Absurd?

Lately I've been feeling like the many parts of my life make some sort of absurd picture when they make the whole of me. First and foremost, I am a wife. A military one at that, but a wife. Because it's military, there are things that I have to do, and go through, that a lot of wives don't have to. (Not saying it's better/worse, just different). This aspect of my life consists of sleeping alone cuddling with a pillow because that's all I have right now, handling problems as if I were a single person, mailing care packages/emailing/sometimes receiving calls to keep in touch with my husband. 'Our' room looks like 'my' room, because I'm the only one that has lived here since we (I) moved here. I refuse to put away the last bit of his laundry that's sitting folded because then there is something of his that's lying out, and I can see it.

The other aspects? I have to live my life as if he's not deployed, as if he's just on a business trip. I mean, I suppose he is...just a very long, arduous one. But I have to go out. Work. Hang out with friends. Clean the house. Do the laundry. Cry when I have to, and suck it up when I can manage it.

I've gone from hearing bad news about soldiers, and feeling every inch of being a Military Wife to having to go to work and sell people office supplies. Reading about a soldier losing his legs through his wife's blog post to talking about what kind of pen someone would prefer, in about a half an hour's span of time.

Absurd? It feels like it. This is my life, my reality. It seems skewed to me, but maybe that's just how I feel. I do know that it feels like living two lives. In one, I'm 25, married to the most amazing man I could ask for, working and dreaming about going back to college to become a licensed mental health counselor. I go to work, out with friends occasionally, hang out with the neighbors. In the other, I feel older than I am. I am in charge of everything that needs to happen here. Everything breaks because my husband left, or the bills get higher and I have to figure out why. I have to live with the knowledge that there might be a knock on my door one day. We all hope and pray that it won't happen to us, and we never, ever acknowledge it, but it's always there, in the little compartment that we lock it in. I hate it when people knock on my door. I have about a ten second span of emotion, my adrenaline kicks up, only to find that it's the neighbor needing something.

I have my good days. I have my share of bad ones. Deployment is so different from anything I've ever experienced, worse and somehow better than I ever thought. I'm not sure how that works, but it's just so much more than I could ever convey in writing.

I can't wait until he calls again. Hearing the laughter in his voice when I tell him something stupid I did is everything right now.