.....HTFU....**

092214
beloved LEGS...

I am a mess.....this week I have felt like.....somehow I have fallen in love with you all over again.....how do you do that?  You bring me down, you bring me up.....you kill me just to save me...........I am afraid that its just a delusion.....a mixture of romanticizing the past, and these passing exchanges we have shared the last couple of weeks......oh but how they have made my heart swell.....

......lately I have been having this vision of your face...the stars spell out your features while a ghostly picture of you lays in between....I have it when its hard....during training....or when I am awoken by a nightmare in the middle of the night...or when I feel so very alone.....it both haunts me and comforts me...

....I am afraid that I will lose you...this strong long distance passion between us gives me this unbearable anxiety.... because I have everything to lose.....it seems to be a conditioned response....whenever I feel happy and content LIFE comes in and destroys it.....

.....I was quoted on a public forum the other day....saying......"When I see weakness in a person, I just want to hurt them."......

I said that.  I honestly can't believe I said that.  I sound like a sociopath.  Obviously this statement was made in a certain context....a conversation about boxing.  I said I don't like to hurt people, unless they show me weakness in the ring.  When I see weakness in a person, I just want to hurt them.

I spent the whole day thinking about that one sentence, because honestly it scared me that I popped off and said that. Ya, okay, I said it in a certain context, but I started to wonder if it was maybe true in all parts of my life.......

......when I think about weakness I think about...the word strong.....

Honestly I am sick of hearing it.  I hear it all the time every single day for years on end.  People tell me to be strong.  People tell me I am strong.  Men tell me I am the strongest women they know.  Or if anybody is strong its you.  Its the one word that people use to describe me and the one word I use to describe myself.  I think about being strong all the time.  I tell myself to be strong.  Strong, the word, is so meaningful to me I have actually considered tattooing it on myself.....

.....As I was driving down the road today.....I was thinking about strength. 

....I started to think about why people keep saying that to me.  Do I really stand out more than others as strong?  Is that the only thing they can think to say?  Is it the word they think I need to hear...a form of encouragement?

My life isn't any harder than anybody else's..I truly believe that and.......I choose not to compete battle for battle.....but I was wondering exactly why it seems to be the one word I hear all the time.....

....several different circumstances reeled through my head like a film of times, where......my strength was probably hurtful to people that I care about....people that I love...

...but there is always in the back of my mind, a test that I give people....and the test is....if we were facing the end of the world....who wouldn't give up on me, who wouldn't give up on surviving.....family, friends, or not....if I ever feel like the person before me would give up.....then I know where they stand in my every day life....because.....for us....for me and you.....every single day is a survival situation....every single day is LIFE OR DEATH.....

.....the strength that I project is actually a bone chilling ability I have learned over the years.  Its a behavior, a pattern.....when things get hard.....I let the pain come into me....I embrace the burn....the heartache....I let it break me down a little.....sometimes I cry....a lot of times I get angry.....but most the time.....I let myself love it....I accept it and feed off of it.....I rub salt in the wound, grit my teeth and use the pain to keep my mind off how tired I feel.......

....Is that hard core?  I guess in my mind I just don't see what other option I have.  I could wince, cry, beg, I could lay down and give up......but where will that get me?  If I keep moving...than at least Ill be further away from where it was I obtained the injury.....maybe I just run....maybe that is all I do- run away....run with my mouth....write my words.....but even running is still trying.....and weakness is giving up......

....30 years on this earth and I have to say the most admirable, beautiful, amazing feats I have ever seen or read or heard about  committed by a human being is when they didn't give up despite all that was against them.  The stories of my ancestors, the lives of my Grandparents.....they just never gave up....

....my eyes are open....I watch everything around me every single day.....it seems like its harder to witness these feats of perseverance.....I don't see or know a lot of people that just refuse to give in these days.....it makes it hard for me to always stay motivated.....and I don't feel very often that I have comrades beside me.....

....on really dark days I sometimes think about joining the weakness, because it would be easier....and I would finally have some rest.....but I always stop short of crossing over...a force greater than me always holds me back and....something deep down inside of me refuses to live that way.....

....I won't be ashamed of my words.....because....when I do see weakness in people I do want to hurt them......because giving up is the worst kind of behavior.....it disgusts me, and I wonder how they can live with themselves day in and day out.....to me.....giving up is denying the humanity that has gotten us this far down the line.....giving up makes a person sub-human.....

I am strong, because I have no other choice.  My choice is strong, because strong is LIFE.....I choose to live.....because weakness is as good as dead......

