waiting on the nervous breakdown

So, Husband has been gone (again) for, what? Almost a week now I guess.

I am surprisingly cool, calm, and collected. Don’t get me wrong, I miss him to death, but it seems more manageable this time. Like, when people ask me how I’m doing, and I say “Good!”, I’m actually telling the truth.

I am good. Not great, not bad, but good. I can deal with good. Good is a nice break from ‘on the edge of my emotional cliff’. It’s refreshing. I almost feel like I did BD (that’s before-deployment for all of you non military wives). I miss him; I want him to come home, but I don’t feel as desperate as I did before he came home on leave.

I think I can’t handle these last 2 and a half months. Let’s just cross our fingers and say all kinds of prayers that this isn’t the calm before the nervous breakdown.

11 days or 30 seconds; not sure which is faster

You know the old saying – “Time flies when you’re having fun”, but why does it have to be true?

It’s just not fair really. Husband and I had a wonderful time down in Cape Charles, and then just like that, it was over.

I really think that having him home was the most surreal experience in my life up until this point. I guess I’m just so used to him being gone that having him home was almost too much to deal with. It was especially strange after our first hug upon his return. I kept on thinking “Who is this man holding my hand?” or “What is he doing with his arm around me?” It was all so…..weird. Wonderful, of course, but weird.

The most awesome of all was reconnecting with the man I married, and re-realizing all of the reasons I married him. Did you know that my husband is funny? Or that when he’s deep in thought it takes nothing short of a meteor to break his trance? Or that he has this teeny little dimple in his left cheek? What about his complete and total selflessness? The fact that he went to his least favorite restaurant just because he knew it is my most favorite (or one of them, anyway) is not lost on me. That when we’re sleeping he just loves to reach out and find me and then pull me extra close. (I’m only a fan of that one now because he’d been gone so long. Generally, I like my space!) That even though he was just as sad as I was yesterday, he completely focused on me and my sadness that he was going off again. I loved it all; every moment.

I will remember those 11 days for a very long, long time. I’m sure that those memories will be the very thing that sustains me over the next 2 and a half months.

Well, those and your prayers.

in denial

In about 2 hours I will be leaving to pick up my husband from the airport.

My husband who is deployed, but coming home for a glorious 11-day leave. I just can’t believe it. In fact, I still kind of don’t. I mean, he’s be gone since January. I could be wrong, but I think there’s always a part of you that doesn’t ever expect to see them again. Not in the morbid, “He’s going to DIE” sense (well, maybe a little of that, too) but more in the, “I haven’t seen him in so long, surely I will go the rest of my life without seeing him” sense. Make sense? I didn’t think so.

We’ll be heading right down to the beach house (In Cape Charles, VA!) of some friends at the church who have so graciously lent it to us for the week. Free. Of. Charge. Then, for his second and last weekend here, we’re attempting to spend one day with his family, and one day with mine. Then, it’s back to the desert for 2 and a half more months. No biggy.

I just can’t believe he’s actually coming home.

i don’t need the lottery, my brother plays football

Remember last year? When my brother had to do this “prove yourself” test thingy for his football team? He had to do it again this year too. Unfortunately, I’m not unemployed this year, so I couldn’t go and chear him on. Fortunately, my little sister is unemployed, and so she went. And got one stinkin’ picture. But boy is it a doozey. Check him out:

That’s my little brother, running the mile in 6 minutes and 38 seconds. Disgusting, huh? He also ran the 40 yard dash in 4.66 seconds. And he can bench press his own weight 15 times. Impressive, no? The best part about him, is that he really isn’t one of those macho-braggy-type guys (I do all of his bragging for him). Unless of course, you have a camera in your hands, then he turns on the charm.

“The Americans? We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came here for.”

And apparently, also to eat your words.

Congrats to the U.S. Men’s 400 meter relay team. The French may have come to smash you, but you came to win the Gold.

Who’s talking now?