September

I'm sitting here on our couch, wearing your ring, wrapped up in your ghost. I'm rounding the bend to forty. A significant age. You were not here for my 18th, 21st, or my 25th birthdays either. I feel the air leave my chest and it's as if the inhale hesitates to come. I'm here and you're there and I keep telling myself that we chose this, that I chose this, but it isn't helping at all because the air doesn't want to fill my lungs and my heart doesn't want to beat and my eyes don't want to stop leaking. 

All I want is you.

It's lame and pathetic. I have a million things to be grateful for. I have a million moments to stay rooted and present in. I have so many experiences that I am living here and now. I hate that I feel like I'm living in pause between the moments where you are on the phone and when we hang up. I hate how physically my body aches for you. I am so fortunate that God has given me so many arms to hug. I am so grateful that our children are such fantastic, beautiful, glorious, magnificent creatures and that while you are away the five of us get to deepen our bond and connection to each other. I always wish you could see how amazing they are in these moments when you're away. They have a bravery, courage, and dedication that is outstanding to see. Of course they have all of these things when you're here too. It's probably that my eyes spotlight it more when they are not so focused on you...

Moments like right now I want to give up. I want to say screw it to all of our plans and directions. I want to say I'm tired of this lifestyle, throw in the towel, and move on to a different life. These moments make me hate in a way that I have never hated before. Because, Love, this love moves my heart through such overwhelming grief that I feel like I can't breathe. 

You know, better than anyone, how much I loathe any sense of weakness in myself. You also know how utterly weak I am for you. It's bizarre how much I love that, though. Love, though it moves me to the greatest depths of despair, is the most profound gift that I can pour out of myself. I will empty my flesh of everything I am, if it gives me one more moment of sustenance to love more. Love hurts so much, Love, that I am moved through weakness and sorrow to something I can never adequately put to words.

Today I poured out all of the hurt around my birthday to you. I cried and cried and I hated feeling that way but I have always known that I can be selfish, broken, shattered with you and you will hold it. You will let me be all of those things and you will listen so that I can pick myself up by the boot straps and keep on going. I love that today you didn't remind me that we, as a family, chose this. I love that you didn't say that I need to think about all of the wonderful people that I will have to share that day with. I love that you didn't tell me that this is the military way, or that I need to toughen up, or that I should feel any differently than I feel. You let me be angry and hurt and sad. You sat with me while I cried, half a world apart. 

My birthday will be hard because despite all that I know will never happen, I will still be aching for the door to open and you to be standing there. I'm glad that my heart longs for that so desperately. I'm glad that after twenty years of loving you like a crazed individual that has not changed. I hope our children have loves like this. I hope they have passion that never dies, affection that never dries up, and butterflies that still dance around in their stomachs even after so much time. 

I love you, Love. I'll be seeing you.