Letter to You

 It's Father's Day and we spoke for only a few minutes. There are moments in a marriage where one runs out of words. I miss the moments where touch could communicate everything I wanted to say to you. I miss not having to figure out the explosions in my mind, how to define them, and then releasing them from my mouth. I miss my heart racing, my pulse jumping, my breath catching, because you walked.in.the.door. I miss the way your eyes dance when you're laughing. I miss throwing my head back because you said or did something hilarious. I miss sitting next to each other on the couch. I miss feeling like our lives were moving forward. I hate living, while also being on pause. 

I'm tired.

Who are we in this next chapter? Who are we in this current one? Why does it all feel so confusing, boring, underwhelming, and overwhelming all at the same time? Why do I feel incapacitated, like I can't take a deep breath, because I don't get to see you every day? Why does love feel so unfair sometimes? Why am I so jealous of schools and hope and promise of the future? Who are we anymore, babe? What are we even doing here?

There was such a lengthy period of time where I could answer those questions with ease. Everything felt so clear and focused. I knew the point. I got the brief. We were in it to win it. Then I saw the shit show of the fallout. The decisions that have broken my heart into thousands of pieces and then poured salt in the gaping wounds. There are moments where I used to scream from the mountaintops, tell the stories as loudly as I could. I used to fight for the families, fight for the marriages, fight for the country to understand the reality behind it all. We are not the characters that are displayed on tv. We are so much more nuanced than that. I spent years fighting to make leaders understand what the experience was of the spouses and the kids, the girlfriends and the parents. I fought with all that I could to make everyone's voices heard. I fought until my heart was broken and bruised.

I want our children to understand that while the Army defines its backbone as the NCO, there's no soldier without their family. Period. There's no military fathers without the other half of the equation sitting back in America, while everyone barbeques, holding their crying children, putting on a happy face, hunkering down and just.getting.through.it. While simultaneously figuring out care packages, fighting to keep the connection alive via text, conversation, email, letter.

I'm so tired.

I feel so broken. I feel so drained. I feel exhausted and conflicted and unable to describe with any level of efficiency even the slightest element of how I feel. The minutes take forever to pass, and what has felt like a year has only been a couple of months. War is not for those who have seen too much of it. There's a necessary naivete. I feel angry when I hear people say We have to support this to save the world. I want to scream that they have exactly zero understanding of what that means, feels like, or looks like. Zero. I want to yell how easy it is to state when one's not sitting alone without their absolute favorite human being, for the seventh deployment, for the 102nd (and counting - adding in a separate tour, and not including training) month of sleepless, lonely nights. I'm the one sitting here trying to keep it all together waiting for the day when this current shit show will end and I will be able to take a deep breath and finally fall asleep.

I miss things making sense, then you get on facetime and I lay there staring at you, in the dark of our room, until the sound of your breath makes me fall asleep. I push my aching heart up against the imagination of what it feels like to be wrapped up in your embrace. I slow my breathing and go to the moments where you're hand is interlocked with mine, and everything feels simple and calm. I miss you.