Tag: navy

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.

Day 14

Dear deployed boyfriend,

I really miss you.

I had forgotten how exhausting it is missing someone, feeling like I’m carrying around this weight everyday. I really want to just put it down, it hurts to carry and it hurts knowing I’ve got weeks yet till I can.

When you last emailed, 5 days ago, you mentioned how busy and overworked you were, and so I hope you’ve now entered a slightly calmer phase where you can get some rest and not be working 18 hours a day! I haven’t heard from you since that email, and much as before there is always that hope that today will be the day, or this email alert will be an email from you. But alas. It’s not.

And it’s just rubbish. I cannot put it plainer, it’s the worst feeling. Having someone you love go away for weeks and weeks where you can’t talk, see each other, or even be in regular contact is really hard. It hurts, in a way I can’t really verbalize. I just want to know you’re okay, and I just want you to come home. I feel so frustrated at the time we’re spending apart, life it short and its happening here and now, and you’re missing it. All of it.

I just want you home, with me. That’s all.

I love you xxxxxxx

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

 

Homecoming

Dear you,

Well. You are no longer deployed! And you are no longer my boyfriend!

No big messy break up, the exact opposite in fact. You asked me to marry you, and I said yes. A thousand times yes! My heart could burst actually, just thinking about it.

You’re currently on leave which I love, leaving you at home while I go back to work has been rubbish, but the joy at seeing you each evening hasn’t lessened. I wonder if it ever will?

I do know that we don’t take the little moments for granted, being able to watch a film together, cooking dinner together, waking up in each others arms.

Thank you for coming home to me.

All my love, forever,

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 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