Weather: CHILLY!
LEGS went to the states for 10 days last week.......
It was right after our trip to AMSTERDAM....
I don't know what happened....but it was like.......
Something snapped.......
Or a light was turned off......
Or Satan himself took my soul....and I was just an empty corpse shuffling around the house.....my bathrobe strings trailing behind me.....
I had no zest for life, no....motivation, no.....energy.....moving from the bathroom to the bed was painful and exhausting........
It took me seven days....SEVEN DAYS! to get myself together and be productive.....
I gained weight....I ate almost every meal in bed....which consisted of mostly chocolate.....I did bathe but getting dressed was, just thinking of what to put on was too much work.....
It was the definition of APATHY.....
My days were filled with random movies, sleeping.....and a lot of thinking.....
I would just get out of bed....walk to the window and stare out over the land.....
I would walk laps around the house......
I would lay in bed in the pitch black bedroom......
Just thinking......and thinking......
and thinking.......
The house was so quiet.....the constant silence was so intense....I started to wonder if I was going MAD.....
MY REVELATIONS...these things that I thought about....or rather.....the memories I remembered....are as follows......
Sometimes I feel like Military wives are prisoners.....sometimes that is how I feel......
Prisoners in our own lives......
I started thinking and reflecting on all my years as a military SIGNIFICANT OTHER....and it was PAINFUL TO RELIVE....
I have spent years......in fact the day that I married my husband, we had spent HALF.......2.5 years out of the 5 years we had been together APART...and while we have had some really solid years since the marriage this pattern of long and significant absences is INCREASING and becoming more PROMINENT.....AGAIN
We got together at my ripe age of 19.....Today I am 28....almost 29.
I have spent my YOUTH....in this bizarre prison......
Sometimes I feel like......Rapunzel.....or Sleeping Beauty.....or The Woman Left Behind....or a prisoner, a....military.....wife.
I sit in my "tower" all day, doing household chores....with my gym toned body, my young, fresh, beautiful, YOUTHFUL years.....sitting inside....locked away from the world....not because I am forcefully detained....or influenced, or because I even make the conscious decision to do so......
But because of my loyalty, unique emotional status, the overwhelming duty, responsibility and SEVERE REALITY in which I live my existence..... sometimes our fear...and sometimes because its just too much to function without my other half......
I came across something the other day.....while I was a black hole.....that reached far.......long.....deep.....and penetrated into the very obscure part of my SOUL.....and it spoke to the pin prick of light that still remained....and it brightened just a little....after realizing that there is somebody out there that understands....
It was THE PERMEABLE MEMBRANE.....
When you marry a military man....this is what it can be like....
"But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time- everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qaulities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else."
ITS SO GOOD.......I wish I wrote it....
Let's break it down and really study the words if for no other reason then I want to be perfectly clear.....and NOT break my poor husband's heart.....(see LEGS- I do have a soul!)
I disappear into the person I love.
Everything is about the Soldier or Marine or Airmen....you get the point. Because they are considered "government property"- your presence in their life damn well be a positive one, because if not they will regulate how the two of you operate....NO JOKE- if you have questions INQUIRE....in addition....its always the VETERAN that is THANKED, GIVEN RIBBONS, METALS, and other various accolades....The SPOUSE is mentioned more frequently....but not nearly in such a formal setting/expression....
If I love you....you can have everything......
ALMOST ALL the spouses I know gave up their own lives to follow....jobs, family, houses, friends, hobbies, food, independence,.......and what is left after that? Identity? yeah....right......
I will assume all your debts....
Assuming debts is a pretty normal affair when it comes to marriage...but she says "in every definition of the word", that is up to and including your spouses LIFE to their country.....
I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you never actually cultivated in yourself.....
The judgement, burdens, assessments, promotions, or not getting of promotions, the testing, pressures, and long absences.....make those silly coping skills kick in.....suddenly you are constantly treating, complimenting, excusing and only remembering the best traits in your significant other......and when they do return from a war zone, you are shielding, excusing and tolerating a whole new individual......
I will give you the sun and the rain......or a sun check and rain check.....
Open for interpretation....but to me this refers specifically to the PRISON....I will give you all my days, even the ones where you are not present.....for YEARS at a time.....
Until I get so exhausted and depleted that they only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.....
Again up for interpretation....to most it means falling for somebody else....
but fathom for a minute that "someone else".....means......
Your child,
Yourself,
and in some more pathetic circumstances (like my own) my dog Karmella.
IMAGINE CARRYING THIS BURDEN.......
On day 7 I was able to peel myself from the darkness and return to my life.....in anticipation of LEGS' return.
He is back and I feel full......there are no empty spaces inside, my heart has returned to beating, suddenly I was able to fill my lungs and breathe normally, my feet step firmly on the ground, my imagination flies above....I see butterflies all around me, everything is right as rain.....I believe in magic and life....and LOVE.....
Just another day in the life of an unlikely military wife......**
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