Like Ships in the Night

There is a very nice woman at the gym who met me shortly after I joined. She got the basic rundown of my life: deployed husband, sick Dad, temporary lodging, three year old. I see her periodically, either in the workout room or in the childcare room while we're picking up our kids. She usually asks how my husband is and if I've been able to talk with him. A week or so ago, she asked if he was home. I told her he was gone until October. She nearly fell off her chair- "Seven months! How do you do that?" And, as any military spouse knows, there is no good answer to that question. It helps to be independent. It helps to keep busy. You just do it.

So I saw her today and she asked how my husband was. Then she asked me, "Don't you miss him, gone so long?" And I told her yes, but that isn't the whole truth. I miss him and I don't. There is so much for me to deal with here right now. It distracts me. Sometimes I really wish he were here. Sometimes I'm a little annoyed I don't hear from him more often, considering. But then I remind myself (a) he hates that he's not here, (b) he's not good in a situation like this and, quite likely, wouldn't be all that comforting. I mean that in the best possible way. We've been together a long time. He just doesn't know what to say or do in this kind of situation- most people don't. He has learned just to hug me, so that's an improvement. Then there is (c)whatever I've got going on here, he's still stuck on a deployment with a small group of people who don't always play well together in 125 degree heat. His life is also continuing.

I just worry about how things will be when he gets home. I'm going to be glad to see him, but I'm also going to be unbearably sad, one way or the other, about my Dad. It's not going to be the happy reunions on the past. Plus we're now adding the child to the mix. Anyone who has gone through this realizes that the first hour of the reunion is great, but it doesn't last. Real life crashes back in. I'm afraid we may be in for a tsunami.