All's well that ends well.

The long of it is logged in days and months and thousands of miles, and the short of it can be summed up in a mere two words:

he's home!

Deployment concluded.

I don't have the patience or the focus to write. It certainly isn't that I don't have material. Turn on the news--I have LOTS of commentary. I have traveled to both ends of America this summer. And now that my personal life is slowly settling down, while the world is keeping it's usual, tumultuous pace, I just can't find the desire to express myself in words. The Middle East has temporarily made me a reader instead of a"writer."

will the circle be unbroken

Life at the end of a semester is something like I imagine Plath's bell jar was, or rather the motive for her crawling beneath the house, taking pills, and truly hoping not to be found. At any rate, try to understand the madness and the always-tingly-tightness of anxiety as a physical symptom - strung across the muscles of a lower back - and the lack of sleep and the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair. That has been the last two or so weeks. Then there was my invitation for a Mother's Day weekend, which was mostly kind of okay except for the lingering anxiety and equally tingly-tightness of muscles prolonged by comparisons to my father or early afternoon drinking or the mention of a man friend. I wanted a couple of days to lavish in the freedom of my first year of grad school completed but it didn't work out that way. Tomorrow morning (earlier than I had planned for) my father, who just today compared me to my mother, is picking me up for a week long road trip to the coast of South Carolina. While a suburban is a fairly spacious vehicle, I often feel that the 250 miles between here and home is not enough area of space. If I had had the time to myself, the luxury of surfacing slowly enough to avoid the bends, I would likely not be so dreading the next 7-8 days.

It's difficult to understand what has happened over the last four months. Mom kindly pointed out that she was worried about me having spent so much time alone - a comment spawned out of one of my explanations of these new lifestyle changes. But something has changed in me. I used to be this independent before I left their house, before I had the physical escape of leaving the tumultuous energy of home. I would sit in my room and do god-knows-what for hours without being bored. I mostly recall painting in the floor, the oatmeal carpet stained multicolored with acrylic pigment, the therapy they never funded.

When the rooms here felt too silent I looked to those memories for reassurance. Then one day I was strong enough to just look forward. The unsettling part has been realizing that I have re-arrived here, that I am somehow enough and that I am content. As I was talking to a friend about this very phenomenon, she used a phrase that struck home, "false independence," as in feeling needless in the front of one's mind while holding tightly to the security that remains in him, even if he's not here. It's like her daughter - able to walk but refusing to take a step without the aid of an adult's finger gripped within her tiny fist. Maybe I've only sold myself on the hype, just like I'm supposed to, distanced myself through days upon days of the mantras, the whatever-it-takes methods of coping. In the process I have fallen in love with my little piece of the world. This house is my domain. This house that I thought I could only loathe and curse is my niche, and I kind of hate the thought of leaving my security if only for a week. Leaving means breaking all of those habits that I've built my independence on. In moments like these, on the eve of variation, I dread packing and driving away from the reliability of home. I miss him more. I feel like a traitor to the routine that keeps me from flying apart in all directions. I start to feel short of breath.

He sent a couple of pictures the other day of him Over There. His smile is still perfectly heartbreaking and his eyes and his form and his skin-just-out-of-reach, and what I first thought was how much I wanted to touch his hair. He in his uniform and my bags waiting to be packed make the earth shift underneath my steady footing. Yesterday all of this seemed so much easier, and coming full circle, it would seem that my sense of independence is completely false. I have wagered my ability to survive on the continuation of a domestic cycle of old things done in new ways and old passions reignited. I've gone back to my savior, Creation. As long as my hands are busy, as long as I can dovetail the pieces that I've made, I'm fine. You would never know how much it hurts to be apart from him - most of the time these days I don't.

the silence [i] keep from [my] head

I try to look happy and somewhere in my heart I must actually be happy for them, but mostly I'm the same kind of jealous as every other summer of my adult life when the engagement announcements come pouring in. I just learned that one of my oldest friends is getting married. I think I knew him when he was three years old. It's hard enough to believe that we're so much older and that I think we should all be so much more experienced, so much further aged than we are. And then the childish tears well, the whiney phrase, "not fair" finds use, and the pacing begins and I can no longer look around the elephant in every room. I think to myself, "well, wouldn't it be nice..."

