Day 92

Dear deployed boyfriend,

This is getting no easier. I thought that it would, everyone I think assumes that the longer you’re away the more I get used to it, and I too assumed that as I adjusted the ache would disappear because it’s just a new normal.

Well it’s not normal. And it’s not getting any easier.

Its the unknown I’m not coping with. You being away is one thing, I can (and have) dealt with that the best I can and I think I’ve done okay. I go to work, I see friends although not as much as I perhaps should, I see your family, I watch films and read books. I do the things expected. But all the while, I am missing you terribly. Every second of everyday. I can imagine holding you and I am almost close to tears at how wonderful I know it’ll feel and yet I don’t have an inclining as to how long I have to wait.

I’m getting good at waiting. I’m a bit of a pro, you might say. I’ve been waiting for you since the moment you left, and I’ll continue to wait. But it is flipping HARD and exhausting and the utter silence and lack of information is driving me round the bend.

I miss you SO much. I am a bit surprised by how much – it’s driving me a bit crazy if I’m honest. When will it let up? When will you come home?

Please please come home.

I love you so much,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Day 91

Dear deployed boyfriend,

Today has been a hard day. I can’t put it plainer than that.

You were meant to come home today, I have been looking forward to it more than I can explain, I had a countdown. 4 weeks. 3 weeks, 4 days. 2 weeks. And then POOF it changed in an instant.

Devastated doesn’t cover it. I miss you so much.

I keep hoping and wishing (and praying, I tried that too) that you’ll get in touch and tell me when you’ll be home. Sadly, nothing yet.

Torture. That’s all I can say it is.

I miss you more than words can say – thinking about seeing and holding you is driving me insane as it feels so close; we could be together in days. Or weeks. Or, months even – which I really REALLY hope it isn’t because I genuinely couldn’t cope. I have to believe you’ll be home in 3 weeks and 4 days. Or whatever pretense of having “it” together I’ve managed to concoct will fade into oblivion.

I’m not coping, and more time apart isn’t helping.

Please come home. Life without you in it is no life at all for me.

Missing you more and more everyday,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Day 89

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I love you so much and this time apart is, and has been, so so hard. I can’t even describe the ache in my chest everyday that you’ve been gone.

I can’t help but miss you more and more, and the not knowing when you’ll be home is just torture. I know you have a job to do, and I am so proud of you for doing it. But I need you too. I know I’m a tough cookie and a strong independent woman but I want you here, I need you here. My world and my life are a million times better when you’re here.

I never thought I could love someone like this, and miss them so much it’s like a limb is missing and yet still carry on going to work, and seeing friends and having to be normal. Nothing about this is normal!

Please come home soon. Please, I’m begging you. If I believed in God I’d send up a million prayers. I don’t want to feel like this for weeks and weeks on end.

Please come home, I miss you ever so much.

All my love,

xxxxxxxxx

Day 88

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I could honestly implode I’m so angry. You’re away and I have all this work to do at home. All the stuff you get to fuck off and leave, is left behind for me.

Buying and decorating the tree.

Buying and writing the Christmas cards for your family.

Buying and wrapping the presents.

Making Christmas Day plans.

Making Boxing Day plans.

All the fucking work I have to alone. Why have you chosen this life? What is it that you get from this you don’t get from life at home with me, with your family? Once you’re home you need to explain it to me because I just don’t get it – I couldn’t put you through this, it’s so cruel and difficult, yet you’ve done it to me. And you’ll do it again, and again, and again until you decide you’ve had enough and leave.

And then the bloody car battery is dead. Not a huge drama in the grand scheme of life, but it’s just another thing I have to fix because you aren’t here.

Why aren’t you here? WHY?

When will you be here?

I am having moments of doubting whether this life is for me or not. The pain, and the ache, and the loneliness are so high and I just… I could scream. And cry. And rail. And cry some more. I love you more than I could ever explain, and you mean the world to me. But is it enough?

When are you home? When? And why can’t I make you stay?

All my love,

xxxxxx

Day 83

Dear deployed boyfriend,

So.