.....HTFU.....

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

...the promise....**

092014
beloved LEGS...

....I had no idea what I was promising.....on the day we wed.....

I have to laugh because....people tried to tell me.....even though on the day I walked down the aisle and promised you all those things....that honestly seem a little silly to me now, I was blind and oh so naive, but.....to assure your soul......I was completely in love....a childish, oblivious diluted kind of love.....but still completely in love with you and all the promise that lay in your extraordinary blue eyes....

....there are days when I long for those insensible times...just because even though we were still dealing with the rest of the world and its problems.....I wasn't jaded.....I believed in blissfully blind love and I believed in the romance of war, of love, I believed we were both perfect.....I believed that....those silly things would last forever......

....in my wedding vows....I said  "a dream is a wish that your heart makes".....and we up until that point spent more than half our relationship only in our dreams.....it makes me sad that we still continue to exist mostly in our dreams.....the dreams we have of each other...the day dreams of our past, and the grand dreams for our future.....

....every day I hope to see the future....even though I am not foolish enough to believe that it will be easy or perfect....I just want to see it....the one with you and me.....together.....in the flesh......I want something I can touch, something solid I can believe is real.....

.....I wish I could say that I understood fully all the promises I made to you the day I told you I would love you for all eternity....I wish that I was angelic enough to honor all those hearty words....that I was heavenly and graceful enough to devoutly practice and commit even the selfish parts of myself to those vows....but alas I am not.....

....I don't think I have ever been so remorseful as I am in this moment writing you this letter.....I am deeply, truly and madly sorry that I wasn't enlightened enough to be all I said I would be....but I have hope.....baby I have hope.....

....I can't do or undo what has been done on one side or the other....nor can I even promise that I will be or do all that I promised....but the hopeless romantic in me is completely head over heels in starting over when you return....

......not because I can do better, but because I yearn for romantic oblivion....let's not kid one another....the promises we made.....are unimaginable....inconceivable....and perhaps rendered impossible by us both up to this point.....

 ......my hope is wrapped up in this extraordinary understanding of human nature you and I seem to command.....the realistic view that promising someone something so big, miraculous unforeseen and eternal....is impossible for a mere human....and what was promised on that day 8 years ago.....will really only be achieved when we become immortal...and perhaps that is what makes us survivable....a little star crossed....realistic...... 

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

....lure....**

091814
beloved LEGS...

.....temptation...and the lure of love in all forms.....even unsavory ones....is a difficult thing to abstain and reject when I long to feel alive again......without the touch and companionship of another human being for extremely long periods of time it is impossible to feel lucid.....

...and even though I wander through my days practically deceased......I diffuse this sexual aura into the universe.....and I become acutely aware of every sexy thing that happens around me.....things that I would normally be oblivious to are suddenly glaringly apparent......and once I notice them....its like I can't take my eyes away.....I don't feel particularly or dangerously drawn to whatever it is I find appealing....but I find myself captivated......

....I can't help but think....that.....like many Heroines in our history,  books,  and films.....people are drawn to this Day of the Dead creature I have become.....like Cleopatra.....Medusa, Lilith, and even Eve.....both men and women alike are attracted to her.....

.....I would be lying if I didn't admit that I have indulged in conversations, connections, chemistry, and relationships that were not always in your best interest......And I will not defend nor make excuses for my behavior except to say.....

.....they made me feel.....good about myself.....desired....and in some shallow way.....concerned about and cared for......I had something to look forward in my day....something exciting....an escape.....a time or infatuation where I didn't have to be myself.....I didn't have to live with and deal with all the hardships and atrocities of you being away at war.....or going to war....

....I wonder what "IT" is.....what entices people to want to be close to something so departed?  Maybe its the darkness.....the mystery......the sadness......the danger....?  Is there something about a beautiful and dangerous fatalistic woman that begs to be saved?  Ravaged?  Understood?  Or conquered?

It would be untruthful if I didn't say.....I hope every time they will break me from this curse.....that with their attentions they will save me from this purgatory....and for that fleeting moment I feel alive and hopeful......

....and when I really question it....really dig deep and think about whether or not its possible for them to do so.....the answer is always no......I am cursed and only one can save me from living the rest of my days in this afflicted limbo....

....when I explore it further.....I become bizarrely aware that I rather enjoy and encourage the so called pursuit....but what's even more strange is.....they aren't pursuing me at all....they are pursuing a fantasy....an illusion that I allow them to believe....because in truth.....I am hunting them.....like a Tiger......I have no intention of keeping them, and no intention of mating them.....my only intention is to feed on them until my eternal food supply returns......

