Change

Well, it is two days before Christmas and we are almost through our first week of deployment. I sent my husband off earlier this week and let me just tell you, that was the hardest thing that I've ever done. I thought that I had prepared myself for this and I thought that I had myself all strong and ready for it. Boy, was I wrong.

When the day had started at 7 am, I was optimistic, hyper and making sure that everyone around me was smiling. I felt that I needed to make sure that people were not too sad and that they would be able to enjoy their last few hours with their spouses and loved ones. I felt the need to do silly things and crack jokes just to keep up the spirits. My good friend Lyessa was having a hard time first thing that morning, so what did I do? I went and party-boyed  her so that she would laugh. For some odd reason, I always feel the need to be the goof-ball during depressing situations, such as the deployment earlier this week.

I was a tad bit emotional on and off through out the day. Whenever I felt myself cry, I felt the need to stop it and move on. I refused to allow myself to cry because I wanted to show Robert that I was indeed ready for this and I was indeed ready to take everything on. I just needed to keep focusing on my boys and my husband and my friends. Rob being the goofy guy that he is, constantly was lifting me up and picking me up and saying silly things that would keep me laughing when we went into the gym for family time. I felt that he needed to see my smile and as hard as I tried to, it was hard. I knew that he wanted to remember me smiling more than crying, but it was slowly sinking in. It was slowly sinking in that I was losing my best friend and soul mate for a year. Slowly sinking in that my boys were spending a year without the man that they looked up to. Bobby adores Rob and was his little shadow. People say that he is too young to notice anything, that is totally false. He knows that daddy is gone, he misses daddy and wants him back. He doesn't understand where daddy went or why he is gone, but he knows that he is. I just can't imagine what is going on in his little head.

I thought that they would give us a 15 minute warning, but no warning. Before we knew it, they were doing final role call. The time that I've been dreading for the past year had just now come. It was a blur because everything kept happening so fast. All I truly remember is that I kept holding his face and kissing him as hard and long as I could. I felt that the more I kissed him and the longer I kissed him, somehow it would make things better. I was not ready for this. I had just spent a year preparing for this and I was just not ready. Who can ever be ready? I know I can't. I know that there is no way on earth that I would ever be ready to send Rob off for a year.  I kept telling him that I was going to wait for him and that if anything happened to him, that I would never love anyone like I loved him. It is true.

Robert and I have our share of hard times. Actually, we've had more than our share, but we've always survived. He knows what to say to make me laugh, to make cry, to make mad and to make me just out right smile. He may not be the perfect guy, but who is? I am more romantic than him and wish he would be more romantic. Yet, that doesn't seem to matter. NOTHING seems to matter. The fact that he leaves the toilet seat up or when he shaves his face, he never washes the sink out, or when he comes home, everything he wears is in a line leading to the bathroom, all those things, do not matter to me. I miss those things. I miss everything that I used to be so frustrated with.  Funny how that all works.

I can now start counting down to when he comes back. I am a tad bit jealous seeing all the husbands that are returning soon, but I am grateful that those families get their loved ones back. It is because of our guys who deployed and are deploying, that they get to come back. It's a bittersweet cycle, but even though it makes me jealous, I am comforted knowing that families will be reunited. I keep trying to hold onto that thought as I get depressed, angry and all the other emotions that come from deployment.

This is all so real to me. As I get about five minutes to talk to him once in a while, my world seems to stop and everything just focuses on him. It doesn't matter what is going on around me, nothing is as more important than to talk to him. I am hoping that we can video chat soon and I can see him and so can the boys. I am hoping that maybe for Christmas, I can see them. So, what do I want for christmas? A video chat with my husband. That is all I really want from the world this year. I just want this to be over with. I want him back in my arms, safe and sound. It seems like every day that I go, I get more and more pessimistic about this deployment. Every time I look at his picture, I realize that I have so long until I see him again. I have such a long time before he is back here safe and sound.  I have a freaking long time until we are a family again.