The end was near – I could almost see it. Next week was so close, the days were heading toward single figures. I was so excited, I was so ready to have you home and let the Christmas joy begin.

And then you called me, in the early hours of this morning. And it’s all broken and twisted again. You’re likely not coming home till the new year. Which means all the little things I was looking forward to have been delayed again – the moments together, the cups of tea, the face to face conversations, the cuddles, waking up next to you, watching movies together, walking along the river, kissing you – delayed. Delayed until some arbitrary point, possibly another month.

I am so sad it hurts. I have been ready for you to come home since you left, and I thought we were so close. And now it’s just been pushed back again, and I could burst I’m so angry and sad and confused.

You called me at the worst time to tell me this news – the middle of the night, and you were drunk and angry. Which meant I had to handle my own emotions, and yours too. Because you certainly didn’t take any of mine off me, you didn’t lighten my load or help me understand it. You just shouted and rallied and vented and cried – and you’re allowed to, of COURSE you are. But you didn’t give a minute of quiet, supportive kindness to feel safe and held after hearing that news. I had to hold you, listen to you, and try to think practically about what we would need to do now the plan had adjusted.

Did you hear me?

Did you hear me cry? And try to breathe? And me trying to keep calm, for you.

Did you hear me ask for you to just take a breath, to slow down and not lose your focus.

Part of me is really irrationally angry at YOU for how much I’m hurting, and for what impact this job has on me and the people who love you. Do you know that? Does it bother you? Do you even notice it makes life hard for others? Do you care?!

This is just fucking unfair. Today is the day you were meant to be home. And now we don’t even know when we’ll see each other.

I love you so much, you mean the world to me. But this is shit.

xxxxxxxxx

 

Day 75

Dear deployed boyfriend,

We had it good for a few days there. You were alongside and I could reach you more or less whenever I wanted – certainly it was hours of waiting rather than days and days. It was all I’ve wanted, really, to have a way of being in touch with you – of course, I’d much rather have you in person! But as that wasn’t, or isn’t, an option I will instead take the option of daily phone calls.

But that has gone again, as you’ve gone back to sea. And so it begins – the yearning, the wishing, the email checking.

Since I last sat down and wrote here, you’ve been delayed by another week. Which means rather than you being home a week tomorrow, it’s now 2 weeks on Thursday – not long in the grand scheme of life, but I can feel every single one of those 8 days. Its 8 more nights apart, it’s 8 more days I can’t look into your beautiful blue eyes. It’s 8 more days I don’t get to sleep next to you, wrapped in your arms. It’s 8 more days I don’t get to tell you I love you, and hear you say it back.

Christmas is coming, like a freight train it feels, and you’re not here. Oh, I wish you were here. More than you can possibly imagine. I want to plan our presents together, go ice skating, decorate the tree, countdown to the big day excitedly. Instead, I count down to you coming home and my world being complete.

I can live without you, I just don’t want to.

All my love, and more.

xxxxxxxxxx

Day 55

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I think you’ve now transitioned into sailing silently, as they like to say. Which is hard, as however crappy email contact is it is at least contact between us. And we won’t have any contact for the next 2 weeks, which makes my heart hurt.

I think about you everyday. And that is no exaggeration – everyday. Not one day has passed where I’m not thinking about you, and where you are, if you’re okay, wishing you were home and imagining having you next to me.

4 weeks today. You’ve been gone so long, I almost can’t believe I’ve survived up until now.

28 days. That’s all now, 28 days stand between loneliness and heartache and fervent email checking.

You have my heart. Forever.

All my love,

xxxx

Day 54

Dear deployed boyfriend,

Today I looked at a photo of you and cried, quietly. I looked at your beautiful eyes and your kind smile and I felt my heart shatter at how much I miss you and how long I continue to wait for you to come home.

You have been gone 7.5 weeks – so many nights we have been apart, days and days we couldn’t communicate, where there was just space and quiet between us. While I am grateful for the emails we can send to each other, they don’t do much to keep me from missing you. It’s a brief burst of joy to see an email pop up, because for every email I’ve gotten I’ve had to look at 100 emails that aren’t from you. The relief is real, albeit brief.

