The day you left, I wore a smile. I stood there and hugged you. I think I was cried out. The pre-deployment days were filled with emotional wars against that experience. I was so afraid to take you to that place and turn around and leave without you. I am so afraid. I am scared to even write this.
Did you know that I had a moment where I was actually thinking that I wished it would just happen already? I literally prayed and begged God to just get it over with and send those two freaking people to my door so that the agony of this experience could just begin. So that I could just let you go, so that the hurt that I believe is coming my way will just start. The waiting was agonizing.
Tonight I was sitting here and for the first time, I was able to cry, sober. I was able to hurt and be angry and scream at you, without alcohol running through my veins. You asked me today what I was medicating. I was being an asshole and I told you some bullshit response intent on creating a reaction from you. For whatever reason, you didn't take the bait.
When we were sitting at the gym, I didn't have anything to say. I didn't have any tears to cry. I was numb. I was sad, but more numb than sad. And I drove away from that place, pulled up to our house and into our garage and I started screaming. I beat the steering wheel and I just screamed. I felt like the screaming would never stop, until you left. And in that moment, when we were all standing outside, and Lolli was right there with me, a strange moment of peace flooded over me. All of the battles that my insides were waging finally settled and a calm arrived. It was almost like my spirit was begging God for something to change, and when the plane left, I had my answer. I knew. You had to go.
I don't know how to let you go. I don't know how to be without you. I'm falling apart chief. I mean, I'm really falling apart. Not just in the emotional baggage, missing her deployed husband way. I am disintegrating like a handful of sand in a windstorm. You tell me I have to learn to let you go when I have finally learned to need you.
This isn't about deployment. This isn't about you being over there. I've done this. We've done this before. I know how to handle the mediocrities of daily life in your absence. Heck, it's sort of the story of our lives. The handling of the kids stuff, and the household stuff, and the general running our stuff I can do. It's me. I don't know how to "do" me.
So tonight I had this moment where my hands felt the fabric on my grandpa's chair. Not just in a passing happenstance kind of way, but they really felt the chair. For a moment the ghost of your hand passed through mine, and my skin remembered. It remembered what it felt like to hold yours and the memory hurt. It ached. Before I knew it I was clutching the arm of the chair, bawling my eyes, curled up in the fetal position and screaming. I hate you for leaving me! Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me here all alone? I need you! In that moment of emotional agony I heard your voice so clearly it was almost as if you were standing right behind me You need to learn to let me go...
Maybe that's why you're still here. Maybe that's the great lesson that I'm supposed to learn this time around. Maybe you're supposed to be the shepherd that guides me down that path. Maybe you're here, to teach me how. Maybe you're the only one who can. And maybe when I finally really learn how to do it, the lesson will make it unnecessary for you to actually go. Maybe this is all about the process. Maybe this is really about the journey.
This is, after all, the story of us. So tonight, I'm sober, and I'm hurting. Tonight I'm crying and I'm angry and I'm lonely. Tonight I want to feel you touching me, or kissing me. Tonight I want to see you sitting on our sofa playing on your damned cell phone. Tonight I want to lay next to you in our bed. Tonight I want to keep you up until all hours of the night, talking about the things that inspire me, challenge me, ignite me, or vex me. Tonight I want to feel your hand holding mine. Tonight I want to talk about you. Tonight I want to hear about you. Tonight I want to experience you in a way that isn't laced with hiding, running, or ignoring.
The reality is that tonight I'm on step one of learning to let you go. And it's all because of those three stupid things you made me do today.
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