Wonderful Tonight

My night* has been decent, to be honest, but that's not the point of this blog.

Seth called me last night to let me know he made it to stop number 1.

When he leaves, it's weird. Duh, right? I'm the one that shows my emotions big time prior to him leaving...making a scene crying, big, red puffy eyes and nose. You can tell I'm sad. He will get a little emotional, but he conceals it much MUCH better than me. I spend a few days crying off and on at random times, during random things. When he first began his journey home, we were texting during his layovers. He told me a few times that he loves me so much, he can't put it into words. He said that he hates doing this to me, making me feel the way I do when he leaves, and I know when I cry, it makes it that much harder for him to leave. I seriously cannot help it. I try hard to not cry...I even tell him, "look, I'm not crying! no tears right now!" And I'm genuinely proud of myself. But when they hit, they hit hard and I can't stop them. I feel bad for making him feel bad for leaving, and I know he doesn't have a choice. I know in a few days, I'll be coping with it better and I'll get into my routine. When we talked on the phone yesterday, he said how much he misses me. He whispered it though. He didn't want the other soldiers around him to hear. He told me that I make his heart grow soft :) Excuse me while I cry right now while thinking of that. He said he listened to two songs when he got on the plane. I told him I knew what songs he listened to: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton and Dear God by Avenged Sevenfold, which is our deployment song. Those are our two songs. I listened to the Dear God song too (I don’t have the Wonderful Tonight in my car).

I guess the weird part to me is that I show my emotions leading up to the days and the day of departure, and he shows his in the days after he leaves. It’s not a bad thing that he doesn’t show them as he’s leaving, it’s just different than how I show mine. It’s been like this between us since we had our first “see you later.” Once we have our last hug, I’m in full on mode of him getting home safely and doing whatever I can to make it easier on him. It’s not any easier one way or the other, departures suck in general, we just show our emotions at different times.

*I started this on Sunday night, but have been working on it since then.

A thank you to my (future) in-laws

Lately, for whatever reason, I've been thinking about our first "see you later," when Seth went back to Iraq in June 2008. (Quick re-cap: we started talking online in March 2008, and met in person on June 6, 2008, when he came home for leave. Then he went back to Iraq on June 21, 2008 until November. I remember being asked to babysit the day that he was leaving, and I only said yes, because I knew I'd need something to keep me busy that night, instead of just being alone and crying the whole Saturday night).

Ok, now that you're caught up... So obviously I was dreading taking him to the airport and going through my first "see you later." He was flying out of an airport about 90 minutes away from us and I had wondered in my little brain how it would all happen. I wondered if his parents were going to take him, or if I was going to take him, or if I was going to go with his parents to take him. I don't think we had a conversation about who was taking him to the airport; if we did, I honestly do not remember it. Honestly, I wanted to take him to the airport all by myself. I had only met his parents a few times and they were super cool, but I know how emotional I get, especially considering what this was, and I didn't really want to be with them when I was a sobbing mess.


The night before he was to leave, he had spent the night before at my apartment. That morning, we got up, got all ready and then we went to his parents house. We stopped at the gas station and I filled up my tank, and I think he bought donuts. Then we went to his parents house. I think I thought that we would say our "see you laters" in the drive way of their house and his parents would take him to the airport and that would be that. Instead, we got to the house, had donuts and hung out for a little bit. We printed directions to the airport. I don't think any of us really talked about who was taking him to the airport. Again, if we did, I don't remember it. After a little while, we said goodbye to his parents. I remember not watching that. I wasn't even ready for my own goodbye, and I just couldn't watch him say bye to his parents. I just turned around and looked at my car and paced back and forth with a tear tears running down my face. We got in the car and I think he asked, "are you crying?" Knowing me, I told him no, and he called me a liar and said, "I know you're crying!" (Side note: even when he's deployed, half a world away, he can tell when I'm crying. He will ask me if I'm crying and I always tell him no and he always calls me out on it!)