"you cannot possess someone so completely because they won't be yours.....but if you let them be free they will always be yours.....I don't know.....its science....." -Christopher Coussens

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

...not meant for ANY ONE....**

091714
beloved LEGS....

.....I've been thinking about it.....and you are truly my best friend.  I can share ANYTHING with you....and you won't judge me.....or hold all the crazy things I think and feel against me....NOTHING I have said or done has shocked you....or as far as I know made you love me any less......I think when you TRULY love someone you love their dark parts too....and you do- you love all of my imperfections and shortcomings and have forgiven me for all my mistakes.......

....I think that is what I miss most when you are away.  I miss my best friend.  I miss letting down my 50 meter radius.....my tough exterior....and not wearing this goddamn coat of armor......chastity belt included.....

....I am tired of holding it together and falling apart alone....of being driven around by all these feelings and dropped off in the middle of no where....I reach this point where....I honestly become weird....I have weird thoughts.....I am sick of crying myself into oblivion and then instead of having at least a damn witness to my anguish sitting there afterwards in silence.....well I guess I better get to bed....or finish the laundry....or get ready for the gym......I am tired of having no witness to my life.....no reliable presence to share thoughts with.....and no human diary to purge all the pain I see others going through.....

I miss my lover.   I am sick of wanting to be touched....and held.....and kissed.....and settling for awkward hugs with my team mates and trainers....or forcing Karmella to endure longer than she likes spooning and cuddles with me...I miss breakfast in bed and hearing you breath next to me at night.....I miss the tension of the moment.....I miss the breaking point....the gentleness....the fierceness.....I miss you playing with my hair.....I miss my favorite.....I miss being sexy and feeling sexy.....I miss knowing that you are looking at my ass.....

This LIFE....is not meant for ANY ONE.  And its certainly not meant for EVERY ONE.  I think it takes a really special person to gracefully deal with all that is asked of a military spouse. 

....I wish I could call you whenever I want, but I really wish I could call you when I have something on my mind.  I wish you were around all the time, but I really wish you were around during the good times.....I wish you were here to take care of me, but I really wish you were here so I could take care of you.......I wish you were here to love me.....and hug me.....but I really wish that you were here so I could love you....and hug you......and kiss you.....I would kiss you all day if you were here......

.....military life is an extreme dichotomy......a double edged sword....

....the freedom is astounding....when you are away I can do whatever I want, I come home when I want, I leave when I want, I talk to whomever I want,  I eat what I want, I watch what I want....I do everything my way......

...but.....the loneliness is imprisonment.....I can do whatever I want.....but I must do it alone......

.....the adventure is never ending.....the danger....the excitement......living in different lands, travel, your job, learning other cultures and languages....the goodbyes....the reunions...life......war.....love......

...but.....the uncertainty is maddening...we don't know where, we don't know when, and war......life and love.......can be lost.....

.....there is always a shift.....a deployment, a field time, a school, a move, a new interest, a new place, new friends, a new language, a new job, a new house, a reunion.....which causes a renaissance or a dark age......and probably the most painful part is the transition...........I live more than one life....in one lifetime.....I become another women every time there's a shift.....I fall in and out of love with a new man every time you leave and return.....

...but amidst all of this constant, steady, change......there is one thing I always have......and that is MY BEST FRIEND......I know you are my RIDE OR DIE.....I know you are my NO MATTER WHAT......I know your going to be their in the END.......because you have proven it to me so many times......over all the years we may not have always loved one another......but we were LOYAL to the idea.....we were devoted to our story.....we were dedicated to one another.....and because of this we always discovered our LOVE again....and THAT is what makes it TRUE.....because TRUE LOVE is surviving and defying the odds.... 

.....this life is not meant for any one.....and its certainly not meant for everyone.....but losing you would be throwing myself upon that sword......


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

.....FEAR rushes in....**

091514
beloved LEGS....

....I felt free.....a night with friends, the wind blowing in my hair and the music turned up......I was out so late I almost turned into a pumpkin.  I hurried off to bed knowing that I had boxing training in the morning...I felt....FREE......

.....remember how I said I feel like I live in a crystal ball? And that time stops when you are away? I can see life and it can see me but there is no depth.......well.....on Sunday.....LIFE came crashing through that crystal ball.....NEVER in all my days on this earth have I been so afraid of LIFE.....it has me backed into a corner and paralyzed with fear.....