This time it has very little to do with someone else being in a place that I am not - metaphorically speaking. Instead it has everything to do with the volume and obstacle of oceans and continents, this goddamn war, the lushness of spring versus alien deserts. We've talked about "taking the plunge" but...a voice is a delay is a phone call is lacking. This is neither the time or place and that is precisely the notion that throws me off balance. Life on pause is worse than life remodeled, is worse than living like the hours are mine. I can lose myself in a frenzy of recipes and organic vegetable seeds and cold brewed coffee and local eggs and manual mowers and prayers and mantras and clean plastics, but only until I remember:

I want him to come home.

I want him to come home.

I want him to come home.

If this were easy, everyone would be doing it.

"...if there's one thing I learned, it's that when our servicemen and women go to war, their families go with them. I saw how they take care of each other, heard how they fill in whenever the system fails and discovered that the trials they faced always were matched by the hope they shared that better days are still ahead." - Michelle Obama

Thank you for being strong enough to hold me up, live your dreams, and keep us safe all at the same time.  My flowers are beautiful and this morning's brief call made my birthday wonderful!  I hope the deluge of care packages adequately convey how much I love you and how proud I am to be waiting for you to come home.  I'd choose this life again and again and again to spend it with you.  See you in dreams tonight - let's meet somewhere warm!

Snow Day

Yesterday the ice came as predicted, though the worst of it was north of here [thankfully].  The skeletal limbs looked sugar-dipped and enchanted, and I can say that because I didn't lose power.  Paducah stole the spotlight on this morning's Today Show.  That's what I mean by "just north of here" - not so far North.  Driving into Nashville was incredible with the glimmering tree lines on either side and the frosted fields and rock walls adorned with icicles as tall as them.  For part of the day I didn't have cable or internet, but that's small in comparison to some others' inconveniences.  A friend of mine spent the night in a hotel after an outage at her home, making a memorable first birthday for her daughter.  

Today the weather softened with snow, weightless wafting snow that fell momentarily so thick that it was hard to see down the block.  It makes me wish that he was here instead of cooking in the desert.  It does this so rarely in Tennessee that even as an adult, it makes me giddy and excited, and I put on boots early in the morning to go out to snap photos and stomp around in the whiteness.  Unfortunately, I can't find the cord to upload my pictures from today, but trust that they look similar to that one up top and less like the ice-encased berries that I stole from a local news website to illustrate yesterday's conditions.  

I'm making snowball cookies to commemorate the snow day he's missing, thus increasing the cheese factor but I care not.  I care package with no shame.

Relief

My title photo seems quite out of place since our serious Winter broke today after a week.  While I appreciate the season and I like the crispness, the clean sensation of cold air, and our occasional snow, I was kind of glad to hear the birds chirping and to feel a warm preview of Spring.  Also, the sooner Winter subsides, the sooner he'll be home.

I've made it almost two weeks.  I'd be lying if I didn't own up to some pretty wretched days, some horrifying moods, and supplements to help me sleep.  And honestly there was at least one full day I wasn't sure I could do this.  My dad always tells me that the darkest hour is before daybreak and here it's certainly applicable.  There is a full range of uncontrollable emotions that go hand in hand with sending the man who holds your heart off to war.  The one I'm most ashamed of is that particular episode of anger.  Anger that he's gone, that he left me, anger at the universe for fating me to this position, anger at myself for blaming him.  It isn't like that and I know it.  This isn't something he did to me, however the knowing better only amplifies inevitable feelings of guilt.  The Staff Sergeant is a good man, the best, and I know how very lucky I am to so proudly stand by him (most of the time).  Then daybreak--and I awoke a new woman, the fever had gone and I felt like myself again.  

