another go
ok, at the insistence of Arlene I'll give livejournal another go, So I am home alone, again, well not alone, the kids are asleep and the dogs are lazing at my feet, but there is still no adult conversation, no one lightly tugging my hair saying "get off the computer and come to bed".
Dan is gone again, for approximately 50 days (give or take a few).
There are advantages, I can plop down on the toilet at night in complete confidence that the seat is down and dry, I can make and eat all the potato salad I want without complaint, after the first two loads of laundry I don't have to turn another dirty sock right side out again until he comes home, the house stays clean, we save a ton of money on gas....I try to focus on the positives so the empty feeling in my stomach doesn't get to me too much.
I used to hate Ringo sleeping on the bed, I cursed Dan every time he jumped up and plopped down on my legs in the middle of the night for teaching him to sleep with us. Last night I woke up thinking I heard a noise and I caught myself patting the bed saying "Ringo, come on up here, boy.." so i guess I'll have to stop blaming Dan when I wake up being spooned by 90lbs of snoring mutt.
This is our life.
we picked it.
On many levels i am grateful for it, i don't know where we would be right now if Dan had never enlisted but there are times (like now) when it seems like the military has consumed us, our family, our identities.
The phrase "I'm a military wife" says more about who I am than any other 4 words i could put together.
When i say them, people automatically nod in understanding, I can see the list of words that define me ticking through their mind because being a military wife means: lonely, loyal, independent, sacrificing, flexible, obedient, tolerant, resourceful, disciplined... the list goes on and i like to think all those things are true of me but at the same time something feels wrong about being summed up in such a broad phrase.
About 84,000 people can say "I'm a military spouse" and in so many ways we are as uniform as the soldiers and sailors we love. It's a conflicting thought that presses me a little,it feels confining like I'm wearing a turtle neck that's too small in weather that's a bit too warm for it, but at the same time I know it makes me look really good.
I love Dan, I want him home, I want to feel more like his partner and less like his sidekick but that won't really happen for another 15 years.
It's not Dan's fault at all, like i said we chose his life, but every time that boat leaves i feel a little bit more of me conform to the mold of the "military spouse" and it scares me.
Mostly because I know that while Dan needs a "military" wife he didn't marry one, and I'm not sure that there is room for all the things i need to be for him now and the things that made him love me in the first place. i know we need to evolve as we get older but I have no idea how to do that with out loosing vital pieces of me (what are they any way?) Normal people who are married grow together, they dance daily and their steps fall together as they turn and sway with life, they each lave a light that shines into the others cracks and keeps their love warm.
But my marriage spends half it's time in the dark, he's there filling his time with work and I'm here filling my time with children, each of us can't wait to come back together but when we do our dance is rusty, we step on each others toes and we're so used to having to tolerate the cold of being alone that at first the warmth of being close again is too much. And just as we find our rhythm, just as we adjust to being together again, he leaves and I stay and there we are, in the dark again, standing still in the dark, waiting.
In CT there was endless road work everywhere, no matter what time of year they were always pouring concrete and filling pot holes. A construction worker that cashed his check at the bank I worked at explained to me why they were constantly fixing the roads and parking lots. He said that when it's hot the cement contracts and becomes more pliable but in the winter when it's cold the cement freezes, expands and becomes more rigid, after a few years of the repetitive contracting and expanding the cement gets brittle, it starts cracking and breaking and that road (if left un-repaired) will become little more than a gravel path.
I wonder if my marriage is like a road in New England, heating for a few months, cooling for another few, heating back up over and over, weakening then cracking, then breaking under the weather. It's not the roads fault, it can't help what it's made of, and it's not natures fault, she isn't trying to hurt the road she's just doing her job.
We are happy now, we love each other now....I want that to stay, I just need to know how to keep it, how to defy the nature of things.
That's what the military does, it requires us to defy the very nature of a marriage. Pulling it apart and throwing it back together over and over, it shakes the dirt from it's roots and tosses it from place to place and then challenges it to live.
