ZOMG. Are we done yet?

So the house is now 95% finished (roughly... that may or may not be a bit of an exaggeration designed to make me feel better) thanks in large part to my awesome Mom's help. But as I sit here at my shiny new desk in my awesome living room (I will post photos for the more curious of the lot)... I feel bummed when I think I should be excited. We are back in the home stretch, again, and I think I just feel like none of this is what is should be until he gets home, none of this is worth getting excited over until he's here. Does that make any sense?

I'm not weepy or sad about it... I'm past that, but I am just ready to be done with it. I've been ready for months and months and months now. I'm exhausted and weary of it all at this point. We hit the "home stretch" 2 or 3 weeks ago and then got word of an extension of sorts. So I guess that has made me feel like we aren't making any forward progress on this deployment and that, for lack of a better term, sucks. Forward progress is all you've got to keep you going, am I right? I'm tired of folks saying "So close now!" because in no other world is this amount of time apart, even just what time we have left, considered a short time to be apart. I hate that. I hate that this is "nothing" in light of what we've already done. No one else would think 5-ish* weeks is a short time to be away from your husband. They just wouldn't. Don't get me started on the other 11 months.

But I digress. I guess what I am trying to say is that, like most of this deployment, this stage doesn't feel anything like I thought it would. I thought this is when I would start to get excited. I thought the nesting would keep me upbeat. I thought living back on Post would make it feel more real, closer. I thought logging 11 months of this would make the last bit feel like a walk in the park. Newsflash: Not a one of these things makes it any better, any easier, or any less sucky. The only remedy to this malaise (other than more cowbell, obvs) is Swiss coming home, safe and sound.

I miss my husband. I am over worrying about him. I am over a 15 minute phone call as our only means of communication. I am over e-mail correspondence. I want him home already. I want him to get to know Fletcher. I want him to see the new digs and all the cool stuff I got us for it. I want to be able to call him, whenever I feel like it. I want to have face-to-face conversations with him. I want to hold his hand and do things together. I want to curl up with him on the couch- god, do you know how long it's been since we've done that? I want to cook for two, I want to see his boots in the hallway, I want to have ACUs in the laundry, I want to tuck in next to him in the middle of the night. I don't want to be flying solo anymore, its been too long.

Anyway, that's where my head is at. I'm most definitely in the "put your head down and just keep going" mode, and I know there is a HUGE payoff waiting for me in the weeks/month+ ahead. It just feels like our pace is on par with molasses on a cold Minnesota day. Trust me, its S-L-O-W.

But hey, today I get to go buy a bed for the guest room (the PX is having a sale!) and finish putting together our bathroom (Good Maude I have a lot of cosmetic/lotiony things!) and my studio. We FINALLY found the paintbrushes in the 5th to last box we opened and I bought a boatload of good acrylics with my birfday money from my parents (woot!). So the painting will begin next week when my Mom heads back to winter and home (sad). Have a great day y'all!

*Obvs OPSEC is at play here. That isn't the real number. I'm totally lying to you. Still like me?

Tinderbox.

Can I just say that this is probably the single worst week ever for me to have PMS? I mean, Christmas without Swiss, moving 1,200 miles from my family, 20 hours in a car with a dog, relocating to a new place where we don't technically have an address yet. I am an emotional tinderbox right now.

And I am so over it.

I want to be excited, not sad. I want to be giddy, not filled with trepidation and worry. I want to have my cake and eat it too... and that just ain't gonna happen. I am an emotional wreck waiting to happen. I feel like I am one sad commercial, one sappy song, one loaded moment away from a total emotional collapse. I fear the epic meltdown that will likely accompany driving away from my family, straight towards an empty house in a place where I know no one and Swiss isn't due to return for a month or maybe longer. This isn't me. This isn't how I roll. I am strong and am usually able to keep it together. This deployment has put me through the wringer and I didn't fall apart. So why do I feel like I'm about to do just that now?

Maybe this is all a part of the last month & change of a deployment. My tolerance for the bullshit that goes along with deployments is now nil. My patience for this to be over is non-existent. My ability to shoulder the emotional weight is maxed out. And worst of all, I don't want to hold this all in until Swiss gets home. I don't want to do a year's worth of emotional downloading in one fell swoop when he gets home. But I don't know how else to deal with everything that is maniacally swirling through my nugget and piling up in the corners of my mind. I don't want to sweep it under the rug, lock it away and not deal with it- I fear that would leave me jaded and bitter and a more emotionally detached person than I am comfortable being.

The other thing is this: I finally feel like I am giving up my life for the Army. All along I never really felt that way. More than anything I was just following Swiss wherever the Army sent us because that meant we got a life together again, it meant we could be 'normal'. I was always able to focus on that, on the good, the new, the exciting. Now that I am about to drive 1,200 miles away from my family, my friends, my normal and my life... I resent it. I think I am actually angry about it. I hate that I won't be able to go to Summerfest with Beth in July, that I won't get to go fishing and hunting on the Mississippi with my Dad this spring. I hate that I won't be able to see the ones I care about with just a short jaunt in the car. I hate that I don't get to try the new menu items at my favorite restaurant or go with Valerie to more wine tastings there. I hate that I won't get to go to lunch with my Mom and her best friend. I hate that I am going to miss out on so many parts of the life I built. Now, I understand the give and take here. I understand that while I am giving up all of that, I get to live a normal life under the same roof with my husband. That isn't small potatoes by any measure. But I guess I am just bitter that in order to have that, I have to give up everything else.

Do any of you have tips for how to deal with these parts of PCS-ing and reintegration? How to not be bitter about rearranging you whole life for the Army? How to not completely overwhelm your spouse but still manage to deal with the crap you've (both) been through? And one more thing: Is all this normal??? Am I off my rocker? I don't think I could handle being insane too...

Funkytown.

This part where I miss my husband so much it hurts and can't stand the thought of another day where my life isn't my own again... the part where I don't have a home, don't have freedom, don't have my (or our) normal... the part where I live by someone else's rules, where I feel like a teenager in my parents home, where I just want my life back... I hate it.

I want this to be over. I want to feel normal again. I want my life back. I want Swiss back.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately- I'm in a funk and rather than bore you all to death with my funkified drivel, I've been keeping quiet. Hope you are all doing well and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Ready.

I am ready for Swiss to be home. And not just R&R home. Really home.
I am ready to not be a long-distance commuter.
I am ready to have a home again. Not the graciousness of someone else's home. Our own.
I am ready to get on with life. Not just the stuff I have planned in the mean time while I'm waiting for our life to begin again.
I am ready to stop worrying and fretting and praying to a God I'm at odds with.
I'm ready for my husband to be safe and sound and in the same zip code.
I am ready to feel like myself again. But of course that requires Swiss and less fretting.
I am, in short, ready for this deployment to be over with.

Rarely has this deployment, on its own and without the help of house drama or kid drama or whatever, felt this weighty. Rarely has it, alone, been such an overwhelming suck of my energy, positivity, enthusiasm and self. Maybe it is because the past week has gone so slowly. Maybe because all of the pending travel has upped my anxiety and worry. Maybe because we've been doing this for too damned long. I don't know.

Either way. I am ready to be done with all of this.