Phases

So in all my reading on deployment...how to prepare, how to survive, etc, I have read a lot about how there are deployment phases everyone goes through.  Pre-deployment, deployment, return etc.  Each phase has a set of emotions that goes with it that are "normal" and to be expected from everyone.  Okay, sounds reasonable enough.  I'd just like to take a moment to discuss what phase I am in right now to get it off my chest if I may.

Right now, I am pissed.  Really, that is the best way to describe it.  Aside from the fact that we haven't actually gotten into a routine of any kind because of my recent surgery and then the kids and I will be traveling for a week + to go visit Chris next week, which is bugging the crap out of me, (the not having been able to settle yet, NOT the getting to see him again part) when it comes to where I am in the separation and how I'm feeling about it, I'm just really pissed.

I am pissed off by the smallest stupidest things, as well as some larger ones that I maybe feel somewhat justified in being pissed at.

The small things are things like, did I enjoy my day...well, it had some enjoyable moments in it, but you weren't there for any of it and you won't be home tonight, so no, it wasn't so good.  And that pisses me off.  I feel so annoyed with the fact that the person I planned to share my life with is gone and in his place, I am right back where I started, in my parents basement!  Not only do I feel like I am not moving forward with my life the way we had always planned, I feel like I am taking a step backwards!

Don't get me wrong, the fact that my family is here to support me and help with my kids is an enormous blessing, really, it is huge.  But it just really makes me so angry when I think about all the things that I should be doing with my husband, but instead am doing them alone or with someone else.

It pisses me off to think about all the memories I will be making without him in them.  Like, we used to argue about certain movies and whether we had seen them together or not.  It was a big deal if one of us watched a movie we wanted to see without the other one.  Now, I have an entire year of watching movies without him.  There will be a whole year of movies that he not only will not have seen but may not have even heard about!

We have never been the best conversationalists, we didn't talk all that much.  But at least even if we weren't talking, we could be in the same room, connecting on SOME level.  Now, we still don't talk much, but there is nothing there to connect us.  That makes me so crazy.  It makes me pissed to think of all the time we are losing as a couple.  We should be together.  We should be making memories.  He should be in our family pictures as we do things and go places.  But he won't be.  For a year, there will be no pictures of him in our folders.

That really bugs me.  The pictures thing.  Not having new pictures now and again just makes me feel like the person is so far away.  One of the things that hurts most about Mom.  No new pictures.  Every time I go back to look at pictures of her, it just feel further and further away as I see how young everyone was.  Now it will be that way with Chris for a year.  No pictures of him with the kids.  They will be completely different people by the time he gets to take a picture with them.  Not that he really cares about that, but man does it hit me in a hard place.

I so want to be able to enjoy life.  I want to have a life full of joy and memories just like any other year would be, but I can't seem to escape this weight of pain I have in my chest.  Sometimes I feel like I will find the strength to overcome and take it on, but mostly I just am mad that I have to.  If I'm being totally honest.  Which I am.

God I hope this year does good things for our relationship, and for me personally.  I am terrified of the possibilities though.  I hate being a pessimist.  I used to call myself a realist, but lets just cut to the chase, I can't help but navigate to the worst case possibility.  And a year of being apart is a lot of time spent trusting someone completely.  I am literally putting my heart in a box and sending it across the world hoping that it doesn't get betrayed, neglected, crushed, or completely shattered.  All are very real possibilities.

Not that I don't trust him.  I do.  With all my heart.  I trust that he loves me more than he ever has before and is in a better place than ever before as a person, and so as far as that goes, we are good.  I just don't trust easily.  If I can't see it, it is extremely hard for me to believe it.  It takes all I have to trust a person.  Especially the person holding my heart.

So I guess the bottom line is this.  I have yet to go into survival mode yet.  I am still stuck in the anger/resentment phase.  And it sucks.  Bad.  I hate feeling angry.  But I am doing my best to trust that this too will pass, and a new phase will come, and with it, a new ability to see life more clearly.

In the mean time, I miss him.