Wallowing

I think I've handled this deployment fairly well thus far. This has by far been the easiest. I think that's in part just due to getting the hang of it.

When something does get me down, I try desperately not to wallow in it.

The enormity of it, however, has hit. Pardon me while I wallow in the misery for a moment.

I'm more than a little annoyed that dh won't write back. We settled the high anxiety stuff, but I can't get him to write back at all (other than about charges on the credit card). I've been out of bitch mode for a few days now. So it's not like he has a bunch of "You suck because" e-mails to which he needs to respond. They're all either pictures of the kids or letters about how much I love him. I realize that women are far wordier than men and are typically more open to expressing feelings, but like I've said in other posts, I'll settle for any response at all. I've told him that as well.

It's so freaking frustrating. I check my mail constantly. I stay up much later than I should in hopes that I'll get an e-mail from him. Nope. Doesn't happen. I know his work schedule is straight out of the depths of hell, but if he has time to write back quickly about the financial stuff, then he has time to write a quick, "Ditto. Love you too."

I know he distances himself when he's away. It's a coping mechanism. He's always done it. It's nothing new. Being familiar with it, though, doesn't make it any easier. When he's gone, I want so desperately to hear that he loves me and he still feels connected to us, but he wants to push us to the back of his mind so he doesn't miss us too much.

This morning, I thought about the countdown over there in the corner. I thought to myself, "When 100 days have past, I'll celebrate." Then I realized that's more than 6 weeks away. And that will only get us to the halfway point. He may be home later than planned, so that might not even be halfway.

My mind is spending more time focused on the vast amount of time and space separating us right now. There's still so much time left to struggle without him. I'm stuck in a dark lonely place right now and let me tell ya, the view from here is not pretty.