I’m lonely. I’m lonely in a way that I don’t think most
people get to experience. I’m not lonely because I’m single, I’m a married
woman. I’m not lonely because I’m stuck in a loveless, horrid relationship either,
because I’m madly in love with the man I’ve married.
I’m lonely because my heart has been ripped out of my chest
and shipped halfway across the country. I’m lonely because I’m facing my first
pregnancy by myself. I don’t have my husband at my side, his shoulder to lean
on, his hand to hold. I have only myself to hold on to.
I am an Army wife. My husband is on training, and won’t be
back for five months. This isn’t our first separation, nor is it our longest.
We have endured a 15 month deployment. I’ve made it through his trip to Korea.
I’ve handled myself while he was at school or on training missions all over the
country.
Short trips are rough, really they are. They make your heart
ache, and your mind calculate how many more hours of this you have to endure.
Long trips are near impossible. You try to busy yourself that you don’t focus
on the fact that this has just barely started and you have nearly five more
months of this to go. You focus on the pride you have in your husband. You
focus on what needs to be done, day to day, around the house. You pay the
bills. You feed the animals. You do your best to take care of yourself. However, in the back of your mind, you are
always expecting him to come up behind you and take you into his arms. Those
strong arms, where the entire world is at peace and you feel safe beyond
measure. He’d lay a kiss on the back of
your neck, making you shiver and laugh. You keep expecting him to come home from
work, asking how your day has been. How you are. How the baby is. It just doesn’t
happen, and every time it doesn’t happen it breaks your heart.
You tell yourself, chin up. You tell yourself to put on your
big girl panties and deal with it. You tell yourself not to cry. When the day
is over, though, and you face that bed, too big, and too cold, you know that
you can’t help but being heartbroken, even if no one else ever knows it. You do
your best to be strong, to put on a brave face.
No one that isn’t married into the military really understands. They say
annoying clichés that make you want to rip their faces off.
You just want someone to say, it's okay to miss him. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to cry. I'm here if you want to cry, or vent. It's okay not to always be so strong...