....I can just sense that you and the others are in very real danger and every day you are fighting for your lives......my sleep has been broken, fitful, restless and panicked.....when everyone starts receiving medals and awards....I know its for showing bravery while defying the odds....

...but something else happened on Sunday......something that I could never have foreseen....

....At first it was just a picture.  A team mate in the hospital.....surely visiting a sick relative.  Then it was a second picture.  A team mate receiving a visit from her boxing trainer in the hospital.....surely from an injury obtained during training.......

And then there were questions......what is wrong?  Are you okay? How long are you in the hospital for?  To which the answers were devastating......"Tina Ina Gina" one of my regular sparring partners, a friend and a girl I very much like on the Bavarian Team has CANCER........

She has CANCER......CANCER.....she has CANCER.....I can't stop saying it because I don't believe I am even saying it.....

.....I spent most of Sunday a state of shock.......I felt like....I would not dare tell another soul because I could hardly say it out loud.....and when I did even think of it- I burst into tears......

.....I still cannot even believe it......

....Two weeks ago we both competed in the German International Championship.  We both won third place!  I punched her! I always punch her, because when Bavaria trains as a team her and I are always partners.  We were laughing and talking and spent the whole day watching the last day of the tournament.  You know her.  Her brother was in Afghanistan.  We sent him a package.  She's younger than me.....

.....I have always felt LARGER THAN LIFE.....that if you wake up and attack the day and do good, good will come back to you......but.....this news has me feeling so small........and powerless......and afraid......

....I can't seem to stop crying at the most inopportune times....LIFE with all its power to came rushing in.....it has me backed into the corner paralyzed with fear and begging for more time....

.....more time for her......more time for you.....more time for me......because its become suddenly apparent.....that I haven't had enough time to make the ones I love.....feel the way I want them to feel............I just need more time.....with her....with you....I have more love to give....and I need more time to give it....

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

....I look back....**

091014
beloved LEGS....

.....this week...its a full moon.....and the last two nights I have been in a restless state and missing you.....I fall asleep and then awake in the middle of the night....its a bizarre thing to be awake in the middle of the night and alone...the entire town is dark and asleep and there I am at the window or on the front porch sending wishes and hopes out into the universe....why does it always feel like the world listens better at night?  I wish with every molecule in my existence that you come back to me......and that I am the woman you deserve.....

.....I play games with myself.........I imagine that you are home and when I crawl back into bed you will be there....and then I think if you were here....I would feel safe and protected and peaceful enough to sleep the entire night...and if for some reason I was to awake....I wouldn't leave the bed....instead I would lay there and clutch you for dear life......and breathe you in.......and smile....thinking back on all the nights I spent awake waiting for you to come home......

I've had a terrible case of nostalgia......I think its because of September 11, and my current plight in life plus an old CD I found in my car it has music from when we first started dating on it.....people say that you should never look back.....that looking back is living in the past and that breeds unhappiness.....sigh.....what a wonderful luxury that would be.....to never look back.....

I've written about it before.....this strange time capsule as military families we seem to always be in.....we go through such long separations that if we don't look back and remember the connection and reasons for waiting are lost......but time doesn't go back it goes forward.....the entire time your gone its like time stops.....but it doesn't.....all this looking back has me thinking.....its almost as if I have lived several different lives in one lifetime......

And when your away.....I live in a glass ball.....or maybe an hour glass.....I am alive.....I can see life....so it affects me.....and life can see me but my affect on it....is mediocre at best....but there is no depth.....I live a life behind the glass....all aspects are not real.....but the time still passes.....

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

.....you rescue me....**

090614
beloved LEGS.....

....I have holed up in the house for the last five days acting like a complete teenager.....staying up late, sleeping in late, eating pizza and ice cream....spending hours on the phone....watching old movies....and feeling an adolescent sense of lost and immature.....I can't bring myself to leave the house and face the world without having some clue as to who I am and where I am going......

....I have really slumped.....letting go of any composure and dignity I had spending every day in my pajamas....and not taking care of myself.....its safe, predictable and easy in here......with the exception of my worry and annoyingly persistent questions about my direction....

....I keep telling myself I need this time....to decide....and that all the answers I seek will come if I am patient.....

.....and then.....just like that.....You rescue me.....

.....like a gentle kiss upon my lips....a surge of oxygen enters my lungs.....new life, rich new blood....an electric current jolting my heart....and words that fit perfectly into the emptiness and loneliness filling me up.....

.....and I rise.......

