People fatigue.

You know what kind of weather I hate? Flurries. What the hell is the point of flurries, Mother Nature?? Big, fluffy, dry snowflakes are pretty. Tiny, nearly-invisible ice-daggers that kamikaze past your eyelashes into your eyeballs are NOT SO MUCH.

It was so cold this morning when I took the dog out that my jeans started to hurt on my legs. 17 degrees is not for wimps, and I, apparently, am a HUGE WIMP. But Heidi had already been cooped up two days without relief on account of the weather and she was about to dig a tunnel under the door in desperation. The cold doesn't seem to bother her. I think the fires of her crazy keep her warm.

I really would have liked for R to be home today. First, I would have looked forward to him trying to talk me out of going outside at all. Then I would have resented the fact that he didn't offer to take the dog out for me. The resentment would thaw, however, with the cup of hot coffee and warm body he offered me upon my return. Then Heidi would try to crawl in our laps and she'd be so adorable with the puppy eyes and he with the ear-fondling and doggie-speak and I'd forget that there was such a thing as "cold."

It seems like the busier my schedule gets - the more interaction with the Army community at large required of me - the lonelier I get. Or, if not lonelier, more sensitive. It's like every conversation I have, every phone call I have to make, every person I smile at in passing becomes this little tear in my psyche, all adding up to a gaping wound until I just want to hide under the covers for a week to heal. Not exactly the kind of upbeat, positive attitude I'm supposed to be exhibiting as (jazz hands:) FRG co-leader!

One of the ways I miss R the most is for his ability to appreciate my susceptibility to social fatigue. Which is truly one of the greatest things about him, because he doesn't suffer the same. Oh sure, he gets tired of people, needs a little bit of solitude to regroup, but by and large he's a social creature. The act of interacting with people past his limits doesn't hurt him like it does me. And yet, he's perfected the art of being still - emotionally, physically and intellectually - around me when I need it, but still being there.

That skill of his is what allows my optimism to shine through. Without it, I just feel bombarded until I hate the idea of people, let alone having to interact with them. It doesn't help that the intense cold and upcoming holidays put me in hibernation mode.

54 out of 365. It's too soon for me to be feeling this way.

Happy

Dropped the ball again, didn't I? This every day stuff is WAY harder than I thought it was going to be!

Had an eventful weekend; got everybody together to make banners to send to the guys down range for Thanksgiving. Had a really great turnout throughout the battalion and we're sending some very colorful and creative messages down there!

From a photography standpoint, major fail on my part. Didn't take my big flash and tried to do without one at all, but there was just too much movement and too little light. Also, should have taken the kit lens, which is considerably wider angle than my Tamron zoom and even if the Tamron does stop down to f/2.8, the larger aperture was no match for the poor light in the room. Should have gone with the image stabilizer lens! Lesson learned: don't try to be all artsy-fartsy when large groups of small children in dark rooms are involved!

Veteran's Day

I don't have any sort of meaningful insight about Veteran's Day.

I can't; my husband is deployed.

My job is to keep myself at an even emotional keel so that I can function alone twice as well as I do when he's home. In addition to that, other people are depending on me to set an example of "dealing with it" and not least among those people is my thirteen year old daughter.

I can't shout at media outlets that insist on focusing on fallen veterans that a dead soldier is dead every day of the year, not just Veteran's Day.

I can't scream at well meaning acquaintances that I don't need the pity that always saturates their "Thank you for your husband's service," as though my only choice is to endure it.

I can't give the military and government a giant middle finger for cutting support funding for family programs at the same time they get on TV and profess to be "so proud and grateful" for what we do.

I can't watch tribute programs or documentaries that talk about soldiers who come home in pieces - both physical and psychological - because letting myself dwell on those horrors means spending the next 11 months in constant terror.

Look, I'm not against Veteran's Day. I think it's an important national and cultural ceremonial marker. Necessary, even, for those who don't live close to the military. But it's not my holiday. It's not a freaking holiday. It's my life, my reality, my day-to-day existence. I won't wave my flag harder or sing louder or do anything else just because it makes the rest of the nation feel better.

I can't; my husband is deployed.

Maybe someday after his retirement I'll pin a little flag to my lapel and be glad for the extra day off from work. But for now I'll just do what I've been doing - functioning twice as well alone as when he's home, avoiding the news, struggling to live the Serenity Prayer - living through a war.

Day One

Every summer (and every other Christmas) when I was a kid, I did what most children born in the 70s did: went from one divorced parent's house to the other's. My parents were great with each other (and with me) so thankfully I didn't have to deal with the contentious baloney that a lot of my peers went through, but I did sit there on the plane by myself at eight years old, crying my eyes out with my face pressed against the hot summer window, wondering if I could still see whichever parent I was leaving through the shiny wall of windows at the terminal. It didn't matter that I knew I was going straight to the loving and enthusiastic arms of the other parent, or that I'd been making this type of trip - in one form or another - every year since I was two, or that in a few minutes a very pretty lady who invariably smelled like expensive perfume was going to give me a pillow, a snack, and a plastic pin in the shape of wings.

What mattered was that I felt like I was basically personally responsible for my grief because I genuinely wanted to make the trip. I had absolutely no way of differentiating between the inevitability of being sad to leave one person and happy to see another. For me, it was all wrapped up in one big package - the sadness, the giddy anticipation, the painfully self-aware knowledge. I don't know if that's normal or not, but what I do know is that I've spent pretty much the rest of my life trying to avoid that particular combination of feelings.

So it kind of took me off guard this morning, sitting in my car and crying my eyes out with my face pressed against the glass window, trying to catch the last glimpse of my husband as he walks away, feeling the exact same way as an eight year old on a plane in June.

Even the dog gets it.

Getting close now.

Before

This is what my marriage feels like in the days leading up to a deployment.