So almost two months down. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted but the words have seemed stuck. The topics most on my mind are hard to talk about, but that’s what the blog is about. It’s for someone someday to read and say “good I’m not alone”.

Let’s just get it out there and say it: deployment is TOUGH. You know going in, it’s going to be tough, but when you actually go through it, you look back and realize the tough you thought it would be actually would have been a piece of cake. Everybody knows the distance sucks whether you’re in the military or not. Your Significant Other (SO for short, basically your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc) is gone for months, even years. You learn after entering the community that the call quality will suck and the calls can be infrequent. You learn after they’re gone that your infrequent calls will come at times you don’t have to talk, you’re so exhausted you can barely keep your eyes open, or they’re day is just something that they can’t tell you. It can make the conversations short, or long and quiet.

It’s the quiet that gets to you after a while. You hope after a few days of not talking that you’ll have a conversation. However you quickly learn that it usually doesn’t happen that way. If you let it, it takes over your thoughts. You question what’s going on. You wonder. You start to play the ‘What If’ game. What if it’s too hard on him and he wants out? What if he’s talking to somebody else when he’s not talking to you? What if? What if? What if? Then you realize that you just have to tell your brain to shut the hell up. He’s exhausted after working 12 hours, then doing PT, the guys on the other side of his plywood wall having a good time in the middle of his night because they got off early so he got no sleep. (They run a 24 hour operation out there.)Plus he misses you just as much as you miss him and it’s tough for him too!

I know for me, he doesn’t want to stress me out so he keeps many details to himself. Sometimes it’s just that absolutely nothing exciting happened that day. I try to fill him in on the details of my day. It fills the time and it keeps it as close to what we did when we lived in two different states. Some days it doesn’t work that way, but we try. Yesterday he cleaned his room while I did my Yoga X. We had things to get done, but it was nice to know he was there. The best you can do is take it one day at a time. Some days you’ll have good ones, others you’re going to wish you had hid under your covers.

 Learn to appreciate the small things. My favorite small thing so far has been when he called after reading in an email that I would be home sick that day. Instead of waiting till the usual time to call, he went to the chaplain’s office and called me in the middle of his day to talk to me for 40 minutes to help cheer me up and see if I was ok. I still felt sick, but my mood definitely improved. Emails are also fun. I love waking up and finding an email filled with nothing but “I love you” written over and over. I also love to send emails like that too.

The little things are what count the most and that’s what will get you through. 

What I wouldn’t give for one more “I love you” tonight. For some reason tonight it seems worse. Maybe it’s because my roommate is on her way to visit her parents and I’m sitting at home alone. It’s giving me nothing but time to think and tonight I’m thinking of him. Working two jobs then coming home to help my roommate with her baby has kept me pretty busy the last two weeks. So busy that I didn’t seem to notice the emptiness I was feeling. But now, with nothing to do (except the dishes, but frankly I don’t feel like it) the emptiness seems to be hitting me like a MAC truck. I’ve got puppies curling up next to me keeping me company, but it’s not the same as feeling my man’s arms around me holding me tight. It’s going to be a long few months if I can’t get past this after just a few weeks.

I mentioned this to my boyfriend once, that having him so far away was more difficult than I imagined. However I didn’t do a very good job of reassuring him that even though it was difficult I was steadfast in my feelings for him. I dropped it to keep him from worrying, he’s got enough to worry about over there. All that does is make it frustrating. He’s able to block it out, either because he’s a man, or because he’s trained to, or simply because he has to. That’s not to say he doesn’t miss me, because I know he does, but I wish I knew his secret!

I think the most frustrating part is that I have no way to contact him. I can send him an email; however it’s not the same. The feelings are now, not in a day when he’ll finally get to his computer. I can’t call him, I can’t text him, I can only be at the mercy of when he calls. It would just be nice to send a quick text so he could hear the phone and respond. Instead I have only one chance a day to talk to him, and that’s only if I’m not at work. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly grateful that I can talk to him almost every day.  Some people aren’t that lucky. They spend months without hearing a word. I enjoy every day that I get to see his face. However today, I just wish for a little more.

I know I’m strong enough to make it through this; I have no doubt about it. Being this strong though is something I never thought I would have to be. Right now I feel as if it’s taking all my energy to keep from crying. I hate crying. My boyfriend told me though that “sometimes you need to let it out” and while he’s right, that doesn’t mean I need to turn into the newest water attraction either.  I think mostly I want to remain strong for him. I don’t want him to be worried about me, with all that he’s going through over there.

