Tag: lonely

Day 69

Dear deployed boyfriend,

God this is hard, so hard. Harder than I can really explain. The interminable WAITING, is just torture. It feels exactly like I’m about to sit an exam, or have to go speak to a large crowd, every muscle is tense and every thought is of you.

I can’t explain it any better than that – I am stuck in this paradoxical world where you are both simultaneously coming home this weekend and not coming home this weekend.

So a small part of me is SO relieved that I will soon be able to hold you again. But the bigger, some might say more pessimistic, part of me is so afraid – afraid of the possibility you won’t be coming home, and instead you’ll be away for another long period. I don’t know if I can do this again, 9+ more weeks on top of the 9 you’ve already done? Where am I meant to find the strength and resolve? I know you’re not choosing to be away, and I know if you could choose you would simply come home, but this hurts. It hurts in a way I wish I could articulate well – it makes my stomach twist and curl, it makes breathing difficult, it makes my heart race and my palms feel sweaty. It makes me feel like I need to focus on my breathing or else it’ll just get quicker and quicker. It steals my sleep, and my rest, and time at peace. It steals my dreams, and my happy imagination.

Once I hear from you, and I know you’re safe and home I will breathe deeply and freely again. Until then, all I can do is sit, and wait, and try to breathe. Slowly. An email, a text, a fucking pigeon at this point. Just put me out of my misery, please.

Please come home. Please. I beg you.

xxxxxxxxx

Day 15

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I really ought to stop writing that because you’re not my boyfriend but its a habit now!

We spoke this morning, although really I think 02:30am really is the middle of the night. And to be honest I was really happy to hear from you, to speak to you, even if you had had 3 beers and were quite sleepy. Because it’s you, and I’ll take any opportunity to talk to the person I love most in the world.

I am though, quite fucked off with you. Rational? I dunno. But I am.

You initially text me earlier in the evening, at a more reasonable hour, but I was asleep so I didn’t see it. In the message, you proposed calling me at 23:30, and I can only assume you didn’t as I hadn’t responded? Why the fuck you then decided to call at 0230 instead is beyond me, as either way you’d be waking me up but 23:30 is much more reasonable.

So firstly, you fucking woke me up in the middle of the night, and then half an hour in you abruptly were just like ‘I really just want to go to bed’ like it’s my fault you were sleepy and a bit tipsy at 0300am, which I thought was incredibly rude and totally thoughtless – I also wanted to go to sleep, I had been asleep in fact, but you decided to call me at a time you wanted. So that hurt me, because it was quite selfish and not thinking of me or what I wanted.

And then you’ve gone, I presume to sea, without so much as a goodbye text. It takes what, seconds to type ‘Off to the boat. Will email when I can. Love you xx’ but apparently that’s just too much trouble.

Honestly I’m just pissed off at how selfish you have been. No thought or consideration to me, just you you you.

I love you, but also, fuck you.

Here we go again…

Dear fiance,

I like writing that down.

However I don’t like that I’ve come back to this space so soon. You weren’t meant to go away again until the summer, and yet here we are in February with a potential deployment this week.

This life is hard. It’s all out of my control and that is painful to accept. I want us to make decisions about the when and where of our future, but sadly that isn’t an option – and I think I will eventually be able to make peace with it, but today isn’t that day.

It isn’t fair – and I know I’m a woman in her 30’s and I should probably be less childish and more accepting of things. But fuck it – it isn’t fair, I chose to date you but I didn’t choose the military. But I did choose you, and you chose the military. So there is that.

I can’t even make sense of this.

I don’t want this to be our life. I am fed up already of missing you.

I feel it’s inevitable you’ll go though, and so I need to speedily get my head in the space where I can cope with this.

I didn’t think we’d be back here so soon,

I love you.

xxxxxxx

 

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 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 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 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