No one ever says that this life is full of ease and rose gardens, but somehow abandoning it is impossible.  I've hurled myself into a care packaging oblivion.  Every time I feel like crying I start planning the next one.  I've gotten back into school and am getting ready to start a new job.  All of that and I'm slowly chipping this new house into some semblance of order.  Tonight I hung my closet bar for all of the clothes I have that wouldn't fit into the tiny crevices this house deemed closet space.  I was so motivated by that small victory that I sorted the storage room and put together my new desk chair.  Now I'm sitting for the first time at my study space and not a moment too soon.  A magenta glow falls over the old tin table top I'm using as my work surface.  I have a victory cocktail to the right of my laptop and soon I'll go fish out a good photo of my courageous soldier to put in the corner. 

Moments like this let me peek from beneath the layers of Overwhelming just long enough to see the light.  I can do this thing that challenges me, this living on my own, this new town and old house of Murphy's law.  I can wait, be patient, be okay while he's away because he's doing the same thing for me.  

hoping and praying

It's 7:25am where he is.  It's already tomorrow; he's one day closer than I am to the end of this deployment.  As I'm sitting in my living room watching the 10 o'clock news, I can't keep my thoughts away from him.  I wonder what he is doing, if he's having a cup of coffee to start his morning or if maybe he is just now rolling over and blinking in another day.  I wonder if he's thinking of what I'm doing.  I wonder if he knows that I'm thinking of him, sitting here on the sofa, bundled up in his much-too-large hoodie, wishing I could find that crook where I fit under his arm, into him.  

Most likely he's the kind of busy that forgets first-thing coffee.  That's how he is, focussed and deliberate.  He's probably been awake for a while already, keeping everyone else in line.  But maybe he does know that my thoughts are all colored by him.  I've started thinking that we might be connected enough for him to sense my mindful vigil, or maybe that's just a game I play to dissolve the potency of so many miles.  

For the first time since he left I have managed an even keel.  It all depends on how busy I can keep myself or how many distractions I can cram into a day.  I slept in his bed last night and did some laundry and continued my rediscovery of Six Feet Under from his couch.  I can feel him most strongly there and I swear his sheets cleanse my dreams.  I woke rested this morning to very wintry temps, but not as cold as predicted for tomorrow.  I got up slowly and showered and packed my stuff and left, locking the door behind me.  I'll be back soon but he knows.  

I met a friend for lunch and then met the cable guys back at my place where I was given the gift of technology once again!  And after they had climbed some poles and clamored  around in the basement, and asked a lot of questions and scanned the goodies on the desktop of my computer, I had internet and limited basic cable [and thoughts of restraining orders].  Hooray!  Then my mom showed up for a few days of assisted unpacking and the performance of a circus side show that I can't describe without visual aids.  I will say that the immediate addition of alcohol made it more bearable, made everything more bearable.  Even though this is how the crazies live, my mind stayed away from sad, sad thoughts, the kind that split your heart and punish you with too many tears before bed.  It was a good day, considering.

And now I'm thinking about bed because it's getting late where I am.  I'm toasty warm in his sweatshirt.  I'm getting ready to pull out the book I started reading the morning he shipped out.  I'm full on peaceful, wonderful memories and thoughts of him and looking forward to the cookies I'll make tomorrow for our first care package of this trip.  

[safest thoughts to you, my soldier, and all of my heart, too.] 

on to something new [ready or not]

I have so much to say and so little energy and liberty to etch it all across this screen.  Christmas left something to be desired, new year's eve, however was perfect -- more perfect than perfect.  This life has a way of letting one glaze every moment with high-gloss hyper-perfection, given the right timing and circumstance.  Each breath and smile is caught and archived, pinned like fragile specimens behind glassy walls, slow motion memories with over-pronounced dialogue and historical inaccuracy.  

I err most often on optimism -- foolish, really.  I imagine the still frames more richly colored, sugary and scripted.  For example, I omit certain attempts at death-by-Dorito-consumption and possible engagement rings (on my mother's finger), large life-engulfing trunks, drunken welcome-homes, all consuming guilt, the kind of "good bye" that truly has the power to grind one's heart to dust.  I have added brightly adorned Christmas trees, comfort and relaxation, smiles, security.  Next year will be just long enough for my mind to fully buy into all of those forged memories and I will probably be surprised when it plays out just the same.  

Change. Progress. Hope.