What I need to learn is that I need to be strong for myself too, and realize that I’m not alone. There’s a great support system of military wives that I’m slowly discovering. Surprisingly it’s made up mostly of people I already know! These are people I haven’t talked to in years, and we’re constantly supporting each other. They’re the first to jump in and send a message when you’re feeling lonely.  It’s unbelievable and wonderful. I also have my roommate to help me out. I’m incredibly grateful that she’s here for me to talk to when I just need to vent. Venting helps. A LOT.

I guess that’s all I really needed – a vent session. While I still wish I could hear I love you tonight before I go to sleep, at least the heartache and longing I was feeling have disappeared.  Like I said, I knew I was strong enough to make it through this.

It’s official. Deployments suck. And I mean that in a way that you can only understand if you’ve gone through one. Suck doesn’t even begin to describe how awful it is. And I’m only on day 3. Great.  Only 175ish days to go until it’s over.  November is the magic month. Don’t know when, but it’ll be in that month, at least as of right now.  I’m counting down the seconds.

Having to say goodbye to my boyfriend was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.  I pretty much spent the day either crying or trying not to cry. I didn’t want him to have a weepy girlfriend to deal with while he was finalizing some details. If he can be strong enough to go over there I can be strong enough to stay here and support him – without creating a swimming pool around me.  And it almost worked. I think I only broke down twice in front of him, and once on my own. Considering the circumstances, I’ll say that wasn’t too bad! Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) it was a very quick goodbye when it was time for him to actually leave. We got there with time to spare but so did everybody else, and those wives and girlfriends were experienced in their goodbyes and were quickly gone, leaving us as the only couple remaining. He threw his gear on a van, and came over for one last long kiss and hug, about 100 “I love you”s and “I’ll miss you”s, with a topping of “stay safe”s from me.  From parking the truck to the last goodbye I had 10 minutes with him – and then he was gone. We could have had an additional 15, but everybody else was just sitting around so it made it somewhat awkward.  I still don’t know if I want those 15 minutes with him, or if I’m glad it was quick so that the pain of it all didn’t drag out. 

Although the goodbyes were the hardest, coming in at a close second are the first 24 hrs.  First I had to drive his truck home – off of base, where I don’t know the roads, while trying to fight back the sobbing tears that were threating to take over. If it wasn’t such a heart-wrenching moment, it would have been quite comical. I refused to let myself cry while driving the truck (mostly because I was afraid I’d wreck it) so those next 15 minutes were a mix of solitary fat tears that managed to escape and weird, sporadic hiccups from me trying to keep it in. If anybody driving down the road saw me, they probably thought I was on some psychotic drug and I had overdosed.  Once I parked the truck, I let the tears take over and I don’t know if I’ve ever cried harder. I felt like my heart and soul were ripped apart and half was taken away from me. I felt empty, alone, scared, worried, and a whole host of other emotions I can’t begin to name. I also looked up towards Heaven and begged (yes begged) God to bring him home safe.  Alive is my only requirement. Now my boyfriend isn’t on the front lines, but he is still in a war zone, so to think he’ll absolutely, without a doubt remain unharmed is foolish.  So there I sat, crying and praying for the next 15 minutes.

When I finally collected myself and walked inside, my friend gave me a big long hug and assured me I could make it through. This is her second deployment, and my first, so I’m grateful for the support that she’s giving me.  We sat and talked for about an hour before I headed to bed. Fortunately I started a new job this week and had my first full day at 8 am the morning after dropping him off in the middle of the night. Ok, the unfortunate part is the 8 am start, however I had 8 ½ hours of distraction. Thank God, because when I got home, I had no idea where he was at on his trip over so I had no idea if/when he would call so I obsessively checked Facebook, Skype, my email and my cell phone for about the next 7 hours to see if he called or messaged.  If I had been at home all day I think I would have lost my mind. I never heard from him that night, but did get a call from him the next morning and got to talk to him for about an hr. I never knew how much a phone call could mean until then. As a bonus to the day I got to see him on Skype for another two hours that night! It made my whole day. I don’t know when I’ll get to talk to him again, between me working two jobs, and him settling in. I don’t care if it’s a 5 second call where all I get to hear is I love you or an hour long call to talk about our days,  the call itself is great.