.....you know all the right things to say to stop the world from spinning.....amidst a hurricane you give me peace......

.....I understand the envy you possess to be physically present when I am daring to fail greatly....I understand the depth of your worry when I am taking such risk.....I also understand your eagerness to return to a less complicated woman.....and at the same time......your astounding desire to be sure that I have everything I ever dreamed of in my life......you said "I want you to picture your life when you are no longer boxing so that I can make that happen....."  if prince charming existed in real life I am sure it would be you.....

....did you know that more than anything in the world I wish I could be with you....that I worry every second of every single day and to the point it makes me physically, emotionally and mentally ill?  I wonder what kind of a man will come home to me.....how the anger and frustration and wounds you have endured will affect your conscious the rest of your life......I want to be everything you ever dreamed.....I want to be your protector, your safe place, your relief, and give you pure joy forever.....

....our love is amazing because....its like a mirror....it reflects itself.....

.....I still don't know what I am going to do.....but......I can say.......

.....that after having conversations with You.  With Kelsey. and with Mariannae.  The world seems to be a very out of control, scary place at the moment.  I can't help but think these types of conversations took place and happened at this time for a reason.  I am completely absolutely terrified of what you are dealing with and going through......and revelations from Kelsey about things she saw and went through and things she knows about coming from the U.S.  have me even more.....frightened and troubled....Mariannae grabbed me over the fence the other day crying....I think she is scared and worried too.....

.....I keep thinking.....that......if your fighting......and the people I love are fighting.....then I should be fighting too.....

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

....a riddle that you solve....**

090414
beloved LEGS....

....sigh......

.....that inevitable echo....it both disgusts me and frustrates me to feel so undeniably lost.....and helpless.....

.....I need you.....but I can't have you......is there anything more......hopeless?

.....I really can't believe myself.....I need you to help me deal with all the emotional turmoil swirling around in my head and there you are busy just trying to stay alive.....how could I possibly burden you will all my craziness?  Simultaneously how could I not share my thoughts and feelings with you....what would a marriage be if it weren't even in the smallest ways a shared.....journey?

.....the oscillation between being strong, making independent decisions and troubling you with it all is a full force monopolizing affair.....I can't seem to come to any conclusions....and when I do.....I change my mind.....I am in a tornado and your the only thing solid enough to hang on to.....

.....because so many parts of my life are so vastly different, I feel broken.....a classic case of multiple personality disorder....my soul, the language I speak, and all the thoughts I have, things I want to do, things I want to make, people I want to be......are so endless.....and strong.....and varied.....

.....I stumble along aimlessly in a house full of mirrors of which every girl in the reflection does not recognize herself....tell me LEGS....when you look in the mirror do you recognize the man you've become?  For if you don't, at least we have that......

....so many parts are unstable and unsure....and every decision, every move has monumental influences on the direction of this life we lead......even when I calmly think every detail through....the right answer still eludes me.....

......I know....that even if I could only see your face through plate glass......I would have all the answers I seek.......for me.....you are like a rune....you give my soul all the answers to all the questions....I am a riddle that you some how solve......

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

....smithereens....**

090414
beloved LEGS....

.....people love dirt.  A picture of you and I and a caption that reads "I don't know you anymore" made my blog the most popular piece of smut to ever grace my facebook......trust me, I am celebrating.....

.....I lost my fight last Friday night, and with it a rematch, a following rematch, a championship and myself.  It was a fight we both thought I could win.  When I called you.....and told you that I lost.....I don't think I have.....been the source of such depression in you the entire time we have known each other......

.....you told me I should quit boxing.......

.....You have always been my faithful dreamer.....that magical source I feed on to keep reaching for the stars in the sport.  It hurt me that you gave up on me.  I felt like I made this leap because you told me too, only for my safety net to be pulled in the moments leading up to my demise.....

....it was so uncharacteristic of you to speak this way.....to be so angry, and disappointed.....so negative and hopeless......

.....I wanted to quit right then and there because I never want to feel like I did in those moments ever again.  I am not sure.....if people know how hard it is to break bad news to a deployed spouse.....last deployment it was the death of three grandparents and this deployment seems to be the slow death of our unifying dream.....

....the whole episode has put me in a place of total incapacitation........its not normal for me to ever question your judgement....its not normal for me to question mine......

.....to feel like I have lost my husband....and what has been the pinnacle of my life these last few years....has blown my self identity to smithereens......

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

....echo....**

090214
beloved LEGS....

....I imagine that before you die the only thing in the world you want is to be held....to be touched and comforted....to feel safe....at least that's what I think....

