Where are you now?

Where are you now? Are you disappointed for not having what you thought for sure you’d get? I had a few hours of that before I remembered to be grateful for what I have right here, right now. I spent Christmas with the love of my life. Is everything perfect? No, it’s not but it is the life I want every morning and every night. Be grateful for what you have and remember that there was a time when you didn’t even know what the best part of your life was.

Another day

I woke up this morning grateful. I have a warm bed, and a good job. I have family and friends who care, and I have a man, the live of my life who adores me. Last night I am sitting on the sofa looking out at our Christmas lights. When I turn to him, he is looking at me, not the lights. He is smiling, and my heart is so full. This year, despite everything that has happened, losing my mom and spending so much time away from my soldier, moving and turning my world upside down, I am grateful for all I have. God Bless.

Where I am

I was driving back from the airport yesterday with the Front Range in view, fresh air blowing through my hair, sun warm against my skin. I was okay, I guessed, but I dropped Cash off again. This time he’ll only be gone 12 days back home, but it’s still too long.

I keep seeing that same look on his face when we have to say goodbye again. It kills me, but I smile and do it because I realize more every day how I can’t be without him. Sappy? Maybe, but that’s where I am. I’m here waiting for him.

Sitting at work bored and wishing I could get home…but today it’s to an empty apartment. Now I have all the time in the world to think. I’m wondering about all the little slips and smiles–saying things about a ring and honeymoons. Every time he says something I smile and take a deep breath. It’s best not to let what you want become what you expect.

Part of one day down and hating to sleep alone in that big bed. I missed being tickled while I’m making dinner last night. I am wondering how it is that I haven’t ever felt this way about any other time with anyone else. I stepped out of the fog and I see everything the way it should be, realistically and perfectly.

Who’s to say they don’t come true?

Adele ‘Make You Feel My Love’
Kip Moore ‘Hey Pretty Girl’

I had the most vivid dream last night–I was standing, breathless as Cash is down on one knee…well, you get the point.

Then I’m walking down the aisle with my Mother at my side like we had always planned. She had tears in her eyes the first time we talked about it. When I thought a proposal was looming in the very near future before (funny I wrote looming…if that’s any indication of how I was feeling under the surface of it all along, you’d be correct).

It was the perfect dream, the perfect unfolding of what I want most, what I know could finally bring me back, give me what I need, and to give everything I have to him.

Europe Day 39

If you ever had any doubts that I wouldn’t do anything for you, now is the time to put it to rest. I bought something for myself (well, it’s for you, but it’s for me…does that make sense?) a few minutes ago on the computer. I was reminded tonight that we could explore a few other things and I’m willing to try anything if it will make you happy.

I should see you in a month. 30 days. 720 hours. That last one makes me a little less happy, so I’ll think of it as 4 weeks. That’s better.

Still thinking back to that conversation last night on Skype. You are this force of calm, love, hope, trust, and belief that pulls me in like gravity. I look at you, encircled by your love, in your orbit, and I feel so blessed. I would be just as grateful to fall at your feet but you hold me up when I need you, even if I don’t know it. What will it take to keep this love forever?

A new day

Another long stretch of time since I’ve been on here. I tried a few times but nothing quite made sense and I ended up deleting it all. So to catch up on the last three months: I flew out to Colorado again a month after I drove 3,200 miles round trip to see Cash. We danced at the military ball and I helped him look for apartments. In the course of things, we realized we needed to be together. What is life without the ones you love? Isn’t it supposed to be the pursuit of happiness? Instead we are all so concerned about money, control, material things, and status. What ever happened to going on a trip for the fun of doing it?

So separated by two time zones, Cash and I found an apartment and planned the beginning of my life with him in Colorado. Now, I miss my friends and family, but the new atmosphere has helped. I have new perspective and I feel so small, so humbled, and still very alive when I look West at the mountains. These are the moments I live for now…seeing the smile on my boyfriend’s face when he sees me on the computer from a deployment halfway around the world…hearing my niece giggle over the phone when I tell her I love her…doing 80 on the highway through Kansas and listening to my Mom’s favorite songs.

I lost my Mother about five months ago. She taught me everything I needed to be brave and strong, and do what everyone told me was a crazy mistake: waiting three months for a man I barely knew to come home from a dangerous deployment. Well, I just got crazier–I fell madly in love with him and left everything behind to start a life with him. It hasn’t always been perfect for me here, waiting again while he’s gone, but every time I see his face I am reminded if why I did what I did: I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Maybe I’ve never been crazier, but I’ve never been happier and never more sure.

