This Army Wife…

There are nights like tonight that I think wow, I am an Army Wife… not that I don’t feel it daily living miles away from home, figuring out the time difference when calling friends and family or the endless sea of camo green that I see… but the real part of this life, the sitting here in a quiet home unable to sleep with out my best friend here to snuggle me…

Last week I attended a “seminar” held by the Army Wife Network, it was a four hour event of prize giveaways, a catered lunch and all the information and resources an Army Wife could want… it was great to laugh with women who feel like I do at times and it was all I could do from tearing up at the realities we face; how many of you think the coolest thing out is the “flat daddy” a cardboard cut out of the husband, father, best friend, boo boo kisser in your life… that is away at school, off training or deployed…

Jonathan and I spent the first year of our relationship writing letters, sending boxes and e-mailing daily… so the longing I feel for his touch isn’t as foreign as one would think… in fact if you know me you have heard me say we can handle anything after our first year together, not being “together”… but the two speakers, the founders of the Army Wife Network were dead on when they said it never gets easier, no matter how many times our husbands have to be away…

We are a complete family now, all four children under one roof… not just co-existing as some blended families but living and cherishing our time as though it has always been destined to be shared… So here we are, my test run as I call it for the upcoming deployment, Jonathan’s time away at ANOC… a total of 48 days away… for some that may not seem like long at all and the grand view of life you’re right it’s only a fraction of the days we will share but it has been nothing like I remembered it being when we were first together… our bed that is “formed” for the two of us feels like there is a void, as though I am laying in the middle of a football field with out him in it… the noises he made as he slept I can no longer fall asleep too… he is not there, no matter the amount of his cologne I spray or shirts I sleep with and in I can’t feel his heartbeat beneath my cheek… this is that moment that realization that I am an Army Wife…

I am proud of the man my husband is, not for the patriotic reasons so many people speak of but of the person he is, the man of character, pride and accomplishment… he is my hero, not because of the number of deployments under his belt but because he is my spider killer… my rock that when my day is beyond stressful I can fall against… the man after almost 4 years together and 2 ½ years of marriage still gives me butterflies when he calls me “angel”… the man who loves each one of his children for all their special reasons and never plays favorites… the son who risked so much to be as close as he could to his father before he passed… the son in law who would walk through fire to make sure his family was taken care of so his father in law doesn’t feel the need to worry about his oldest daughter anymore… the best friend who even if it’s silly girl gossip will listen to me…