Dear LEGS: Surviving on countdowns.....**

Dear LEGS
0801012
Day 96

A LETTER:

Look well to this day, for it, and it alone is life.  -unknown

I start to feel it.......it starts out small.....tiny.....miniscule........and "it" starts way down low.....at first.... its only a little tickle....like a bug is crawling on my foot so....I shake it off.....Then the bug comes back and bites me....I get annoyed and a little upset...swatting away these feelings....and then the emotions start to build.....And the bite....it festers and itches horribly....usually for weeks......and it makes me so uncomfortable I just have to find a remedy......its at this point where I want so badly to scratch the bite, but I know that I mustn't. I would do anything to SHAKE PEOPLE and SCREAM OBSCENITIES at them...........

I start feeling UNSTABLE around the base.......being around the same people day in and day out, what they post on facebook, what they do at the gym, what they say when they see you, what they buy at the grocery store, at the post office, how they look, what they say, what they complain about, what they wear, its a constant barrage of negativity and snide comments in rapid succession......the inability and limitations of those to realize to have good friends you must also be one.....the lack of ambition or too much of it, the complaints that seem so futile, the competitions with others that are of no value, the unrest and unease that comes with having no control over the current situation, while understandable, is often what brings out the worst part of people.....

Its around this time that you and I usually get out of town......but you are not here.....and the friends I would disappear with are otherwise unavailable......

So I venture out into the world alone.....and while I am out there......

I suddenly become aware of exactly how many things I am depriving myself.....how much reality that I actually deal with on a daily basis......while I laugh and appreciate the smallest of things, the sun on my face, the trees and beauty, the sound of kids playing and laughing......it kills me when I realize that this is how it is.....for normal people, these are the things that they see and experience everyday, these feelings of joy, carefree.....happy......this is what a normal life looks like and feels like.....

The realization makes me sad......and it makes me jealous and envious and dubious.....these are the moments I want to give up, to throw this life and our love away, to run with normal people, to behave in reckless abandon to escape and never return........

I try so hard to stop myself from these thoughts and daydreams, grasping and clawing desperately to the memories of us....the way your hand feels wrapped around mine, the pillow talk, the secrets, glances, whispers....all those little things that make the big things.....imagine how sad I become when.....I can't seem to remember them, I can't seem to wash away the dust on these memories in order to see them, I can't put the pictures and snapshots into focus.....and so there they lie.....scattered across the floor of my brain, my eyes looking down up on them trying to make sense of myself, trying to keep my compass from going haywire, trying to find the person that I wish to be........trying to fill up the empty and be the wife I am destined to be......

Guilty if I laugh. Guilty if I drink. Guilty if I forget. How do I get through a day? I get up and I go? But where do I go? Most people wake up every day and don't even think about you or what you are doing? They don't think about me and this thing I live that should be a life.....they don't care that you live in a tent, that everything and everywhere you exist is dirty, they don't care that I stay alone, that we are a happily married couple who wishes to start a family but cannot because you are away.......

To top off all this ridiculous melancholy I am sick.....I think its the worst thing to be sick and alone....the monkey and the dog aren't cutting it. I just want you there to put my cold feet on, to make me soup, you to play with my hair and watch movies while I drift off to sleep.....someone who doesn't laugh at the way I blow my nose, or mind that I am a mouth breather......

I become so angry and resentful......and I wonder how many others have given up all the things I have given up- my youth, my job, some of my dreams, is it wrong of me or insensitive of me to point this out? 10 years of serving, sacrificing, always coming in the runner up.....

You are worth it you are.....but it makes it no less difficult or less upsetting.....

Please forgive me.....I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for all the imperfections, the weariness whittles me down, and at my most vulnerable states I just fall under the heaviness......

......they say.....time heals all wounds.....but does it.....?

Time for us is always the enemy......wanting to slow it down or hurry it up.....the time between us just crumbles me....

Seven days. Always counting up or counting down......I wonder how many other people survive on countdowns- do others constantly keep a tally of all the hours, minutes, days and months? They say God made the world in Seven days. In seven days the UNIVERSE will finally be balanced.....

The yin will have found its yang, the moon will be reunited with the stars, thunder will be accompanied by lightening, the sun with its rays, we will be together once again......

Together we can take on this cruel world....but separated I feel torn by the buzzards.....

How is it possible to go from feeling so content and burdenless to so melancholy and broken? LEGS hold me....I just need to feel safe and secure.....like I don't always have to guard myself, like I don't always have to be so strong.....am I not allowed to be angry? Am I not allowed to be weak? Am I not allowed to feel restless, resentful and despondent?

Why do we put ourselves through this? Why did we make these choices.....I suppose this is the life I chose....but could I walk away from it? Could I un- choose all these decisions? I fear that I am ripping out your heart as you read these questions.....at the end of these questions my brain answers back that I do indeed have the most beautiful heartbreaking love to show for it......

