Dedicated

I'm dedicated to my soldier.

When he is gone, there is not a day where he isn't on my mind. I keep my phone by me constantly, even if I know it won't be three weeks before I hear from him. I write him letters so he can have something tangible that was once in my hand. I write him emails to keep him informed of my day-to-day actions. I send him packages to brighten up his day and to give him the strength to keep going.

I'm dedicated to my soldier.

I pray for his safety when he is gone and his knowledge while he is training. I read devotional books and blogs to help me to prepare for everything that will be thrown at us. I ask for strength for the two of us as we continue in our journey. I put on my armor at home and fight my battles while he is off fighting his.

I am dedicated to my soldier.

I dream of a day when he will be there next to me when I wake up. I picture us sitting on the couch, drinking coffee and holding hands each morning. I imagine the perfect life for us, but I know there is a chance that this could all change in an instant. I know there is a chance he won't come home the same man, he won't come home whole, or he may not come home. But these are risks I am willing to take due to my enormous amount of love for him.

I am dedicated to my soldier.

I sleep with my soldier teddy bear each night. I have camo print in almost every room of my house. I have signs, plaques, and pictures boasting my pride for my soldier. I dream of one day having a house where I can proudly fly the flag my soldier fights for.

I am dedicated to my soldier.

There is never a day where I second guess my commitment to him. There is never a time where I wonder if I am making the right decision by staying with him. I will not be tempted by the other men I meet in my daily life. My love for my soldier is deep in my soul; it is in the very essence of my being. 

I am dedicated to my soldier.

And no one can ever take that away from me.

Why am I stuck on this couch?

Well I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I was lucky enough to spend the holiday split between Sweet Boy's family and my family. It was wonderful meeting some new faces that will some day be part of my family as well! Unfortunately, I fell down the stairs right when we were trying to leave and we thought I broke my ankle. One tearful trip to the ER later, and they think I just sprained it. But it sure did swell up pretty huge and turned black and blue almost immediately. We weren't convinced that it wasn't broken until yesterday. And the pain medicine they gave me was no where near strong enough to reduce the pain, but since I went to the ER and was out of town, we didn't have a way to call in a stronger prescription. So I guess technically this week wasn't what I had planned. But things rarely go according to plan. Thankfully my hunk swept me off and dashed me away to the ER right after I fell and didn't leave my side for 4 days. He seriously helped me with everything (besides going to the bathroom and taking a shower of course) and now that he is gone, I have no clue what to do with myself. Every day he shows me thousands of more reasons why he is going to be the best husband in the world. I could not have picked a better match for me if I had tried.

Adjustment Time

There are many parts of this life that we are warned about and try our hardest to prepare ourselves for. We know there are times where we will be separated from our loved ones, no matter how much we hate it. We know that we can beg and plead and cry, but they still have to leave. We still have to stay behind. Whether it is a deployment or a trip out to the field, they still have to go.

What you aren't warned about, or at least I wasn't, is what happens when they get back. The adjustment period.

There you are, crying your eyes out because you miss them so much your heart feels like it may literally rip in half. You can't sleep without hearing their voice. You are terrified because you can't remember what they smell like or what their skin feels like under your fingertips. It seems as though your world is falling apart and you cannot take it anymore. You are ready to give up. And then...they come home.
To say you are thrilled is an understatement. Your heart feels complete. Your world is whole again. You remember how to go to sleep without worrying about getting the dreaded phone call or knock on your door in the middle of the night.

But what happens after that? What happens when all the glamour rubs off? When the magic of reaching out at touching them becomes second nature? When you have him home and know he isn't leaving again soon?
What happens is a struggle. What happens is hard. What happens takes time.

Sweet Boy and I are in that time period. We are learning one another again. We are learning what it is to be a couple again; what it is like to merge two lives together. It is hard. It is a struggle. And it is going to take some time.

He stopped answering my phone calls not long after he got back. He graduated on a Thursday and I was lucky enough to be there with him and to see him graduate and spend the rest of the weekend with him. Things were perfect. He was back and nothing was different. We picked up right where we left off; or so I thought. When I got back home after the weekend, I was able to talk to him and tell him I was home.
I didn't talk to him after that until Tuesday night...very late Tuesday night. To most people, this may not mean very much. He needed time to sleep, they told me. He probably wanted some alone time. Maybe he just isn't used to having to answer to anyone. But that just isn't him.
Sweet Boy, before he left, was the kind of boy who would call me and talk for hours. We would talk many times a day, mostly about nothing. He was simple. He was carefree.
He wrote me letters from training. They were pages and pages and pages long. They were sweet. They were kind. They were loving.
He would sneak away and call me when they were given the opportunity. He would stand in line for half an hour to talk to me for five minutes. The one time I was sleep when he called me, he called and called and called and called (yes, he would call, get my voicemail, hang up and get in the back of the line at least four times) until I did wake up so I could hear him tell me he loved me.
But now things are different.

Now we are struggling to have a conversation that doesn't lead to fighting or hurt feelings. We don't talk very often. I'm feeling a little pushed to the side. It is hard to go from months with no communication, wishing they were there every second, to being surrounded by them at every moment and not knowing what to talk about or how to act towards one another. This isn't how I thought things would be when he got back. This isn't how I played it out in my head.
It is hard right now, and I know it will get better, but it is a daily struggle right now. I miss the man I fell in love with. I miss my better half.