I imagine that the rain held off until our moods were oil coated and resistant.  The earth needed quenching but our spirits were swollen and untouchable.  They say that water and electricity don't mix; I assure you that yesterday proved old precedence wrong.  The dark skies threw torrents to the thirsty ground while supporters charged with storms of conviction held their melting posters, held determined faces, held beliefs and hope like sturdy soldiers.  Like the smell of doused streets, the murmur of Americans permeated the damp air.  Even a person with no knowledge would have known that something big was occurring.

I went ahead of my friends to secure seats at the coffee house across the street from campus, the same place I've gone a hundred times to study and hang out on perfectly average days.  The street vendors and organizations held most everyone's attention until about 5:30 pm, but by then I had already draped cardigans and umbrellas and placed Nalgenes and any other marker from my bag of tricks on vacant seats so they would look taken and I wouldn't have to straddle an entire corner of Bongo Java with rabid eyes and a snarl to repel the crowds.  It wasn't long before my old roommate and her posse arrived.  We had our seats and time to kill and coffee and Cookies for Change right outside the outdoor patio.  Several times we remarked that it felt like New Years Eve, like a countdown should be in order for the event and the potential for change and our hope for change.  The people rolled in like waves and the rain fell in waves and goosebumps came in waves.  Everything felt too big to true.

My journalist friend had a break and excused himself from the circus in which only a press badge gets you entrance.  He didn't have much time, nonetheless he took a seat and we talked about his very entertaining and informative election blog and how he had received a REAL, LIVE ticket to the Great Hoorah.  Though my account is far less official than his and I didn't have a badge of any kind, just a hot tea and dry seat, I was there and I'll tell my babies about it, and no matter what accessories or adornments I was lacking, this is history.

There eventually was a countdown because we had exhausted ourselves and built a hype in our cores after two hours of waiting and watching the police guarded streets and the feather-shaped flags of red and blue whipping occasionally in spotlights and weather.  The street booths shut-down and their sponsors found seats of their own.  The floor space filled up first and then the front patio, the stairs leading up to the patio, the sidewalk leading to the stairs, and then left and right, as far as they could stand and still have a peek at the projection screens.

Browkow began.  Our biased group of Obama supporters cheered untamed when Barack made his way across the stage, so much so that McCain's first appearance was lost in the sea of opposition.  I was jealous not to be in the actual audience of the debate until the hoots and clapping wrapped me up in something more organic and bigger than myself, communal hope and fiery passion in a coffee spot that felt as much like home as campus every did. 

In fifty years I wonder where we'll be as a country.  I wonder how these days will affect the kids I haven't even considered conceiving and how my adulthood will be molded by the rebuild of all that is crumbling.  I wonder when and how the war will end, how I'll be able to afford the utility bills this winter, the gas for my car.  I wonder what this extra degree will amount to in a job market sinking like silt, and I think of how uneasy this state of our country leaves me, yet I know without a shadow of doubt that even my worst hardship brought on by the government is so weak compared to so many.

Debate '08

I've tried to keep the concrete details of my small existence a secret for reasons I won't go into now. This just seems too big not to brag about, though. Part of me wishes that I was still a student, to witness the historic madness ensuing on campus - news vans and national attention, etc. There are events all over town scheduled for Tuesday's town hall debate and I feel that I will be doing myself and the wide-eyes of my future children a grave injustice if I'm not a part of something so monumental. In recent history there have only been a few elections so exciting the American people.

If you know me, it's no secret that I was born 40 years late, missing the 60's (when my soul was conceived). The Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam and critical social progressivism created a tone that I have always envied. How powerful would it have been to hang in the electricity of so much needed change? After the first and second plane struck the World Trade Center towers, life as Generation-Unmoved knew it took a swift turn for the unknown. So here we are squashing under a system of drying Social Security, a diving DOW, a sky-rocketing inflationary situation, fuel dependency, failing medical-care, a struggle for gay rights, attempts to seize my right to choose what to do with my own body, and a 7 year war that threatens more for me than world peace. I so wish that I could attend the debate. Even as an alum, the tickets were few and snatched up by everyone else who has been swept away in the importance of this election. I will however, have to make time for one or two block parties!

portion control

Normal should feel warm and relieving, but usual and forgettable - certainly not profound.  It should accompany the peace of Sunday's sunset as we routinely ride home beneath its shreds of violent pinks.  It should not spark a jolt of unsettling fear when I realize that I have recklessly nestled myself into the nook of Normal's safety.  There is no true safety in letting all of your armor fall away; there is no actual reliability in waking and retiring against the heat of his skin.  Sooner or later I'll be clutching pillows with the hope of fooling myself through the night.  He'll be gone again, swallowed up by the abyss of War's fury, and I'll jingle with my insides full of broken shards.  That's the fate bestowed upon little girls who play with gluttonous, luxurious Normal.

