Confessions of an Army Brat.

Today I realized a few things...it was made very clear by the way I started to behave, and I really didn't like it. So I figured this was the best place to get it all out. I'm no good talking to people, but I can write, so that's what I'll do.

So the last few weeks since my guy left for Afghanistan have been a real rollercoaster. This is my first real tour as a military girlfriend, and I wasn't sure what I was expecting...but it wasn't this. I've been through plenty of deployments with my parents, so how could this one be any different? Guess I'm finding out. I was expecting to just 'suck it up' and do as I was 'trained' to do...be strong, be proud...and I am, for the most part. But honestly, this is harder than I expected. Some days are so easy, and then some other days I just totally lose myself in it. There really is no way to prepare for any of this. You just do it.


I've been raised by the military...and hardened by it just as well. Crying is a weakness...and even more so if someone sees me break down. These things I've been brought up to believe so as not to get hurt. But I'm starting to think it's more damaging not to let it out than anything. It's a pain I can no longer stand to face alone. I've become so hardened by it, that I hide myself with sarcasm and bitter anger. Today I snapped and all because I can't reach out to him (or anyone close to me) over something that will turn out to be small and insignificant. I don't know what to say to anyone; I don't know what to write to him. As a writer, I am rarely at a loss for words, and each time I've sat down to write him a letter...I can't do it. Since the day he left, my mind and emotions have gone through a million different things that now leave me feeling completely crazy. I've even reached that low point - today - where I even believed he's lied to me and doesn't give a damn about me, and I know none of that is true. Each time I've felt down like this, I've listened to the one song that reminds me how I feel for him, and everything he's done for me and helped me get through. But I'm sad, because he doesn't even know that this has been "our" song.

I only wonder if there are others out there who've reached this point. How many of us have been trained to be what everyone seems to think I am, just because I don't show my pain? I don't show fear, I don't cry - not in front of anyone, anyway. But because of this, I rarely smile. Most of the time, I'm alone with my thoughts, and I prefer it that way. I can't bear the thought of showing someone, not even my boyfriend, how I really feel. I am absolutely terrified of "what could be." What's going to happen to him? Where is he? What's he doing? What's on his mind? Is he hurting the way I am? And worst of all...is he ever going to share any of this with me? The girl everyone has always seen in me, is starting to fall apart and question everything. Maybe I'm not so strong after all...maybe I'm just hardened.

Every second, of every day is a thought of him. The things my family has done and seen just to make sure I don't have to. My entire life, I've dedicated to a love of something that never returns it. But god help anyone who questions this love. I've never been more proud of anything. I wouldn't trade this life for the world. But why do I have to hold off being a real human being for it all?

Before he left, I actually admitted something I've never told anyone before. I wondered if I was okay with him leaving, because that's all I've ever known. But really, I wasn't okay at all...for the first time in my life, I didn't want to handle it. I'm tired of having to tolerate being alone and being left all the time. I'm tired of shutting off everything I THINK I feel, because I'll never get a chance or enough time to show it. I'm tired of questioning everything he doesn't show me, and only ever being able to assume why. All this, so it doesn't "fuck up his tour."

Well each time I've heard those words, I've built a wall around it. Until the day came when he told me he too, was going overseas. So then I slowly started feeling a bitterness towards those words, and just lost it internally. Each time I hear them now, I want to scream at the person that "life doesn't stop just because they're going away!" WE are still here, WE are still living our lives (in Canada) and just because you're going to another country where things aren't so easy, that doesn't mean we can all just pretend life here isn't happening.

Because of this, I'm too afraid to say anything negative. I have NO IDEA what I can say to him anymore for fear of the "what if"? It makes me want to break down and cry, because..."what if" I never get to say these things? "What if" I never get to know the answers, to questions I need answers to? I feel broken and lost. I will cry it out with all my pain that no one who knows me, will EVER see, and then put my wall back up. Then go back out into the real world where people think I'm either a "bitch" or tough as hell for the things I've been brought up to live.

So is this really pure strength covering up all my fears and sadness, or is it a cold-hard, empty shell that's been drilled full of "emotional training" in place of the real human being he deserves to have love him? I just don't have the answers.