Where I've been

I'm sorry I've been missing in action lately. The sweet boy of mine has graduated and I am just so proud of him. And much to our surprise, he was given two weeks off of work. I'm soaking up every minute of it! I'm loving his texts, phone calls, kisses and snuggles. It was rough getting used to each other at first, and I will write about that later, but right now we are loving being a couple again. Currently, we are at my parent's house planning the wedding! Is there anything more stressful than planning a wedding? A wedding for almost 400 people? I don't think so. But we are making it through the stress and the little tiffs planning causes and still want to be around each other. That's love. I knew I picked a good one, but he continues to prove that more and more each day.

Finally

I finally heard from him. I finally got the news I've been waiting months to hear: he is almost done with training and I will see him by this weekend!
These last few months have been very hard and very tiring. We talked more when he was deployed than we did when he was at school. That's a weird thought. I cherished those phone calls back then, now I definitely appreciate each time he calls.
I've been able to talk to him for the last two nights,  about 15 minutes each. It feels so good. I can't wait to slip back into our relationship...and feel like an "us" again. I'm ready to be in his arms again.
This time spent apart, much like other times apart, has helped me realize how wonderful he is. All of his letters were so sweet and so precious. I loved reading each one on those long nights when I missed him deeply. It helped me pass the time and to remember that he really is the one for me. Not that there was ever any doubt! I'm so glad I kept all the letters. I can't wait to figure out what I want to do with them. I'm thinking of putting them in a scrapbook and giving it to him for the wedding. I have letters from back in 2007 and I know he still has some from me so I want to have a place where we can keep them and read them whenever we want and pass it along to our children one day. I guess I am a romantic like that.
Basically, I am just so excited to see him this week that I can hardly stand it! But I am also nervous about all of it. I'm seeing his parents for the first time since we have gotten engaged. He is seeing his parents for the first time in over a year. Our two parents are getting together for the first time in six or seven years. That is a lot to take in. I'm hoping this will all go well. At the end of the day, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and dreaming of looking into my Sweet Boy's eyes.

What's your song?

I haven't linked up in a few weeks, but I was determined to do it this week! Link up and join the fun with Goodnight Moon!

My very favorite line is 

"I'm counting the days til I'm finally done.

I'm counting them down,

yeah,

one by one."

This song gets me through the lonely days away from my Sweet Boy. I remember listening to this song together and he just held me in his arms and I cried, knowing he was about to leave me again. Bittersweet memories.

But, hopefully I can finally say I am counting down the days until I can see him again. I'm so nervous and excited at the same time. 

I hope everyone has had a great week so far! It's almost the weekend...yippee! 

I've really lost my motivation to blog recently. I would go to write stuff out, but ended up deleting it. Nothing ever sounded right. Nothing was what I actually wanted to talk about.

I could write about the girl who complained to me last week about her failed relationship with a traveling musician. The one who made the comment, "you're lucky...at least you know where he is and he isn't sleeping in another girl's bed". I sat there floored and blankly replied, "but at least he wasn't getting shot at every day".

I could write about the daily comments I get about how people don't know how I go on day after day without Sweet Boy. How one of my friends made the comment of "your long distance relationship shouldn't be called a long distance relationship...they should have a whole different category for it." You would think these comments would build me up, make me feel stronger in my relationship; but they don't.

I could write on and on about all of that, but I won't. I have bigger things to worry about these days.

My parents and I have made the decision that I will be taking off next semester to come home, save money, and plan my wedding. In 6 weeks, I will be leaving the college town I have grown to know over the past 3 or 4 years. I'll be leaving my school, my comfort zone, and my friends. It is so fast and completely bittersweet that I cannot wrap my head around it.
I am ready to go home, ready for a break, ready to be around people where I can complain and talk about Sweet Boy as much as I want and they won't judge me or get annoyed. I'm ready to be Daddy's little girl for just a little while longer. I'm ready to be at the beach and in my own room and with everything that I grew up loving.
But I wish I could stay. I wanted to be in this town so badly for so long. I was ready for my independence. I was ready to go out and make new friends and make a life for myself. I'm not ready to leave that all behind. In a year, yes; but not in six weeks.

I'm worried about how I will tell my friends I am leaving. I am worried about being judged. I'm worried that they think that I am leaving only because I am engaged and never to be heard from again. I'm scared of losing my friends who don't understand that I am making this hard decision based on what is right for me, and for my  future husband.

This has been a hard decision. I've thought about it. I've cried about it. I've prayed about it. And honestly, I feel relieved that I finally have an answer. I finally know where I am going, what I am doing. I don't feel like I am floating around and not sure of where my life is going anymore. I could always see the big picture, but now I see how I am getting there.

The hardest part of all of this was deciding it for my own. I couldn't bounce ideas off anyone. I couldn't vent about it and then change my mind the next day. And, most of all, I couldn't tell Sweet Boy.

That's right. He doesn't know. This will be a big change for us, but we can do it. Plus, now I will actually have time to plan my our wedding. What can be better than that? Well, nothing, besides having him home next to me. Thinking about all of this makes me miss him even more than normal. "We're on the final stretch," he told me a week ago. Now I just have to keep busy until he comes home...and figure out how I'm gonna drop this bombshell on him. Wish me luck.