Make yourself comfortable.  I know better than that.

I only wish I could take him for granted.  I wish that our duet was so stiflingly blazé that it drove me to maintain a drunken fantasy of something less ordinary.  Instead, I snatch his sneezes from the air, capture each of his scents, memorize the quake of his rhythmic pulse.  I stash these events away without thinking because I know the days will come again when even meager shadows of him will hold me together.

 

a little unnerving

Because Waiting Panic isn't potent enough...

As wars lengthen, toll on military families mounts

'cause light strikes a deal with each coming night.

Reason suggested that I wait until we were face to face because our moments of attempted [serious] communication can be understated by a comparison to torture. We don't work it out, we just wear each other down until we're tired and disarmed and I've cried and he's taken the lord's name half a dozen times in that raspy, far away tone.

And in the last text I sent, I "said that I needed time," which he accurately decoded, a little to my dismay. I didn't want to talk to him. Didn't want to read the little digital message about the sun and the good day he hoped I was having. Didn't want to think of his eyes or his smile or his wonder and intelligence. I wanted them gone...like in the cartoon when the wee man with the giant pencil turns it over and begins erasing. I wanted a faintness to descend on the things that would break my heart so that my mental departure would perhaps be less devastating.

In the minute before I desperately wanted him on the phone, I desperately never wanted to hear his voice again. So naturally I called and texted in a manner that only an established girlfriend can get away with. I hated him and loved him and hated and loved myself and hated and loved the warm spring air and hated the heavy-heartedness of night. But I decided that it needed to be now, the dreaded tete-a-tete, because I'm that impulsive. And when his returned call interrupted the voicemail I was leaving on his phone, I threw my trusty maze of madness out the window and gave clarity a go.

He confirmed some fears. I created some. I secured myself close to composure and his boots crunched earth beneath them. He walked and listened. I parked and talked. Then he talked and I listened. Making sure not to venture too far from the mold, he still spat an abbreviated hiss or two and I shed a few silent tears. I hope he understood that I understand a great deal, though I am also overwhelmed with the unfamiliarity of acronyms and objectives. I know that giving himself is hard under the kind of pressure put on him. I also know that "manning-up" is not my style.

He has to go before we can really even begin. He says, "I love you. I really do." and for the first time in weeks, I believe it [the words]. And he's sorry, so sorry that I'm feeling distraught and sorry that it "falls on his end."

[I'm sorry that I'm not stronger. I'm sorry I had to tell you that I'm scared it all might be too much.]

In a voice unexpectedly calm, I tell him, "we just need to figure out how to make it work." And before he again leaves behind the world where I exist and enters the other, he affirms that "we will."

catharsis

We are all a part of some purpose. Mine tonight is to face the truth: I have not lost control, it was never mine.

It only takes one scalding burn to leave a lasting scar, just one clean break, one violent crash, one jolt to a system otherwise undisturbed. There is left a rosy raised area of tissue for fingers to trace and to trip the subconscious into recollection - the way it all unfolded and the immensity of its pain.

I gave all of myself to an undeserving thing. I fed the machine, and it swallowed me, blindly like quarters down the blackness of a vending slot. From here, I can look back and see the true worth of the endeavor. While I grew, I suffered. While I healed, I also scarred.

I said I'd never love again, not because opportunity was lost, but because the thought of breaking [again] sent chills of terror through my veins. I reasoned with the notion that whomever said it was better to love and lose, was full of shit or had never in fact loved, much less lost. I told myself to keep distant. I reminded the healing heart to wall in itself, to remain too weak to become breakable. We needed to sustain and protect, not to improve or strengthen.