Good marriages have not survived under much better conditions. These thoughts are what I have to contend with when I'm alone, well not alone, there are the two sleeping babies and the two snuggly dogs....
Dan is gone again, for approximately 50 days (give or take a few).
There are advantages, I can plop down on the toilet at night in complete confidence that the seat is down and dry, I can make and eat all the potato salad I want without complaint, after the first two loads of laundry I don't have to turn another dirty sock right side out again until he comes home, the house stays clean, we save a ton of money on gas....I try to focus on the positives so the empty feeling in my stomach doesn't get to me too much.
I used to hate Ringo sleeping on the bed, I cursed Dan every time he jumped up and plopped down on my legs in the middle of the night for teaching him to sleep with us. Last night I woke up thinking I heard a noise and I caught myself patting the bed saying "Ringo, come on up here, boy.." so i guess I'll have to stop blaming Dan when I wake up being spooned by 90lbs of snoring mutt.
This is our life.
we picked it.
On many levels i am grateful for it, i don't know where we would be right now if Dan had never enlisted but there are times (like now) when it seems like the military has consumed us, our family, our identities.
The phrase "I'm a military wife" says more about who I am than any other 4 words i could put together.
When i say them, people automatically nod in understanding, I can see the list of words that define me ticking through their mind because being a military wife means: lonely, loyal, independent, sacrificing, flexible, obedient, tolerant, resourceful, disciplined... the list goes on and i like to think all those things are true of me but at the same time something feels wrong about being summed up in such a broad phrase.
About 84,000 people can say "I'm a military spouse" and in so many ways we are as uniform as the soldiers and sailors we love. It's a conflicting thought that presses me a little,it feels confining like I'm wearing a turtle neck that's too small in weather that's a bit too warm for it, but at the same time I know it makes me look really good.
I love Dan, I want him home, I want to feel more like his partner and less like his sidekick but that won't really happen for another 15 years.
It's not Dan's fault at all, like i said we chose his life, but every time that boat leaves i feel a little bit more of me conform to the mold of the "military spouse" and it scares me.
Mostly because I know that while Dan needs a "military" wife he didn't marry one, and I'm not sure that there is room for all the things i need to be for him now and the things that made him love me in the first place. i know we need to evolve as we get older but I have no idea how to do that with out loosing vital pieces of me (what are they any way?) Normal people who are married grow together, they dance daily and their steps fall together as they turn and sway with life, they each lave a light that shines into the others cracks and keeps their love warm.
But my marriage spends half it's time in the dark, he's there filling his time with work and I'm here filling my time with children, each of us can't wait to come back together but when we do our dance is rusty, we step on each others toes and we're so used to having to tolerate the cold of being alone that at first the warmth of being close again is too much. And just as we find our rhythm, just as we adjust to being together again, he leaves and I stay and there we are, in the dark again, standing still in the dark, waiting.
In CT there was endless road work everywhere, no matter what time of year they were always pouring concrete and filling pot holes. A construction worker that cashed his check at the bank I worked at explained to me why they were constantly fixing the roads and parking lots. He said that when it's hot the cement contracts and becomes more pliable but in the winter when it's cold the cement freezes, expands and becomes more rigid, after a few years of the repetitive contracting and expanding the cement gets brittle, it starts cracking and breaking and that road (if left un-repaired) will become little more than a gravel path.
I wonder if my marriage is like a road in New England, heating for a few months, cooling for another few, heating back up over and over, weakening then cracking, then breaking under the weather. It's not the roads fault, it can't help what it's made of, and it's not natures fault, she isn't trying to hurt the road she's just doing her job.
We are happy now, we love each other now....I want that to stay, I just need to know how to keep it, how to defy the nature of things.
That's what the military does, it requires us to defy the very nature of a marriage. Pulling it apart and throwing it back together over and over, it shakes the dirt from it's roots and tosses it from place to place and then challenges it to live.
Good marriages have not survived under much better conditions. These thoughts are what I have to contend with when I'm alone, well not alone, there are the two sleeping babies and the two snuggly dogs....