Eating Ice Cream by the Pint

I'm at a loss.  I don't know what to do.  I'm trying to be tough, but that's not working all that well. I'm crying. A lot.  I'm crying way more than any one person should.  I'm not sleeping.  I'm wide awake until about 2 in the morning, I toss and turn all night and then am awake and up for the day by 6 (at the latest).  Then I work all day and repeat the process.  Oh, and I'm eating like a pig.  Turns out my feelings are delicious...and I'm packing on pounds like you wouldn't believe.  I'm fragile. I'm insecure. I'm scared out of my mind...and completely and utterly alone.

And he wants me to be strong?  I'm the furthest thing from strong.  Soldiers are trained to be strong.  They're trained to be brave.  They're trained to choke down their emotions.

I am not.

They're marching towards the edge of a cliff with their eyes on the prize and their chins toward the skies.  No one wants to fall off a cliff.  They're no different.  But they do it because they've been trained to.  They do it, because they know that the benefit to the whole is better than the risk to the individual.  They do it...because they know that, even though they might free fall and feel entirely out of control in the beginning, eventually their parachute will kick in, they'll glide to safety...and if they don't...their sacrifice will be worth it, because they fought for what was right, they waged war against evil, stood up for the freedoms of million of Americans, and were heroic until their very last breath.

And then there's me.

Kicking and screaming.  I don't have a damn parachute...I don't like heights, and I want nothing to do with this cliff.  For that matter...I don't want my soldier anywhere near this cliff either, and if he wasn't so hell bent on jumping over the edge, I'd be clinging on tight to his ankles hoping that the weight of my lifeless, crying body would be enough to slow him down and have him reconsider.  But he won't.  Because that soldier is Jonny, that cliff is deployment, and like it or not, he's going over the edge.

He's got a lot on his plate.  He's stressed, he's scared, he's terrified, and soon to be lonely.  He's leaving American soil with the full knowledge that he may never come back.  I can't imagine what that's like.  I have no idea.  Guessing only trivializes the experience, and that's not what I'm trying to do.  But what I will say is this.  I'm scared too.  I'm terrified.  My world is falling apart at the seams, I'm breaking down around every corner...all the while trying to keep it all together with bubble gum and toothpicks so as not to make it more difficult for him.

I'm being needy, dramatic and over the top.  But I can't help it.  It's hard for him yes, but it's hard for me too...and I feel like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place.  The emotions build up and leak out eventually...and I long for a little comfort and support.  I'm aching for some sort of promise, some sort of commitment, that yes, he wants to be with me when he gets home, that yes, I mean something to him, that no, he can't imagine life without me, and that yes, he loves me more than anything.  I feel like if I had some sort of proclamation, my heart would settle down just a bit.  But I don't. And I can't.

I know how crazy that sounds...we've been together for three months.  But those three months have been brought down by the weight of his deployment.  We knew from the beginning that this was coming, and we both made the conscious decision to move forward.  The end has always been near, but we took a risk...and therefore propelled ourselves onto this fast track of "I love you", "I need you", "oh baby, oh baby." 

Yet here I sit.  On the edge of a year...in a state without family, and only a handful of friends.  I have no problem waiting for a year.  I love him more than I've ever loved anyone in my life.  He means the world to me...honestly, he does.  I just don't want to be "an option".  I don't want to put my life on hold, make sacrifices on the home front, and come up short.  There's no way to predict what will happen over the next year, but I'd like to know how he's feeling now, and if (from this vantage point) he sees me in his future.

I love him...from the deepest corners of my heart, and I just want to be assured that he feels the exact same way.

Until then...I'll keep digging my heels in the ground...avoiding that cliff...and eating ice cream by the pint.