I can't wait to look up into your eyes....to sleep without fear.....to feel everything I feel and to say every thing I want to say......I cannot wait to be completely bare.....stripped of all the superficial bullshit that is necessary to maintain in this life......I cannot wait to be........just me........

Seven days......

LOVE ON YA- BIRDIE**

Just another day in the life of an unlikely military wife......**

Dear LEGS: These days....**

DEAR LEGS...
080512
Day 91


A LETTER


"May the love hidden deep inside my heart find the love waiting in my dreams.....may the laughter that I may find tomorrow wipe away the pain that I find in today......."


I am tired of stretching my foot over to feel the cold empty side of the bed......so.....I sleep in the middle of the bed these days.....its the darkness inside me that consumes all the places you used to be....except the army blouse that still hangs on the back of the chair in the guest room, and the books that you didn't read that sit on the nightstand, my favorite old pictures of you that sit on my vanity in the bathroom, the stack of magazines that rest untouched in your bathroom, all the ingredients of your favorite foods that collect dust in the pantry.....and though....buried deep under the rubble.....in my soul.....you occupy all the spaces of my heart.....


I wish that time would go by faster, days would pass by quicker, moments would be shorter, and soon it would be SPRING.....and then I think....NOT YET.....don't come home YET.....because I have not YET become the WOMAN you DESERVE.....


I worry sometimes that the ravages of war have changed you.  That you have forgotten all that is good, pure, and beautiful, in this world.  When we speak I feel like the light has left your eyes as well.....this is the cost of freedom I suppose.....but if at all possible- I would like to remind you home!


This is your home.

This is where we live, where you come after you work, where we talk, and laugh, where we look out the windows, have BBQ's, this is where we spend time together....hours and hours on the weekend, this where Karmella barks and insists on being let in and let out of the door.....its built on a foundation of trust, its walls are made of security, its covered by a roof of love....it is our sanctuary....we escape all the realities of life.....in this house.....


This is the gate and it squeaks and creeks when you open it.....when we have visitors they struggle to close it- because its a trick gate......

This is the yard.  I spend hours in this yard cutting the grass.  You have cut the grass once since we have lived here.  This is where I grow our food, pick fruit from the trees and spend countless hours weeding, working, sweating and laboring.....

This is me.  I am high up waving with thoughts of you in my head......

This is the sky and the clouds in NEVER NEVER LAND.

This is the valley overlooking where we live coming down the "Marktbergel Hill"........

Lately.......I seem to have been sleeping more soundly.......and its because right before I drift off....I think of you, and I know that the reason I am safe is because you are there, standing ready and vigilant, that you are fighting for and thinking of me, and that you are protecting me....At night is when I think of you most.....I think "SHHHHHHH......Can you hear me....I am with you...."


At night and during the days.....I send little messages of love and devotion to you......in my daydreams they travel with the birds, carried through these trees, over the little red roof tops of Oberdach, up high where the wind blows and the clouds float.....through the suns rays, storms above, all through the starry nights and in the pale moonlight......their final resting place being upon your eyelashes while you sleep.....

This is your dog.....who runs away every time the gate is left open, whose ears directly correlate with her mood, who sleeps under the covers in our bed, and who is very JEALOUS of the two of us together......

We shall see each other in a little over a week.....I am ready for you to lay your burdens upon me- I have been clearing out my mind body and soul to absorb whatever pain, hardships and secrets you will arriving with....


Even with all these tender thoughts and my unwavering faith that you will return home to me.....its still hard, I still have moments of weakness.....we had a internet black out the other night.......


Thankfully nobody had come to knock on my door......but its the moments, hours, seconds and nights like that that kill pieces of me and take away some of the magic of life.....and youth.....


This is a picture of me.  I am your wife.  10 years ago I promised to be with you and devote myself to you even though it was sure that you would be leaving to WAR....in all my silly ideas of love, butterflies in my stomach, our crazy wild and youthful playful romance blossomed.....we have had good times, hard times, bad times, happy times and sad times.....but still we live to see more days together....

These days I am full of dichotomies.....strong....but so weak.....a lover....but so angry.....happy.....but so very sad.....full of heart.....and yet so apathetic......I am not the girl you once knew.....or am I?  When I see you you can tell me then.......until then I will wait.....I will wait even though I don't hear from you....I will wait even though I am certain you will not be the same when you return.....I will wait even though there are no future promises......


I will wait very hard.......until you come home from work, through the gate, to our house, while Karmella barks, bring with you all those thoughts of devotion and love, that traveled over the tree tops and roof tops, through the storms and clouds, across the starry nights in pale moonlight, and shine them up on me......like the sun.....and it will be a new dawn........


LOVE ON YA- BIRDIE**


A day in the life of an unlikely military wife........**