Friday and the I's

I'm glad it's almost Friday.  Because Friday means we are almost one week closer to the end of Jar's deployment.  T-336 days and counting. 

I have raged like no other this week.  I have been angry and unfair to Jar.  I don't like the way I act at all but somedays I feel powerless to do anything about it.  I feel guilty for acting like a baby.  I can't get it through my head that he is not neglecting me, he is just doing his job.  I am going through communication withdrawl.  I want to talk for longer than 5 minutes on Skype.  I am afraid he doesn't miss me, that I am pushing him away.  I feel very unimportant.  I am also about to throw my laptop out the window because it's getting close to being on it's last leg and acting strangly.  Random, yes, but it went along with the angry "I" theme.

On and off for years, I have been told by people that I'm selfish.  Truthfully, I never really believed it and just wrote it off to my being blond, naive, and occasionally quite oblivious to the things going on around me.  And then I started writing and that last paragraph came out.  The word "I" is used 14 times.  Yup, I think selfish sums that up pretty well.

Supposedly, people dealing with deployment have similar emotions to someone experiencing a traumatic loss.  Leading up to the deployment, many couples deal with trying to subconsciencely distance themselves from one another, using anger or general emotional distance. Check, we did that.  Next up, after one deploys and the other is left at home, there is usually a period of denial.  Check, right there with ya.

And guess what the next step is?  Anger and depression!  Yippee!

Though I may have been described as selfish on a couple occasions, I have never been what one might call an angry person.  In fact, I've been told by people that they generally enjoy my upbeat persona.  If anything, I am quiet and I always have a smile on my face.

And then the past few weeks I decided to turn into the Anti-Me.  Hulk-Me.  Dr. Jeckyl and Me-ster Hyde (if those last few words prove anything, it cements the fact that I am a nerd.  A selfish, angry nerd).

I thought I wouldn't get angry, after all, we had known this deployment was coming.  I thought I was prepared and knew what challenges I would face.  And once again, it has been proven to me that I don't know nearly as much as I thought I did. 

The good news is that the next step is the best.  Well, besides him coming home.  It is the empowering step, the one where you realize that you're ok, that he's ok, that your relationship is ok. 
And you go on with your life.  If I am anything right now, it is ready to go on with life and get back to normal.  And I'm sure Jar's looking forward to me getting there too :)


* I wrote this last night, and decided to give myself a day or two to calm down and reread it before I posted it.  So during lunch today, I read it again.  Though it's pretty bitter, it is what it is.  After thinking about it, I realized that even though being angry isn't necessarily the best route to go emotionally during a deployment, I shouldn't discount what I'm thinking just because I am not the one deployed.  I'm adjusting, and Jar is adjusting, and we're each doing it in different ways.  The most important thing is that we communicate that to each other rationally (i.e. not crazy angry like I have been) and we each consider what the other is going through.  That is hard to do sometimes, but it applies to every relationship, not just ours.