One way ticket to the nut house

I feel like this deployment is basically going to give me a one way ticket to the nut house.

I feel like i'm losing it.

My whole goal on Friday for cleaning the house is so I wouldn't come home and be haunted by little reminders of my husband, laying around the house. How silly of me.

I have built a life with that man, a home. Every single thing around me reminds me of him. I went to look in the pantry for a snack and saw a can of tuna that he bought, I had to choke back tears. TEARS!! OVER TUNA!!

I decided maybe food wasn't such a great idea, coffee sounded better. Oh crap, coffee. My husband is the person who got me into drinking coffee, he is also the one who bought the hazelnut coffee because he knows it's  my favorite smell. Shit, shit shit shit. Every single aspect of my life revolves around a man who I love so deeply that I can't go a single minute thinking about him, missing him.

Tonight is my first night alone in our house. I think i'll turn in early tonight.

1 day down, 364 to go..

My husband left yesterday for his deployment to Iraq.

Yesterday was filled with tears, lots of tears. I washed all of his dirty clothes and put them away. I picked up everything he had left laying out during the chaos. I packed a bag, loaded up the girls and our dog and got in the car. I knew where I was going, just hadn't really planned it all out.

Today, we pick up the pieces and move forward. This weekend is a weekend away from home, away from routine that normally includes daddy. When we return home tomorrow, we will pick up a routine we had left off not even half a year ago.

Today, I am able to say that I am actually doing okay. It is going to be a hard year, but a very rewarding one as well. We are being blessed with an opportunity, we plan to take full advantage of. God has a plan and we are trusting in him.

Single digits.

My countdown reached single digits this week.  I look at a calendar and the knot in my stomach squeezes a bit tighter and the lump in my throat returns. How the hell am I going to do this?

I know how I'm going to do this, i'll just push through the pain, all of the tears and remember that it's only temporary.  This whole thing is only temporary and one day he'll be home and we'll be complete again.

Others have done this before, I can do this too.

It's a topic that is hard to discuss with others who haven't experienced this before or who won't be experiencing it. Until you go through the emotions yourself, you don't understand.

It doesn't matter if your husband lived in a separate town for so many weeks/months. I don't care that your boyfriend went on a camping trip that lasted a week. Until you go through not knowing how long he'll be gone, whether or not he'll come back..or when the next time you'll hear his voice or feel the warmth of his skin..you can't understand.

I am having to emotionally ready myself for the tears and pleading that will come from my daughters to have their daddy back. I'll have to endure hearing them say that they don't want me, they want their daddy. I'll have to keep my calm composure in front of them and not cry, when everything in me is wanting to break down and sob like a baby, because all I want is to have him back too.

I know I can do this, I HAVE to do this.

My next entry will probably come soon after he leaves, in the mean time..I'm off to make memories to last me through a deployment.