I totaled a car once after hitting gravel at 70 mph, over-correcting into a spin then launching said car into an airborne dive, and finally landing in a ditch. It was well over a year before I was comfortable again. Every inch closer to the outer line of road increased my heart rate exponentially. The association of car and wreck was overwhelming, as was the lasting fear of a crumpled demise met beneath a tangle of charcoal Camry.

Just as wrecks become brazen reminders of the road, a heart's past can leave one discomposed as nature coaxes a gift of self and history sounds the roar of a shattering loss. I am pushed and pulled more so presently.

He was altogether unintentional, not a part of the [failed] single-for-a-year campaign. He wasn't what I was looking for at the time [he was more]. He was in The Army, one of those characters that totes guns in CNN footage [a bit frightening for my plans].

"...if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans." There was surely laughter.

I think the first date was afforded by The Universe, each of the tiniest details aligning with the perfection of fated stars. He was breathtaking, literally. As long as I'm able to tell the tale, I'll swear I almost fell from my seat when he turned the corner. Over the next months he awakened the numb and hesitant parts of me. He hushed my unspoken fears with an honesty in his eyes and a genuine sense of self. I couldn't help falling in love.

"A big heart is both a chunky and a delicate thing; it doesn't protect itself and it doesn't hide. It stands out, like a baby's fontanel, where you can see the soul pulse through."

Certain forces have led me here and have made me very aware of the vulnerable visibility of my soul. I've set my heart waaaaaay out on the edge. I've long since given it fully to him. Recently I've begun dreaming little shorts that shake me into panic, and yesterday, a morning spent extraordinarily, summoned a nauseating and morbid thought. I fear not only the remaining scars of loss, but new more violent and substantial ones. It isn't him so much that scares me, but the beast of war. She is something for which I never readied and with my tiny hands, I could never tame.

The Army is something removed from negotiation. He will leave. He will leave when The Army says. Schedules will be rescheduled. Wars will invite him and he will attend. I've started trying to control the parts of my life that I can [because of the parts that I absolutely cannot]. The compulsive need to do so is reminiscent of days I'd like to avoid repeating.

Training is a reminder to me of their purpose, in the same way that tires nearing the road's edge used to make me instinctively hold my breath. I am frustrated with my inabilities to find comfort in the ride, but hopeful nonetheless that it will come back to me. Each time I look in his eyes and feel my heart spill over, the more aware I am of what's at stake. I've never been good with the gamble of relationships, yet I bet like I can predict unwavering success. It is true that you can only lose what you put on the table, but I imagine winning the full pot. I have no way of scripting the other players. I have no way to treat the war animal so that she learns to sit and stay. He may always lust for the scenery of my nightmares, and I can't change that either.

...it was never mine.

Naked in Baghdad

::drumroll::

I finished my first book of the year! This afternoon's irresistible spring-time highs coaxed the masses from inside, even me. I milled around the apartment for most of the day, but after the third load of dirty laundry was loaded I couldn't ignore the temptation of sunny skies. I packed my current read-in-progress and some homework, and sped off to the haven of Starbucks' patio. I ordered my tall-iced-skinny-caramel-macchiato and planted myself in the iron chair with the full intent of devouring the final page.

Naked in Baghdad is the 2003 journalistic compilation of Anne Garrels. Working as an NPR foreign correspondent, she finds herself in Iraq's capital just as talks of war and WMD's are being volleyed. By the time the bombs begin raining, she remains one of only 16 American journalists surviving either deportation or personal fear. In spite of being a woman of fifty-something years with a loving hubby at home, she stations herself on the other side of the world to contribute her observations through daily audio reports.

She's basically my new hero.

I'm not sure if my somewhat compulsive interests in genocide [and now the war in Iraq] convey here. If you were to have a glimpse at my bookshelf, or possibly even a short conversation with the Princess herself, it would be clear. I always try to explain that it isn't the tactics of war that whet my mindful appetite or the politics either, rather it's the people - the sociocultural aspects of war, as I often entitle them. At the end of Garrels' book she states the same as her motivation. It's the people and how they fair conflict that drives her need to give them a voice. Her perspective was oh so intriguing, too. The entirety of her stay was made up of several trips back and forth on account of visa restrictions, and never was there left out a single complicated hoop through which she jumped to get back into Baghdad. I loved that she avoided the fantasy of battle, that she covered the monotony and fear, and mostly that she did so without apparent agenda.