The most important thing in your life is love. We all know this, but do we hold it up where we should? Do we act on it always? Do we say the words we really want to say, or hold back, doubt, second guess? Take a minute to think about it, and then get it out.

If there was one thing I could say my Mother loved about me, it would be my spirit. I should know, I saw that fight and that faith in her every day. And when she needed it, I was there to hold her and be the spirit that had drained from her. In the end, losing her has made me stronger and better whether I like it or not. Isn’t that a Mother’s lesson, and a reminder of her love?

Wounds heal all time

The Grateful Dead ‘Box of Rain’
Aerosmith ‘Dream On’

It’s been a long blur of hours and days since I wrote last, and still haven’t found the words to say anything important.  I’m not entirely sure I do now, but here I am, fingers dancing across the keys mindlessly.  On a whim I drove to Colorado Springs to see my (now) boyfriend Cash, and I must admit I haven’t slept that well in weeks.

I find myself constantly being reminded by all of the quirky things my Mother did or said.  I laugh out loud, smile on the inside, and come home to cry.  The sight of her still lingers, and I am afraid it always will.  I know it will.  Then again, if I close my eyes I am small again and I smell her Enjoli perfume, I hear her singing in the kitchen, I see her smiling and waiving at me from her door as I drive away in my first car.  I loved her too much to see her in pain, but the way she died is a constant reminder of how much pain she was in to end it all the way she did.  It brings me to tears even now.  Earlier today I realized I had discovered her body only five weeks ago, so maybe it’s not time to let go of the tears or the pain, and maybe that’s okay.

What happens in a month

Easter Sunday I found my mother’s body. She committed suicide in her house. I can’t sleep since that day, and when I do, I wake up sweating and crying. Then two weeks later Cash came home from Africa and flew here to see me. It was more than I thought it would be. He is perfect. I love him, but a girl just doesn’t say it first. He is here for me during all of this and I am grateful. Now that I have to move on with my life I’m glad he is by my side, even if it’s from 1,500 miles away.

What if (all over again)

Miranda Lambert ‘Over You’

I fell asleep while Skyping with Cash last night, but I woke up in time to hear him still talking to me as I slept, telling me he was falling for me.  I tried to keep sleeping because I couldn’t stop listening to what he wanted to tell me.  Should I feel bad?  I know I’ve said before that a guy is different from all of the others, but he is good, decent, respectful, sweet…he is responsible, dedicated, funny, affectionate, chivalrous…

What if…what if this is it?  I closed my eyes one night after we spoke on the phone, and I felt overwhelmed and tears welling up.  That moment I realized I was falling in love with him.

If you still want me

The Rescues ‘Break Me Out’

I am so sleepy but still on a high from talking to the Green Beret for over an hour on the phone today!  It crushed me over a week ago when he had to say he wasn’t going to make it home to see me for Easter.  Now it’s not even a possibility but maybe a miracle that he could be home, or possibly the end of the month.  So I have at least another 34 days before I can touch his face, be wrapped in his arms or feel his kiss on my lips.  Now the panic sets in and I’m starting to examine whether this whole thing is really happening, or what it will turn into, or if he’ll split and leave me hanging, or if it ends up being nothing, or if I get dumped in the effin’ Starbucks again.  That’s it, when I do see him, I’m making lattes at the house.  Thanks for emotional security, Mr. Coffee.  I say every time that this guy feels different, but he really does.  He’s just a good guy.  When G.I. talked to me, all he did was make fun of me, but we weren’t laughing together.  He told me all the things he found attractive in a woman, and then mentioned that he liked something about me even though it wasn’t on his long list of ideals.  It made me feel terrible, and made me feel like I had to defend myself.  Cash isn’t like this at all.  He is sweet and sincere, he’s polite and cautiously romantic.  He makes me laugh and he tells me how happy I make him.  It’s all very different, very honest, very real.  So this time I have tried to coach myself into not falling for him, and not investing all of my heart and head into the hope of a real and lasting relationship but I realize that it’s too late.  I will be crushed if something happens and this all falls apart.  I will get up again and move on, but this time I will be justified to lie there for awhile.