Speaking to you on Sunday was wonderful, even if it was brief and windy and we couldn’t really hear each other. I have missed talking to you, and it was glorious to have that connection for even a few minutes. I just wish we had had longer; there are so many things I could have said. We had only a few minutes, so really I said everything I needed to – that I love you, and miss you, and think about you everyday, which is all you needed to hear really.

Its hard to comprehend that soon, in 29 days to be exact (as long as there are no delays), I will have you home with me in London. All the missing will be done. All the yearning and wishing and hoping and counting and crying and sadness will vanish. Poof! All because you’ll be home. You’re like magic! Thinking about holding you got me through my case last night, imagining waking up with you on Christmas morning fills me with feels and hope. I can’t wait.

29 more days.

Love you forever, and always,

xxxxxxx

Day 43

Dear deployed boyfriend,

Have I really not written here for 28 days? Wow. Time flies when you’re having fun…

Since I last down to write, we have been able to spend 4.5 days together in Crete, which was wonderful and really what I needed – to hold you, be close to you, and sleep curled up next you. It was soothing for my soul to be with you again, I felt calmer again.

And then we had to say goodbye. And while it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and certainly not as bad or emotional as the first goodbye in September, it was still hard to walk away from you, and come back to our flat in London without you.

And it’s been hard since really, I wonder if some people thought I would miss you less as time went on? Adjust to my new normal I suppose? I don’t want this to be my normal – missing you and aching for you is not a normal I want to live in. I want normal to be kissing you goodbye as we head for work, and coming home to the same place every night to have dinner and hang out together. I want our normal to be sleeping side by side every night, to wake up together with our kids and our dogs and to simply do life together.

That’s what I want. And maybe, MAYBE, we’ll get it someday. But for now, I live in a permanent state of waiting. For you to come home, for our future to begin, for normal.

Happy birthday sweetheart. You have no idea what you mean to me, or how lucky I feel everyday that I get to call you mine.

All my love, for now, and always

xxxxx

Day 15

Dear deployed boyfriend,

Oh I miss you. I can’t say it plainer than that.

I have been busy and seeing friends and it’s wonderful, but all the while you’re not here to share things with, tell that joke to, come home to. Which is silly of me to be sad about as we’ve spent 2 years being apart Mon-Fri so I’m missing you on days you wouldn’t be here anyway! But I’d miss you on those days regardless of whether you’re off at sea or in the UK at work, because you’re not with me.

I like it best when you’re with me. Obviously!

It has been a relief, like an ice cold glass of water on a hot day relief, to have heard from you and received 2 emails from you. The joy I felt is indescribable. I can only say its matched by the disappointment of not knowing when the next one will come, and not having heard from you since Wednesday.

It’s hard not to worry, especially as my last email(s) included me trying to explain how wobbly and I felt and why. I was a wobbly, anxious, nervous mess and I can’t be ashamed of that or pretend it didn’t happen. I was staggered by the depth of my sadness and missing you, and it was triggered by the uncertainty of not hearing from you or knowing where you were and that you were okay. And, if I’m honest, not knowing you were missing me or thinking about me. And I am sorry for that.

I believe in us. I believe we have something strong and beautiful and being with you makes me happier than I ever thought I could be. Thinking about you makes me smile, remembering moments together brings me comfort, looking at pictures of you and us makes me feel all of the feelings. You are safe and warm and comforting and loving and funny and affectionate and clever and kind and gracious and thoughtful – I could go on and on and on. You are everything I always wanted and never thought I’d get to have.

So yes, I wobbled, but because of everything above not in spite of it. Because I was, and am, without my anchor and of course I’ll be unsteady. But I won’t capsize or sink – I am a steady ship and I will be okay.

Good boat analogy.

I will be able to explain this better in person. Don’t doubt me, because I don’t doubt us.

All my love, and more,

xxxxxx