Oh darling, the seasons are your friend.

I feel very repetitive and that the continuation of focus on the fact that I love him and he's gone and it's hard will in the end bore not only me, but also you. In tandem, I am reminded that in thinking that way, I might have lost sight of my originating purpose. My reasons for blogging were inspired more so by the expression of self than ever they were for drawing readership...but of course I do appreciate my audience [please don't misinterpret].

I used to paint. I spent the better half of my high school days painting and purging all of the angst of adolescence on recycled canvas and old boxes and pretty much anything shy of my own skin. When time became less and high school lent itself to the responsibilities of college, I packed away the boxes of paint and old scraps and pencils. Cutting that part of expression from my life quickly proved unsuccessful. I'll spare you the year and a half of emotional unrest that followed...

I've always journaled, yet another outlet as they say, but blogging seemed more purposeful, more communal, more like a support group linking us all together. In the end this is my little plot, my own acreage for whatever I choose to cultivate, where behind the guise of a silly pen-name I can bear my soul and bleed my heart and spend every entry raging against life's lack of regard for fairness [if I like]. Luckily, I don't. [I don't think, anyway.]

Consider that your hands-on-hips-I-write-what-I-want disclaimer. If the appeal of throwing yourself into oncoming traffic seems more than that of poring over my momentary devastation, please take whatever measures are necessary to stop reading [now].

When he left, it seemed that his scheduled number of weeks away were mountainous in size. He kissed me in the dark kitchen and pulled the door of my apartment shut behind him. I watched as the glowing beams of his truck redirected toward the road and his brake lights vanished eventually into the night. He was gone. Start the countdown. Deep breath. Tomorrow will be one day closer to the [figurative] end.

...how fucking naive.

Weeks passed with unusual calm. I can count on one hand how many nights I wept for vainly mustered desires of closeness. Finally the visit was afforded, and even that return was handled well. I didn't backslide, I was smiling by Monday, the threat of The Army seemed so benign. I would not be deterred [I probably scoffed]. I might have even thought it would be easy easier than expected.

I watch and listen to my comrades, my other, other-halves who standby while their boyfriends/husbands deploy for 15 months at a time, plus training. It felt that if they could do it then my experience, guaranteed to be less in length, would be something similar to the simple act of eating ice cream in July.

[Yes, in July...]

Last week came with news of another month-long bought of training. I'd get him for a number of days before an additional month of distance wedged between us. In my normal fashion, I cursed The Army, voodoo hexed Uncle Sam, shed a tear or two but found myself coping the following morning. I commended the grace it seemed I was [slowly] adopting. I probably even canceled the hexes.

Down to only a few more weeks, my thoughts had begun venturing to welcome-home dinner menus, movies soon to be showing, the thought of kisses and smiles and hearing him breathe again. I was definitely on board with the glass half full approach. Even one more month would put him back home for graduation* and an eventful May wedding [...not mine], and the delight of early spring, and...ok, I'll stop. I was excited enough to look past the extension.

I. was. proud.

Y'know that instantaneous burst of over-confidence you find when a true challenge is seemingly conquered? For example, those first gliding 50 yards on the bicycle Dad just stripped of training wheels. You manage without error only to peer behind long enough to realize he's let go...and inevitably the episode ends in bloody knees and Barbie band-aids, and probably loose gravel in your nose. Tonight that was me, minus the bike and band-aids. Their understudies: an aching heart, public tears, discount retail therapy, the urge to throw my phone to the vinyl floor and jump and stomp it with my moccasined feet until either they or my phone met defeat. I wanted to snap shut my metallic messenger and rewind life's audio. I wanted to graphically peel back my ears to remove the newly embedded information.

"...another 2 months."

[breathe.]

"...back sometime in July"

[cling to lasting threads of calm.]

"...sorry to drop the bomb."

I have to go. I'll...um...call you back later, k?