Somehow it was understood that I was taking him to the airport. I remember I drove to the airport. We held hands the whole way there. I think I started crying shortly before we got to the airport, but I had been been getting all teary-eyed the whole morning. I just was able to make it stop, but I couldn't this time. I asked if I could come in with him, and he said yes. I remember I only had like a dollar cash on me and realized that probably wasn't enough to cover parking. He gave me $5 and told me that would cover the parking. (I kept that $5 bill from him. It's still in my wallet to this day). We checked him in and I was already crying. I don't think I went up to the counter with him because that just made it more real. I've said this before, but I really wish that he were wearing his ACU's when we are parting ways. I cry like such an ugly person...my nose is runny, and bright red, my eyes are red and puffy...there's no mistaking it. I wish I was a graceful crier, but I'm not. People probably thought I was a crazy who'd never said bye before. At least if he was wearing his uniform, they'd have an idea why I was crying so hard. Instead, we just looked like 2 civilians. It was a fairly quick good bye. We didn't hang out at the airport for too long after checking him in. I think once I got in the car was when I really lost it. This is when I was crying so uncontrollably hard. He had called me a little time later before he actually took off and said, "are you ok?" Again, I lied to him and told him I was OK. (To clarify, I'm not a habitual liar, I just like to appear to him that I'm much stronger emotionally than I really am. He knows better though, but I still do it). He spent that night in a hotel in Atlanta. We talked on the phone and he said he had contemplated flying me down there for the night just for one last night together. (This leave, I've already decided that I'll be going with since I'm guessing he'll be flying out of Atlanta again).

I made the drive home successfully and took a short nap. I still had to babysit and I was so completely emotionally exhausted. That evening, I went over to the girls house to babysit them, and I remember being in the bathroom with the girls (we were playing hide and seek and one was in the bathtub) and I was on my cell phone talking to my friend. She asked how the "see you later" went and I started crying just thinking about it and telling her about it. When I got off the phone, the younger girl who was probably 5 at the time said to me, "why are you sad, Stacy?" And I explained to her that Seth had to leave and he wouldn't be home for a long long time and I was going to miss him a lot. She said, "do you want a hug?" It was so sweet....a little 5 year old was consoling a very, very sad 24 year old. Then she told her older sister why I was so sad and why she was hugging me. I love these girls so much. Even now, after Seth leaves, they'll call me a few days later and just check to see how I'm doing.

Anyways, the whole point of this blog which got much longer than I intended (sorry!) was to say that I'm thankful that his parents let me take him to the airport that first time. I'm thankful that they didn't insist they take him, or that they come with me, or that I not even go with. I'm glad they just somehow understood it was something I needed to do...alone...and they let me do it. We've had a few more good byes at the airports and it's always been my responsibility to take him.

So... thank you future parent in laws. I honestly do appreciate your understanding!

Heartbreak Warfare

You know how when you hear a certain song or smell a certain smell, it takes you back to a certain place and time and memory? I absolutely love love love moments when this happens.

I just heard John Mayer’s Heartbreak Warfare song and it took me back to March 9, 2010, sitting on the Northwest airplane in Frankfurt, Germany. We had just had our “good bye” in person, and I was getting settled into my seat. They had Northwest Radio playing, and this is one of the songs that was playing. Ironic that the title of the song is “heartbreak warfare,” as I had just said goodbye to the love of my life, my heart was breaking (it was literally hurting), and he was getting ready to go off to war in less than a month. I pulled out my vacation journal to write in it, and guess who had wrote me a sweet little message, unbeknownst to me. I don't know how he does it, but he's really good like that. So there I was, bawling my eyes out on the plane, reading what he wrote me, listening to Heartbreak Warfare.

The actual lyrics don’t pertain to our situation, but the title of it surely does.

It’s just one of those songs that no matter where I’m at, or what I’m doing, when I hear it, I will think of that one day.

My "deployment donut" and Our Telephone "good-bye"

I ran across the deployment donut while reading another military wives blog, and after searching online for pretty much eternity, I couldn’t find a downloadable version. So I emailed this lady and asked her to send me the Excel document, and I could specify it to my/our dates. I enjoy my donut. Sometimes I like my donut with a warm cup of coffee (ok, that’s a lie, I don’t actually drink coffee, but generally donuts go with coffee, so I said it). Mostly I enjoy my donut with water. Either way, I enjoy it just the same, and I like the donut graph to show that the “done” part of the donut is getting bigger and the “to go” part is getting smaller. (I would like to include a picture of my deployment donut, but I haven't learned that part yet. I'll do this when my donut is, like, half eaten).


