4 more days

so, gene will officially be on his way back to the united states in four days. FOUR DAYS.

half a year has gone by since we've seen each other. HALF A YEAR!

when this all started, i remember thinking "oh shit. 6 months is a really long time," and yeah, it has been. it didn't "fly by" like people promised me it would, and even though i thought at first that yeah, he'd be gone for six months and then he'd come home and seamlessly fit back into the space he left, and everything would go back to the way it was before he left and we'd be all sunshine and cupcakes and happiness, i now have all these OTHER feelings about his return home.

i don't want to say we had a "perfect" relationship, but it was pretty effortless....and when i say "effortless" i don't mean that there was no work involved, because believe me, we've both had to do some work in the last 2+ years....but it was easy. it was natural. not to sound cheesy, but it seemed like this was meant to be. like we were each others complementing piece or whatever....so why wouldn't i think that this would be "simple"? that he would go, come home, and we'd pick up right where we left off??? now i say to myself, "oh, chuck...you have been SO naive...."

the deployment started off with me standing there in the airport, clutching onto him with a death grip that you can't even imagine, crying so hard i nearly threw up - i know that in my head i've altered how the events really went down, but in my memory, he literally had to pry me off of him so that he could get through security and make his flight - i remember riding down the escalator, BEYOND embarrassed that i had all this mascara streaming down my face, and getting all these sympathetic looks from little old ladies and their husbands - then driving myself home and sitting in my apartment, saying out loud "you're all by yourself now" - i mean, i realized then (like i do now) that im not literally all alone - i have my dogs, my family, my friends - but the person i'd hardly gone a day without seeing for 2 years - my very best friend on earth - had just been taken away from me, and it seemed really surreal....i knew from day one that if i got into a relationship with him, that this type of situation was probably (okay, DEFINITELY) going to happen, but it's still hard to deal with, even considering the 3 months i had to prepare myself - there was a short mourning period (like, seriously. very short. i cried for a few hours, then i tried my best to suck it up and put on a brave face - actually, i like to say that in the first few days of his deployment, i went through all the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger (which included me screaming obscenities every time i passed the air force base) & acceptance), and then i put my big girl panties on and decided that while i was very sad, i still have a life to live, and sitting around pulling the "look at me, the sad, lonely military bride-to-be whose fiance is in another country" card just really isn't my style. besides, time tends to go by even slower when you're wallowing in whatever it is thats bugging the shit out of you, so i tried to stay as positive as possible. i kind of threw myself into getting care packages together and focusing on things like planning the wedding and making sure that he knew that even though he was on the other side of the world (maybe not technically, but as far as i was concerned), that he was still a priority to me.

i think i did pretty well during the time he's been gone, but i haven't been perfect- i had some pretty good momentum out of the gate, but i did have my moments of emotional instability (that makes me sound NUTS, but it's truly the only way i can put it that does it justice), and i will now openly admit that i, on occasion, suffered some lapses into the "poor pitiful me" syndrome that i so desperately HATE, and the last few weeks - in all honesty - have just been filled with a depression i haven't felt in years. i feel like a terrible person because this should be the most exciting time i've had in months, but it's almost as if i'm just - i don't know - POISED for an anxiety attack. I mean, i've essentially spent the last six months living the life i did before i met gene - of course, there's not been any dating, and i'm not going out all the time, but i've readjusted to only worrying about myself on a daily basis. i haven't had a companion around. its just been ME....and while i realize that, at my core, i'm the exact same person i've always been, i do think that there have been some changes in me since he's been gone - changes that i've made perhaps unconsciously, and probably only as an adaptive thing, but changes nonetheless.

i walk around every day with these nagging worries that he will get off that airplane and not be the same person he was when he left. what if he doesn't like me anymore? what if we don't get along as well? what if the adjustments we've had to make over the last six months make it impossible for us to go back to the relationship we had before? what if we suddenly discover that all the things we thought were "cute" or "endearing" about each other before totally irritate the hell out of us now?

don't get me wrong, i'm glad he is coming home. i couldn't be happier. but the anxiety is real, and i can't pretend these concerns aren't there for me. the only way to talk myself down from the anxious hyperventilation that i'm constantly on the verge of is to focus on the positive stuff that i know hasn't changed, no matter what: i will be so happy to see him, to know that he's finally safe and in the same freaking zip code as me - and to be able to hug him and rub my face into his shoulder (i don't know why i do this, i just always have), and to finally be able to just sit on a couch with him and not do anything but just hang out together. I'll be glad to finally be able to pick up my phone and call him when i want to, and not have to wait for him to call me. i'll be glad to be in the same TIME ZONE!!!! i'll be happy to finally have a hand to hold again, and someone to cook for, and someone to laugh at the jokes that i don't get to make anymore because i'm the only one at the apartment (and, lets face it, regardless of the situation if you're talking to yourself making jokes AND laughing at them, you need help). it will be nice to smell him again (he always smells so nice), and to get/give kisses, and to have someone to go out to big, nice dinners with. these all seem like incredibly shallow things i guess, but those are the things i think about when i think about missing him - i miss our daily routines and all of our little moments together, and i'm just ready to get our normalcy back. we're a pair - a team - and everything seems off kilter when we aren't together.

plus, i'm really sick of taking the dogs out by myself.