This is harder to write than you probably would imagine. It’s a turning point, the beginning of an era and the end of a lot of pain that will hopefully stay right where it is (which is the past).

In the past six years and seven months Jasper and I have spent 1,679 days apart (that’s not how long he’s been doing this, that’s just the days apart). Most people haven’t spent 24 days alone, times that by 10 and 240 is just the amount of Friday nights I have spent alone. I have laid alone through over 40 thunderstorms, celebrated 17 dog birthdays (between the three of them and that’s not in dog years), and driven over 200,000 miles with no one in the passenger seat. I have worried through 15 deployments (well 14 overseas and a stint in New Mexico). I have imagined the worst when I didn’t hear from him and been a damned slave to my phone.

I have been to the movies alone dozens of times, I have run four half marathons without my husband to see me at the finish line, I have been the third, fifth, and seventh wheel over 500 times. I have attended weddings, funerals, parent teacher conferences, holidays, birthday parties, and work functions alone- but not single for over six and a half years. I have shaved my legs far less than my average American 20 and 30-something counterparts, I have spent scores of Sunday’s and thousands of dollars at Target for pure comfort and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve driven into the ditch (and also either gotten out myself or had someone there to help without asking). I have declined invitations to concerts, parties, vacations, happy hours, and events not because I wasn’t comfortable going alone but because if it was me deployed, I wouldn’t have wanted to wonder about those things (I have picked and chosen over the years, it’s not like I sat in a hole- point is that I left a lot out).

I have paid 56 cell phone bills (that’s not including the ones where he has been home). I have been without heat 5 times, without power 15 times and even narrowly missed a tornado once. And who could forget survival of the giant rat. I have been to the vet 26 times without anyone to help keep the right dogs in the car and get the right dogs out. I have shoveled feet upon feet of snow (and also not shoveled feet upon feet of snow which yeah…). I have had the flu twice and food poisoning twice. I have called my mom at midnight with the flu from the bathroom floor to come and get Mac because I couldn’t get up and I was afraid he would wake up. I have walked from my bathroom to my bed sick as hell from food poisoning and ignored the fact that Mac’s arms were ALL the way in the fish tank.

I have lived alone in Charlotte, NC, while all of our roommates were deployed, I have also lived with them, I have lived alone in an apartment in Raleigh where I raised a German shepherd that we got because our pitbull had such terrible separation anxiety, I moved home and lived with my parents for almost a year (out of loneliness), closed on a house with power of attorney, hesitated to even move into that house, but have now spent four and a half years in the country living by myself on 45 acres.

I became a CNA, I finished all of my Pre-Nursing coursework and was accepted into the University of NC- Wilmington for Nursing school. I have worked two jobs, seven days a week and at other times quit and had no job at all (insert severe situational depression here). I have established myself in a company and had a successful corporate career, I have been certified through IIN as a Health Coach, I have been to Florida 9 times to be trained in NRT, I have started my own Nutrition practice, seen over 250 new patients, traveled to seminars for Continuing Education. I have come to stand for things that I believe in. I have been to Colorado twice, Las Vegas, Disney World three times, New York City, Washington DC, California and numerous trips to Chicago and Minneapolis.

I have lived the. worst. day. of my life about 8 times. Dropping him off at the airport to leave for a deployment felt like he was dying. He was ripped away from me and months felt like an eternity. There was never any chance of seeing him for a weekend or going to visit or him coming home for a special event if it didn’t fit into the deployment schedule. I cried harder than I have ever cried, been angrier than I have ever been and been physically ill and unable to eat overrun with emotion. I have chain-smoked, cried and not showered for days on end after he left. Not every deployment was that way but many were. I have lived the best day of my life about 12 times. Because not all of those reunions were all the best either, but many of them were. I have fielded questions about my boyfriend, my fiance, my husband and sometimes been able to say and others not.. I have listened to stories that he tells our friends and learned things.

I have read dozens of books, gained ten pounds, lost ten pounds, gained 20 pounds, been Vegetarian, Vegan, Paleo, Standard American diet (before any of the others), and an organic Primal eater. I have made friends, lost friends, tended to a 1,300 square foot organic garden, become a hiker, a hippy and crunchy. I have drank and not drank, quit smoking (twice, the last time for real) and fought addictions way harder than that. I have dreamt about not being alone, I have slept on my dogs, cried on my dogs, and been afraid to leave my dogs, heard things in the night and cleared my house with my 9mm. I have let dishes sit in the sink for a week because there was no one to do them for and no one to judge me.

The man of the house has been three feet tall.
I have changed as a person. I have become someone independent of him. I have learned to take control and I have made the most of my freedom. I have overcome fears and I have gained confidence in life because I have figured out how to do everything on my own. And I’ve begun raising his son. I did this all while he was gone. I could write another entire blog about the things we have done while he was home. I didn’t do any of the above things while he was HOME, it was all while he was gone.

None of that is to say what he has done, the friends he has lost not only over there but over here in a different way, the things at home he has missed, the toll it has taken.

We have broken up and gotten back together and broken up again. We have made it through thick and thin only to be sabotaged by the lifestyle itself. The resentment, the comparisons, the anger, the distance. We lived together for seven months before his first deployment and that entire time we knew he could have left within a week. Which means I have been thinking about him leaving for over seven years. The moment he would step off the plane in the back of my mind I would be counting down our time together. We have quite literally had to put a price on the time we spent together. And it destroyed us.

I’m not thankful that I’ve been taught so many of life’s lessons during the course of living this lifestyle. I earned all of what I’ve accomplished and I will never apologize or be shy about that. It fucking sucked and I never wanted it. But neither did he. We just got stuck and didn’t know how to walk away.

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I only have to get gas one more time, the sun only has to wake up three more times, there are no birthdays between now and then, no more Friday nights, probably no more thunderstorms. The 10-day forecast seems like forever and the end of this is only 3 days away. It feels like there should be something in between. It is impossible to imagine that just as quickly as he left six and a half years ago, he will be back.

We’ve both been alive. We have both chased big things. We’ve lost ourselves, found ourselves, lost each other, found each other. We don’t even know yet what we don’t know about each other. Three days.

I only have to water the plants one more time, make only about 75 more parenting decisions solo, tell my dogs 8 more times that their dad is coming home, start my car 7 more times, have dinner at my parents 3 more nights, I don’t even think I’ll be able to take a bath between now and then.

I’ve spent almost a quarter of my entire life waiting for this (which is more than half of my adult life). I’ve fantasized, daydreamed, imagined what it would be like to live with someone. And we have learned the hard way more than once that reality and our expectations could never possibly align so we have to be prepared for that as well. But next week we get to try. We get to see what we have and see if we can do it. We have a shot.

Three days. I’ve had my last play date with my best friends as a single mom. I’ve vacuumed the steps for the last time without someone tripping over the cord. The most recent playlist I made on Pandora is the last one that will only be heard by me. I’ve taken my last trip without having to think of someone besides Mac and the dogs. I’ve laid under my last full moon alone.  I’ve seen my last summer sunset without anyone to appreciate it with me.

It’s happening.

Our son gets a dad on Friday.