According to my “Deployment Donut,” as of right now, the deployment is 23% done!! That means it’s almost a whole ¼ over with! Almost 3 months down, 9 months to go! I can’t believe it, yet I can believe it. It seems like just yesterday that I got the last phone call from his German room, saying this was it.


See, his duty station was in Germany and I’m currently in Michigan. Yes, I was in Michigan when he deployed. That makes me feel horrible to say, and really, really unsupportive, but maybe it was best that I was here and he was there. Maybe it was “easier” to say “see you later” over the phone that it is in person. Granted, we had our “good bye” in person about a month before he actually left. I went to visit him in Germany for 10 bittersweet yet perfect days. Anyways, I’ll never forget that phone call. It actually makes me teary eyed to just think about it. Not one to violate OPSEC, he couldn’t tell me the exact date that he was deploying, or the time he would be leaving that day. He gave me a window of 3 days, and luckily, the day he left fell on a weekend. I would not have been able to emotionally handle it if it was a work day.


It was Saturday night at about 9:30 PM my time and early morning Sunday his time. I was watching TV, dreading this phone call. I had been crying all afternoon and evening (oh hell, let’s be honest, I had been crying the days leading up to this), anxiously awaiting his phone call. I was in my pajamas already. I was curled up on the couch, with my blankie and in my camouflage Snuggie (which his parents had imprinted with “Army Strong – Stacy” for Christmas) just waiting for my cell phone to ring, with his oh-so-familiar ring tone of crickets, and water and nature-y sounds. At 9:38 PM, it rang and I knew this was “the call.” I hesitated for a moment before answering it. In a way, I didn’t want to answer it, somewhat in denial. I took a deep breath and tried to hide that little thing in my voice that indicated that I’d been crying. I can’t fool him though, he always knows. I think after I said hello to him, my first words were, “so this is it?” He said, “this is it.” We only talked for 5 minutes. This was IT. This deployment was finally real, and he was really deploying. I don’t remember much of what was said in those 5 minutes, but I do remember asking him if he was ready, and if he was excited. I know that sounds weird to ask if he’s excited about a deployment, but he was generally excited for this. (Or maybe he actually was more nervous than he appeared, but for my sake, he came off as strong and ready to go). He wasn’t excited to be “leaving” me, but he was excited to get back in deployment mode. I’ve never held this against him (nor will I ever), and in a weird way, I would rather he be excited to deploy, than be scared shitless and nervous about going away to The ‘Stan (as we affectionately call it) for a whopping 12 months. Since we met, I’ve known that he doesn’t get excited for big things until the day of the event (such as, when he was coming home, he wasn’t excited the days leading up to it, but the day he was able to come home, then it finally sunk in that he was coming home and he’d get excited then. Me on the other hand, I get excited about a month in advance and I ask lots of questions. That’s another blog for another day though). So anyways, I was bawling the whole 5 minutes. I remember when he called, I went immediately to my bed. Because of the time difference, sometimes we would go to bed “together” and for some reason, I hopefully thought this was one of those times, even though I knew he was getting ready to leave for the day, for the year. Again, I was in denial. He’d always call me when he was in bed for the night, and I wanted to go to bed “with him” one more time.


I remember telling him to be safe, to come home to me, I love him and to “have fun.” Again, that’s probably a weird thing to say as my future husband went off to war, but he chuckled at it, and told me he’d be safe, he’d come home to me, he loved me too, he’d call me when he gets the chance. I am pretty sure I said, "see you later" instead of "good bye" too. When I cry, I realllllly cry. I sobbed myself to sleep that night, and the nights following it. I remember telling him that I wished I could be there for him, but then we both agreed maybe it would be a little harder if I was there sobbing in person.


Not much was said in those 5 minutes. What is there to say when the person you love the most is about to go away to a war zone for the next 12 months and you have no idea what to expect for the year? Not much.