My Husband is in Iraq.

I'm having one of those oh-my-gosh-it-is-so-long-until-Brian-gets-home moments. Generally I just deal with each day, each minute as it comes. I really try not to think about the 13 months until Brian will be home "for good". I just watched an episode of True Life on MTV called True Life: My Husband is in Iraq. It really hit home. I watched an 18 year old girl get married before her Marine husband deployed to Iraq (for a measly 6 months). I watched another wife who is living in Watertown and raising a young son that her husband doesn't know. The further I get into this deployment, the more I am amazed and in awe of all the women who go through this. It is something that no one else could understand. When I let myself think about it all, I feel very overwhelmed. My husband is in a war zone. He could die. I could be a widow. I can't call him. He can hardly call me. I will see him for 14 days in the year 2008. That's 14 days out of 366. Let me do the math. That's 3.825% of the year. The other 96+% I will be alone and living phone call to phone call and email to email.

I'm struggling alot with my emotions. I have never experienced anything like this and I sometimes wonder if my usual coping methods aren't up to snuff. I think I tend to bottle my emotions up and eventually they dissipate or the problem goes away. This deployment, though, is too much to bottle up. I just wish I knew how to handle it or how to express it. I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter what I do it will never be ok. I could take up a million hobbies, work 4 jobs, surround myself with friends constantly and I would still always feel alone and like an emotional basketcase. I totally underestimated the toll that this would take on me and on every relationship I have with every person in my life.

I still wish I could fall asleep and wake up in a year.

S.