I went into this thing anticipating the deployment...the pinnacle trial, the Iraqi Everest, if you will. A little training trip here, a slightly longer one there, I saw them as previews not piling obstacles. I wasn't ready to hear that the initial two months had turned into five and would then lead to some months of pre-deployment training before The War again consumed him. By the time July arrives in all of her humid, blistering glory, well over half of our relationship will have been sustained by phone.** That's long before the long stretch of fear, worry and cross-continental separation.

::sigh::

I question my true capabilities of endurance. Can we survive on relatively brief exchanges coaxed by what meals were consumed or the chronology of a day? Rather, can I ? Can we grow over a phone or is this a purgatorial stale-mate until he's back for some substantial amount of time? Will the envy of "normal" couples make me bitter? Or the envy of his mistress weaponry? How emotionally available will the focus of his travels allow him to be? Might the strain of separate lives lead us down different paths?

Maybe at the end of the day none of these worries will be validated. If it's meant to be, it will thrive even in the face of adversity, even when pulled by the literal ends of the earth.

And I wonder, "is love really all you need?"



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*read as BIG, fucking deal [as in 6 years in the making]

** 81.8%

Finally

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

A story as uncharacteristic as the phenomenon itself: Snow falls in Baghdad. Sometimes the good news does manage to fall through the cracks. And so I am once again, but only slightly, challenged to consider the possibility that humanity might not all be destined for disaster. I'm sure tomorrow will act as confirmation that it is, but today, this is good enough.

my life in bullet-form, but no particular order

I'm still here, I swear, and I've got so much to write about...

...this new read on genocide has gotten me thinking and learning so much about modern history and what people are capable of

...the staff sergeant is getting ready to leave again for about 2 months (i.e., I'll be soon slipping into the life of the dating-single world of military other halves...and we all know how gracefully I wear this persona [note sarcasm]). Reference October for further illustration.

...I'll be turning 24 in a few weeks [...and I'm not who I thought I was...]

...I'll be Valentines-ing it up in Atlanta with an old high school friend turned mil-wife (our men both have dates with the army).

...hopefully I'll be able to introduce a new roommate as the old one has moved...well, down the street

...classes start back (note tone of dread), buuuuuuuut it's the last semester [ever] of undergrad business studies (note tone of elation)

...I've also gotten this new book brimming with writing prompts, so I might start trying those out and posting them here.

And soon I'll give each of these things the time and honor and respect it deserves. Tonight is just not the time or place. I'll post something meaty soon.

[SOON.]

Some words [to go with photos]

I don't have much time, but I wanted to write some words to correspond with the slew of photos that were posted to mark events. Sunday was possibly the most polarized day I will ever spend on earth. The afternoon was dedicated to a lesson in shooting. The Staff Sergeant commended my abilities, although I'm still not certain that he doesn't have to compliment his girlfriend...especially when she's armed :) I was proud of myself both for aiming and hitting the target in accordance [kind of], and also for braving the unknown. I'm a girly-girl to the core, but Sunday afternoon I shelved the princess tiara for ear and eye protection and pretended for an hour or so that I was someone else. It was nice break.

The evening brought me back to my usual self in a kind of overdrive. A friend of mine, whose boyfriend is also in the army and in Iraq, came over to spend the evening [and into the morning] baking more cookies than my kitchen has certainly ever seen at once. It's funny how loving one suddenly makes you susceptible to caring about them all. The least we could do was bake and ice and sprinkle a few pieces of home [200+ cookies]. Cumulatively, we catered to 68 troops...all of her boyfriend's platoon and my adopted soldiers [plus 20]. While I am lucky [lucky, lucky, lucky] to have The Staff Sergeant here, I've befriended or renewed friendships with a couple of girls who love their guys despite the divide. It's a different kind of commitment with different kinds of trials, and I'm awed often at their strength. I hope when my time comes I can be half as tenacious as they are. Because we could and because we love our two soldiers, we baked to keep vigil. I cannot ever do more than imagine what it's like to be at war for Christmas, but I'd like to think that a humble token of sugar cookies and the knowledge that someone blocked out time and energy just for me, because I was [at war] would at least make me smile. And even I know that sometimes that's enough.