Tag: deployment

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 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

Day 11

I started this blog as a way of speaking to you, my deployed boyfriend, but haven’t found the words to say all the things I want to say. But, this is a safe space and if I can’t say it here to the relative anonymity of my own blog that I highly doubt anyone will ever read, then where can I?

So. Here goes.

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I feel angry.

I feel angry at you for wanting to do this job in the first place knowing it takes you away from me, your family & your friends. I’m angry that you were so excited to go, knowing how much I was going to miss you. I’m angry at myself for being so upset when you left, for not being putting on a brave face like you did. Some nights, I’m angry at myself for falling so in love with someone who always has one foot out the door to head back to work.

This pain in my chest is real, and visceral. It burns, and grows, and it’s full of anger and bitterness and swallowed down hurt, it’s full of all the things I want to say to you but I can’t, because you’re out of contact. I want to tell you how torturous these 11 days have been. How maddeningly silent our flat has been, how it feels colder and smaller somehow, how enormous the empty bed feels. I want to tell you how I have to force myself to cook every night, knowing I’m only serving one portion, having cooked alone and resenting the washing up I have to do by myself. How my arms ache to hold you and be next to you, because everything feels better when we’re together. How I spend each day feeling like there is this huge weight I’m carrying around, making me feel so tired and weary.

But really, I want to tell you how much I miss you. How I think about you all day, and just hope you know that I love you so much. That I you can, somehow, feel it wherever you are. I have never been so desperate to hear from someone as I am right now, repetitively checking my emails and feeling the swell  of hope when I do is almost overwhelming. I want to tell you how I feel like I wasted our last days/hours/minutes together being so sad and consumed with the thought of you leaving, and not just making the most of the time together.

I love you, I miss you, I can’t wait to see you.

I hope you get email back soon.

All my love.

Day 8

Dear deployed boyfriend,

So, you’ve been deployed just over a week. You left 2 weeks ago to do whatever it is you do before they go. I did ask, but I haven’t retained the information – what can you do?

It’s already pretty rubbish, let’s be honest. I’ve missed you from the moment we said goodbye and I had to watch you leave – in the really rubbish moments, I think back to our last night and morning together and I wish so hard I could go back and get a do over – I didn’t say everything I wanted to say, and I wish I had woken earlier, even though I was shattered and needed some sleep. An hour less of sleep might not have made much difference to how tired or drained I felt, but I would give anything for another hour with you. Just lying next to you, us holding each other, and talking. That’s what I wish for.

Just another hour. Although of course another hour wouldn’t be enough. If I got another hour, I’d want another, and another. Lining each one up so that I could delay the goodbye.

The rational part of my brain knows, however, that regardless of whether we had had another hour together or 12, nothing you said or I said would make these days and weeks apart easier. I said everything I needed to say; that I love you, and will miss you, and I will be okay. Anything else I could have said would have simply been peripheral to the most important things I needed to say.

I love you.

I miss you.

And I’ll be okay. And I am okay,  mostly. I go to work, I’ve been swimming and running, I’m watching TV shows I like and I read a new book. I went for a few drinks after work, and I’ve been making the effort to see friends. I’m trying new recipes and trying to take care of myself – I am doing okay. I am surviving, and trying to keep busy.

It’s exhausting though, because while I’m doing all or any of these things I am also missing you and thinking about you. And slightly obsessively checking my emails… While working, and seeing friends, and running, and watching TV.

It is exhausting. If you’re in this too, I hear you. It is so tiring, missing someone.

I love you xxxxx

Why am I writing this?

Welcome! Maybe you’re reading this because you too have a deployed boyfriend. Maybe no-one will read it. Who knows where this will go?

I decided I wanted to start writing this blog for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, to serve as a momento for myself of how far I’ve come during hard days of this first deployment, so that when it feels like I can’t cope I can see that I can. And I have.

Secondly, I have so many thoughts and emotions I can’t share with him, because I don’t want to worry or upset him, or distract him from the important job he’s doing. And also because, at the time of writing this, I have no means of contacting him at all. Dramatic bold for emphasis there.

And thirdly, on the off chance someone else reads this, maybe it’ll help them to know they’re not alone. And maybe that in turn will make me feel less alone. Because that has been the not-so-shocking stark realization of the deployment so far – how lonely I feel. Even when I’m with friends, or at work, I feel like part of me is missing. Which I suppose it is.

If anyone ever finds this and reads it, I know how you feel. It’s hard, and we’re doing our best.

What else can we do?