I've never been one to wish away time - my kids have grown up too quickly already, every moment leading up to a deployment is cherished. Some days, I wished time would just stop. I would lay there next to my husband, knowing how hard the time and distance apart would be, knowing for certain that uncertain times were upon us; I'd feel his heart beating, listen to him breathe....I wanted time to just stop.
Now, almost five months into a deployment, with Christmas and New Years looming, I am more ready than ever to fast forward to our Homecoming. After the marathon, I set running aside from a while - honestly, I didn't walk right for a week after that marathon and lacked motivation to run thereafter. I always "go hard or go home" and from the moment he left in July all the way through October, I ran my ass off, trained my ass off so after the marathon, running was just unappealing. I'd much rather be lazy, go to the gym, drink coffee, and eat cookies. Truth be told, I have enjoyed the down time. School work is amping up as I begin two classes at once this week. Lots of work in a small amount of time which is perfect to keep me busy when my anxiety of Dave coming home hits and I am up at all hours of the night trying to find things to clean with a toothbrush.
Military wives do hilarious things when their husbands are on the cusp of coming home - I remember cleaning every nook and cranny of my house before he came home from a 5 week training stint in California; I remember being on my hands and knees at 37 weeks pregnant, SCRUBBING the kitchen floor and cleaning our baseboards with a toothbrush. And for what? Did he notice that I cleaned the baseboards....no. He was happy to have a WARM BED to sleep in and a hot, home cooked meal. All this knowledge and I still plan on cleaning my baseboards again. Maybe because they aren't home often, that when they are home, some of us pursue this idea of perfection.....or maybe we just need things to keep us busy in those hellacious 24 hours before we actually see them again. I could go on and on with a to-do list; like washing his shirt....the shirt he wore 5 months ago the day that he left, that I refuse to wash because somehow, even 5 months later, it still smells like him.
But I digress. I am ready to push through the holidays and ring in the New Year, knowing that he will be coming home in 2012!! As many of my girlfriends know, having a deployed husband is hard. It is what it is, ultimately, but damn if it isn't hard. I think that my children have made me a softer, kinder person, but the Marine Corps has me stronger and more capable. The ability to hit curve balls, deal with change at a rapid pace, learning to reach out to other people that are in the exact same shoes as you are life lessons many people never learn. I am thankful for these experiences and thankful that my children will be able to adapt easier, know how to overcome challenges that seem impossible, and to understand what sacrifice means.
I will never forget the butterflies I felt when I saw Dave for the first time last homecoming - I get goosebumps just thinking about how beautiful it was to see him and Leo together again. Now this time, he gets to hold his two babies in his arms - I know Leo is going to be beside himself to see Dave again, and Delaney, she probably will have no clue what's going on and she has no idea that she's got my husband wrapped around her chubby little finger already, but she knows her Daddy so it will be so beautiful to see the three of them together again. After so much time apart, the disconnect makes you numb - I forget what my husband looks like, what he feels like when he hugs me, but you're used to it and you're "OK" with it, I mean what really can you do about it?.... But everything always falls perfectly into place when he comes back home and that is something that I cannot wait for. We always used to live for the future: "We have to do this now because you won't be here this year....." but I am SO looking forward to living for the now, for each moment, knowing we'll have a few years to look forward to that DON'T include deployments!
I CANNOT WAIT FOR 2012. Hurry up, I WANT MY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
