One thing, though, that I know we can all do to help - personal contact. It's not really that much - a phone call, an email, a letter, a package. Tell your friend, your relative, your loved one that you still miss them, you're still waiting for them, you'll still be here for them when they come back home. They need to know that, need to hear that more than ever. It's difficult when you're "over here", especially when you're the HomeFront Spouse, trying to keep a life going that formerly took two of you to make it work...but even five minutes here and there makes a difference. It lets them know that hey, they haven't been forgotten, that you do still love them, that you are still waiting for them.
I know how hard it is to tell my husband the little things about my day. Our phone conversations generally go something like, "yeah, my day was OK. Busy. Yours?" "yeah, about the same." "Well...um...love you. See you in a couple days." "Yup, love you too. See ya." How hard would it be to tell him "Hey, I had a meeting today and this happened and then I saw a hawk on the way home, and the dog slobbered on my feet again today." Just as easy, right? And it makes it more "homey", more personal.
So why don't I do it? I don't know. Sometimes I just don't think of it. Sometimes I'm just so damn lonely for him that I can't think of anything beyond "I want to be with you and I want it NOW."
Maybe I'm afraid he'll get bored and tell me that I said the same thing yesterday. Maybe I'm hoping i can be brilliant and wonderful, to impress him, to make sure I'm still going to be someone he wants to have come home, and when that doesn't happen, I don't want to admit that Mrs. Brilliant And Wonderful is really just covered in dog slobber.
I dunno.
I do know that I'm gonna do the best I can to make sure that the people I know who are overseas get to hear about their families as often as I can tell them something - even if it's just about homework. Even if it's nothing more than, "Hey, your stupid dog slobbered on your kids last night..."
Because there's something right with the world if the worst I can report is All About Dog Slobber.
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While not while we were married, my husband and I had a 3 year long distance relationship while he was in seminary and I was at college.
ReplyDeleteThere is something so completely "off" about being separated from the one that you are most intimate with. You are completely in love, but you have the social life of someone who just broke up. You have no one to enjoy the hawks and the flowers and the mundanities with, as well as share the frustrations with that seem so trivial when you have to fill up the precious time you have to talk - but wouldn't think twice about sharing them if you were right there. In fact, you WOULD be sharing the experience together. It's just not meant to be that way. God bless you while you are dealing with all of it, and may He provide other options for you soon!
Well...yeah. Exactly. That's it exactly.
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