....the same thing happens when your heart begins to die.....the words, the time, the absence of words......the absence of time....all act as weapons....mortally wounding the very organ needed to keep loving and keep fighting....

.....the blood oozes out....slowly....and the beating though it continues in desperation becomes labored and off rhythm....

I imagine the only thing that could bring it back to life is to be touched.....by you......you see that is the only thing that even comforts me these days.....is the thought of your touch.....I imagine feeling your cold skin.....your breath....the rise and fall of your chest.....the pulsing of the blood in your veins and that strong steady heart beating......under my head my ear pressed.....to your skin....under the cage of your ribs.....

....your fingers in my hair and in my hands.....the way you envelope me in your embrace.....that euphoric mixture of both freedom and safety.....those feelings are so distant and blurry.....I can hardly remember.....what it feels like to.....

.....I feel crazed without your touch.....so hungry for it....and frustrated and angry....and with my dying heart.....I become more rabid and weirder by the day..........getting my hair cut, getting a tattoo or being punched at training momentarily knocks the fury back....but getting THE LOOK or being complimented....only fans the flame of peculiarity.....

.....I'm still breathing.....and my dying heart is still beating...even though lethargic.....my eyes have glazed over.....and the blood that's spilled out from my heart.....has turned blackest black....I say your name....but I only hear an echo.....

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

....I don't know you anymore....**

090212
beloved LEGS....

...it shames me to admit....that there is a point in every separation where.....I feel like I don't even know you any more.....and despite having done this many times before its always shocking and painful to me....its the part where I feel like....I have been diagnosed with Cancer and I am starting to die......

it begins like this.....you will call, or we will facetime or skype, or we will message one another.....and we have absolutely nothing to say to each other......

You can't possibly understand or grasp the things that I am seeing and doing, or I feel this tension.....this jealously that any normal person would have in your position.....it makes me eliminate details....and all together stop telling you what normal every day life is like for me.....

....and though I question you about your life.....you tell me very little....and when pressed you become annoyed with me....and cold....so then we just stare at one another or wait on the line.....with only the silence and emptiness between us......

.....when we hang up.....I just sit there....feeling doomed.....and the dagger, or the arrow, or the bullet, pierce my heart.....beginning the slow....excruciating process of dying......yes.....dying.....this is the part where.....I hold on to the small tattered pieces of what's left of us....which are only pieces we have created in the past......but I panic because I know that we are no longer who we were or like we were.....and the future for us appears bleak....

....its usually after this point that you will say or do something that is so unlike you.....that I can only sit in shock and wonder what exactly happened to the man that left me here so many months ago....in this particular instance you gave up on me......a blind faith that you had in me and my abilities were taken from me......

....the mixture of abandonment, confusion, anger, sadness and hopelessness consume the both of us..........I am convinced my heart has started to blacken with this revelation....because I feel as though you finally see me..........as I see myself.....

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

....I realize its not you....**

009114
beloved LEGS....

....being with your family without you is a profound kind of experience.....seeing every expression you have in the face of your parents and siblings is so powerful and extraordinary I feel like I am sitting in your presence for that split second.....and then its gone.....

.....my breath catches, my heart beats, and I almost leap across the distance to kiss and hug them....only to be left in a cloudy sort of despair when I realize its not you....it is actually your Brother....or your Sister....or your Mom....or your Dad....

....the kind of laughter that I enjoy with them is the same exact humor you and I share.....I laugh to the point of tears and belly ache.....only to be left wishing you were there so that we could share the memory and laugh for years over the hysterical episode......

....it aches to be around them because it makes me miss you so much.....laying in your childhood bedroom.....I can feel the traces of you all over the place, and the yearning I have to be next to you again almost breaks me in two....

.....and seeing your face.....in all the childhood and baby pictures.....you honestly haven't changed one bit despite all that you have been through and all that you have seen....your spirit and energy are still like that of yours as a child.....I can only hope you come back again.....the same.....

....it makes me feel so lucky to have found you, you who my soul loves.....so lucky to have held you.....that I will never let you go......its difficult to face this presence and image of you every where I turn, only to look again and discern that your are not in fact there.....I feel like in one moment I am living a reality.....and the next a fantasy......

.....its in these moments that I look away.....because the tears are welling in my eyes.....its in these moments....that I know.....I am more fortunate than any one should ever be......its in these moments that a very real fear sweeps across and through my soul.......

.......its in these moments I am afraid I will wake up from this dream.....to live a nightmare.....

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