Broken heart.

     I hope you have never experienced a broken heart.  although unlikely, I hope you have not.  I have.  Many times.  At the age of 8 in 1995, when my grandmother died.  As a freshman in high school, year 2002, when a childhood friend and classmate died tragically in a car accident.  In 2004, as a senior in high school when I realized "the love of my life", wasn't.  As a sophomore in college, 2006, when I was told I could have cancer and needed immediate surgery at the ripe age of 19.  Again in 2008, when I lost the first child of my marriage.  And in 2010, when my dad told me my mom shot herself (she is beautiful and healthy now).  But none of those felt as heavy as this.  
     Nothing prepared me for living apart from my soul mate for a year.  Nothing prepared me for the nightmares of a husband at war.  That broken routines would cause images of black cars and Marines in dress uniforms.  Nothing could have prepared me for the broken heart. Nothing. 
     I know it sounds crazy.  I know I should not be saying this.  My husband is safe.  My husband is alive.  My husband is healthy.  And I talk to him through some sort of way almost everyday.  I am grateful.  But the smile that I don't see haunts me.  The hugs I don't feel drown me.  And the empty bed envelopes my soul with icy loneliness.  A bitter reminder every night that I will embrace the new morning alone and weary. 
     And the heartache, it is in my bones.  It is in my brain.  It is in my joints.  It is in my soul.  As I feel the pains of loneliness, depression, heartache at the core of myself.  I feel it all taking hold of me as I struggle to free myself from the tightening fingers.
     And I wonder am I strong enough?  Am I strong enough to beat a deployment.  Am I strong enough to beat depression and heartache, again?  Will this make my husband worry even more about me while he is over there?  Are these feelings normal?  Does my husband feel these same types of feelings, in some amount?  Am I really alone?  These are the questions I asked once I admitted the weariness, the pain, the loneliness, the depression was just holding on tighter. 
     And as I realized the grip I was feeling, I automatically started beating myself up.  I wasn't being strong for my husband if I admitted depression. I wasn't "holding down the fort" if I needed to see a doctor again?  I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain.  My part of being a military spouse. 

(This post is raw.  This post began as an "I can't sleep" tirade.  But it turned into something much deeper.  It turned into an admission that I am in relapsing from a disease I will fight my whole life.  And while I have not yet called a doctor to discuss treatment, it is on my to do list for tomorrow- since it is 1:30am right now.  I will fight again and I will win again.) 

Sometimes you just have to... cry.

     Deployments teach you about yourself.  They teach you to change the beliefs you have had for years.  That sometimes change is good and that sometimes you do whatever you have to.  No matter what the situation.  

     Scott and I had our first fight a few days ago.  Not a big fight.  But I have to say, regretfully, that I did not talk to him for 2 days.  By talk, I mean email.  I want to crawl under a rock for admitting that because 1) my husband is in a war zone and I passed up an opportunity to talk to him and 2) it was my fault.  It was my neediness and my emotions and my psycho freak out that caused the fight to begin with.  

    But what I learned is that I was upset because I pent up my emotions inside instead of talking about them in the first place.  I learned that I CANNOT do that.  I learned that the whole situation made me feel 100% worse than it did it to begin with.

     But the thing I learned the most about was that even after the fight, even after the silence I did not feel better.  What made me feel better, was just crying.  I laid in my bed, hugging one of my 3 extra pillows, and I cried. And I cried.  And I cried.  And I felt better.  

     I felt the tension melt away.  I felt the stress blend in to the joy.  And I felt at peace- finally.  

     So I will gladly cry more this deployment.