that it took me so long to find him and I regretted that I wouldn't have as many years to love him.


And now I have lost two + years already and will be losing another one out of the precious few we have together. We might have another 40 years at best and it isn't enough. I need every second I can find to love him, and feel cheated out of so many moments that a missed phone call feels like a lost week. Sometimes it is. I hope he knows how important he is to me and that even a missed moment is enough to keep me frozen to my computer or phone.