I am lying in bed. It's 11:55 pm and I have just now finally gotten Lysander to go to sleep. This after coming upstairs four hours ago in attempts to get the boys to go to bed early so that once school starts in three weeks they will be on track. I failed. When they get woken up at 8 am tomorrow regardless, I'm hoping it will make bed time easier tomorrow. Anyway, so I'm laying in bed, my mind an endless cycle of stupid thoughts going through it. Honestly, this never used to happen to me. I used to fall into bed and not have one single ounce of insomnia. Lately, maybe 3 out of 4 nights, I can't shut off my brain. It's always a jumble of random thoughts mixed in with the never ending list of things I have to do. One of the random things I was thinking tonight was how I told Lysander that if he got out of bed in the next fifteen minutes I was going to turn his tv off(he sleeps with it on, but before you judge me, this is how I got him to start sleeping in his own bed and not in mine, and the volume is one super low so only dogs can hear it). Of course he got out of bed and I turned the tv off. He cried and cried and acted like he was scared and then came in to my room and got one of G's hardback comic books and wanted to read it with me. He sat in my lap on my bed, looked through the comic book, naming super heros and when the book was over, I asked if he was ready for bed and he calmly got up and went into his room and all was better with him.
This thought led to me thinking about a time I was scared. Totally random, happened a few weeks ago and it honestly wasn't a big deal. But at the time I was frightened out of my mind and still, when I thought about it tonight, three weeks after the fact, my heart started racing and I was physically feeling scared. I wondered why this was. Why I was scared during something I shouldn't have been three weeks ago and why it still caused me fear tonight when I thought about it?
This lead to what makes me feel better when I'm scared. For the past almost six years my safety net has been Grover. Of course I have others that I can depend on and who can make me feel better, but if I'm scared or sad, the only person in the world that I really truly want to be with me is him. He wasn't there that night a few weeks ago. I think that's why I was scared in a situation I normally would have been perfectly calm about. Probably even cockily(is that a word?) calm about. I feel like when he's around, I can't be touched by any force or person or whatever because he's this sheild.
So next on the silly yet oddly horrifying trainway of thought is that the thought of feeling safe with Grover did not make me feel safe. It made me feel panicky. Like I would never have that safe feeling again. I think possibly it's human nature to adapt to any situation. It's hard, and sometimes it takes forever, but a well functioning person can adapt to anything, no matter how annoying or awful it is. So for me, it's like, even though in my mind I know Grover is coming home, I've adapted to the fact that he's not here and now it's normal for me. I can't remember if I've written about this before or if it's just a conversation I've had with someone, but truly, life with out him is starting to feel normal. In contrast to that, it's weird to feel like this is normal because I know in my mind it's absolutely not and won't be forever. Obviously this is a ridiculously complicated emotion, and I am probably not saying it right, but possibly some other army wife has felt this way at some point and you will know what I'm talking about. Please feel free to comment and clarify for those who are not military spouses since I am doing a horrible job.
Anyway, last stop on the crazy train is then it occured to me that I've felt like that before. Scared that I wouldn't feel comfortable in my life, or feel safe with someone, and that feeling totally happens after a break up. Especially when you are with someone for a long period of time and they become such a big part of your routine and when you break up, you're routine is totally fraked up(yes, that word is from Battlestar Gallactica, and yes, I am a total nerd, glad it's out there in the open now). There is no morning phone call to the person whom you are with and there is no planning for Saturday night with them, there are no text messages to send throughout the day, and when you are sad and upset or scared or even happy, they are still, for a time, the person you want to call to make you feel better or share the joy or sorrow with, but you can't because that tie has been severed.
In conclussion... deployments can feel a little like breaking up. This is where my train of thought stopped, and where I decided that I had to write to get this all out of my head so I could possibly lay down and go to sleep so I can get up at 6:55 am to be downstairs when my neice gets here and to get my butt on the treadmill. To clarify, Grover and I are not broken up, nor do I plan on or think that we will ever break up. We aren't having problems in any way shape or form. I don't think this deployment will hurt our marriage, I think it will strengthen it. I also think there will be a huge chunk of time after he gets home that we will be so happy to be with one another we probably will be bending over backwards to not fight or ruin the high that I imagine will linger for awhile. In the mean time, I'm pretty sure that all these random thoughts, however strange they may seem to some, might be pretty normal to someone who is seperated from their husband or wife for a signifigant period of time. If you've never been through that then I apologize for the horror you must have endured listening to this rambling blog post.
Next stop, dreamland... think I'll travel to Hogwarts tonight... because that's not weird or anything ;)
I totally understand! You have to get into a place that you are relying on only you because that it's how it has to be when they are gone for however long, especially on a deployment. They have so much they have to do and be responsible for, we as well here at home to. I commend what an awesome job you are doing, your courage and strength!
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