....infinity....**

122014
beloved LEGS

.....every year you and I write new vows to each other to commemorate our wedding anniversary, to recommit ourselves......we have been so busy with your homecoming, re-integration, Christmas, packing for our upcoming trip to the states that we haven't had a single minute to ourselves to write anything.......still.....I manged to jot down a few words....and feel the attempt is important. 

The infinity symbol is an abstract concept describing "something" without any limit.  It is often treated as if it were a number but its not the same sort of number as the real numbers. When the symbol is inverted it looks like a number eight.  There is never a break or an ending , there are low points and high points, curves and straights, parts that are further from each other and closer to each other....but the most important part is where it intersects.....just like the symbol there is no end to our love, no challenge too difficult....for our 8th Anniversary we sealed the permanence of our fate with the symbol....tattooed in the same spot in the same fashion on our left arms.......

.....the deployment was hard...and still there are moments in our days that are difficult, stiff, shakey, challenging.......but.......being with you these last days is like the point where the infinity symbol intersects....

......its a perfect place in space.....in time.....on a flawless continuum.....a paradise that feels like heaven exists on earth in real life.....you have me.....in these moments....that I know won't last forever.....its like I can feel all of my love for you.....of course you have me.....but its like a moment when I know that I would never survive without you...and my heart it kind of cracks open....I try to stop it because it hurts a little but instead love just pours out of it causing this euphoric rush....I keep thinking that it will stop or run out or slow down....but it doesn't it just keeps flowing.....its in these sacred moments that I want to tie you to me for the rest of your life......its in these moments I hope we are making a baby.....

.....I am captivated by you....and I want to captivate you.....I want to show you all the things I wish for you to see, of me....of the world.......of infinity for eternity...

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

.....your life's value....**

121514
beloved LEGS....

.....you have a mustache.....you look like a completely different man.....your hand around my hand, the way you hold me, the way you look at me, the way you speak to me.....the look in your eye....everything is different....I stand back to take you in.....and I am sure, that even your soul is different.....

....but despite my trepidation of the man that stands before me, I am drawn in.....hypnotized.....I cannot stand even the slightest distance between us.....its impossible, ridiculous, irrational, but I want you physically touching me every second of every minute.....

....for the last several years, every single day has been about control.  Every single day has been about training, diet, scales, weight, and performance.  Boxing gave me control over my life when I didn't have control over my life.  Even though I couldn't control when you called, when you were home, when you had to leave, when you came back, I could control how much I trained, I could control what was on my plate, I could control my schedule, my performance if I trained right, dieted right, if I weighed the right amount.

.....and now....I just wanted to let go.....I wanted to go crazy, to lose control, I wanted to follow this strange man any where he wanted to go.....and so I did......

.....The first ten days a soldier is home, they have to attend "Re-integration."  Its almost as if you die and come back to life.  They have to re-join the real world doing things like reorganizing their existence including, medical, transportation, communication, living arrangement, and the way in which they are paid.

I was sitting next to you in one of these classes when you raised your hand and asked a question regarding compensation for taking enemy fire.  My mouth went dry and I look at you in shock.  Yes the man was sitting next to me in perfect health in perfect condition, but the idea that you were ever in harms way, the idea that any person would try to harm you......shocked me and hurt me severely.  Even more hard to swallow was the way in which you and these other men are "compensated" for these grave near misses......

.....I look around the room......all different kinds of men from all different types of places.....all in danger.....all filling out forms to determine how much money they are worth to our country......

......I can tell you.....while the sound of pens scribbling down on paper, the confusion of these government forms, questions in all directions for all scenarios.....I felt....devastated.....that these lives could even be measured like this......I wanted to cry....and to throw up......but I just looked at you.....because the only thing that soothes me.....is remembering how lucky I am you are back safely....

.....it got me thinking.....and made me quietly enraged.....that's how "they" get away with it.....they make us so thankful and feel so lucky you made it back that we don't even care what actually happened.....or how your lives are "calculated".......

......if I was to put a price or a number or a value on your life.....on what you mean to me......and honestly what your being means to the world.....it would be impossible....but if I was ever hard pressed......you are worth every ray of sunshine, every single star in the sky, the power of the moon....and me....whatever I would be worth to the world.....

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

Survivng the feat....**

121311
beloved LEGS

....an aviators wife knows that the weather actually controls her entire life.....its been very, very foggy in NEVER NEVER LAND, and as people have complained about it I have smiled quietly to myself because its one of my favorite things about winters here......with exception of today...........your flight to NEVER NEVER LAND has been canceled due to FOG in Romania.

and the only thing I can do is laugh because.....its clear as a bell in NEVER NEVER LAND......so....its one more day.....one more day apart......

....I know it sounds weird but I savior it and hate it all at the same time.  I enjoy the peace, the laziness and endless free time, I finished knitting you a pair of socks.  At the same time, I can hardly wait for the rush, the adventure, and the chaos of your return....

....and then it comes.  The day comes.  But its bittersweet.  Not every soldier from your group is coming home.  A small handful are staying behind, and you were one of the lucky ones that gets to come home in time for Christmas.

The fear I have of this moment, of you, of the return, and all that comes with it is so terrifying- I actually turn to one of the wives whose husband will not be returning and ask her out loud...."Am I going to be okay?"  Its that paralyzing fear that you feel before you take a leap, before you step in the ring, before you take a big chance.....before you do something you have never done before.....

....I spent hours becoming more beautiful than I could ever imagine being and now I sit in the same hanger I watched you leave in 6 months ago.....you will be coming in at any moment.....and then you do.....except I can't tell which soldier is you.....I try to pick you out in the group....I search with great determination to find your face so that I can tell from which direction you will be coming....to no avail....and then like a cue ball hitting the group on a pool table you guys scatter....

....I walk a few steps but then I freeze because I see you, a woman walking in front of you momentarily disrupts your path and I see you shuffle her along.....our eyes lock...and I jump.....

....I leap for love, for victory, in blind faith, of the future, in your arms all the fear, all the anxiety, the weight, the stress, the torment.....it just disappears......everything that has ever happened or will ever happen doesn't matter.......any more.....in fact.....I can't even remember anything....because....we are new.....you didn't come back......I just waited until we met again......

....like infinity.....it never ends, but some points go further apart......until they intersect again.....

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