Despite being an emotional train wreck, I know we’ll make it through and come out stronger in the end. If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything. I plan to keep myself busy with my two new jobs, and spend the rest of it relaxing and unwinding from all the sudden changes over the last 6 weeks.  Hopefully that’ll make the next few months go by fast. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it does. 

Rules of OPSEC. Important info if you’re going to read my blog!

First let me start off by stating that I’ve never written a blog before so bear with me as I learn the process and improve on my almost non-existent writing skills (Thank you Word for spellcheck!).

 I’m trying to figure out the best place to start this blog off, and I think maybe some background info is a good start. I’m writing this blog to help me with my first deployment, while my boyfriend, Ian, is off serving in Afghanistan. We met through a mutual friend whose husband serves in the same unit as my boyfriend. While my friend and I have known each other for 21 years now, when she first suggested that I start talking to this friend of hers I was completely hesitant. She told me wonderful stories about him; however I was definitely not in the mood to date. I had flat-out, absolutely, without a doubt given up on relationships and did not want to start a new one, especially one that would be completely long distance. Well after this conversation, I see a friend request sitting on my Facebook page. I’m thinking “great, she told this guy all about me and I don’t want to be rude” so I accept his friend request. Then a box appeared asking if I was sure I wanted to friend request Ian.  All I could think was “uh, yeah? He sent me the request, and I still don’t want to be rude…” A few days later I see a message in my Inbox from him stating that he was surprised that I had friend requested him, and asking a few basic get to know you questions. This is when I discovered Facebook has an option to recommend friends to others. I decided not to let him in on the little secret that I actually had no intention of talking to him. I figured if I ever made it up to North Carolina where he lived and my friend introduced us, and something happened then maybe. Maybe.  The biggest maybe in the history of time Maybe. If you’re smiling and laughing at this point, you’ve been down Given Up Ave and know where this story goes. For the rest of you, after talking through Facebook and text messages, I finally agreed to meet him on his next leave to Florida.

 About 3 ½ months after we started talking, we met up in the Theme Park filled city I live in, which, thankfully, gave us something to do to get rid of those first meeting jitters. I definitely went into it with a pep talk of “you will not like him. You will not date him. You will stay single and take care of yourself” attitude.  I got dressed and looked nice, but not too nice. I didn’t want to impress him, I wanted to keep things very much in the friend zone.  I also continued the pep talk while I was waiting to meet him adding in “he’s in the military. How many Marines have you met that aren’t typical jarheads? You’ll have to deal with deployments. You don’t do very well with long distance, how will you deal with him in another country?” In case anybody’s says that he should have waited for me no me waiting on him, he drove 2 hours to meet me, and the errands I had to run took much less time than expected. I had to fill the time with something, and reminding myself how much I did NOT want a relationship sounded like a good plan. After the first few awkward seconds we strolled off and ended up having an amazing day. I ate every single one of my words from earlier in the day. He was sweet, fun, and was never pushy. He asked if it was ok to hold my hand, and asked if it was ok to kiss me (during the Grand Finale of the fireworks no less!). In this day, I was just grateful if the guy didn’t think sex happened on the first date, so to be asked just floored me. He won me over. Saying goodbye to him that night was very difficult. I also had absolutely no idea why at the time it was so hard. I wanted to see him again, and we tried over the next few days, but it didn’t work out before his leave ended.

Thankfully, some genius came up with a way for you to see somebody in another place over the internet. Thank you, Genius for inventing Skype where ever you are. You have definitely made many a girlfriend, wife, mother and father very, very happy.  While Skype is fantastic, I really wanted to see him again in person. He knew that my job paid very little and I lived paycheck to paycheck, so he bought me a ticket to North Carolina, knowing that I would be staying with a friend, and spending some of the time with her and her family. It took 6 weeks for us to see each other in person again, and he asked me to be his girlfriend the night I got there. We’ve managed to visit each other a few more times, however Skype is still our savior. Now I’m up for one last visit before he deploys for six months. In all, we’ve known each other for 8 months, and have been officially a couple for just over 2 months. 

Great story, huh? Oh, and he does know that he’s one lucky SOB due to my ignorance of Facebook features.

To help me survive my first deployment I’m creating a blog to share my thoughts, turmoils, triumphs, and the everyday insane sanity while my boyfriend is off serving. Bear with me as I learn how to use tumblr! First post to come soon!