Pressure

Spring break is over, and finals are in a month.  Time is slowly marching by.  I still haven’t felt much like blogging.   I haven’t felt much like doing anything.   I’m ok, but the pressure of the deployment is starting to get to me.

Ever since Phil’s leave, I haven’t felt much like doing anything.  I mean, I still do what I need to, as far as my school work is concerned, but I haven’t felt much like doing much more.  It’s been really difficult to stay motivated to study and work out; although I still make myself do both.  I don’t know what my problem is, but I’m finding it harder and harder to keep it together.  This deployment is so emotionally exhausting that as time goes by, I’m finding that it takes so much more energy to just preserve my peace of mind.

I don’t know which is more difficult, the first half of the deployment or this second half.   The beginning of the deployment was difficult because it was so new.  I had no idea what to expect, and it was really difficult to adjust to.  I cried myself to sleep almost every night for the first few months.  Now that time has passed, I don’t cry nearly as often.  I’ve grown used to the ever-present sadness, loneliness, and anxiety that I’ve felt since the deployment began.  I’ve grown used to the ache in my heart that comes from Phil being in Afghanistan.  The pain is there every second of every day, but I’ve learned how to make it through most days without tears.  I don’t really know if that is a good thing or not.   

The pressure of the deployment never goes away.  It’s always there, no matter what I’m doing.  It’s exhausting.  When Phil was here on leave, that pressure was gone for two weeks.  It was great to be with him and not have to worry about him every day.  For those two weeks I felt like myself again.  It’s hard to explain, but I felt like I could actually really smile.   When he’s gone, I smile, but the pain in my heart is always there behind the smile.  When Phil was home, my smile was free of that pain. It was unrestrained. It was genuine.  That might not make sense, but I can’t think of another way to explain it.  Now that Phil is back overseas, that pressure is back, full force, and I’m finding that it’s taking so much more energy just to be ok. 

I miss Phil so much that when I think about him, I can almost feel his arms around me.  There are no words to explain how badly I want him to be here with me.  A few months does not sound like a long time, but it seems like forever right now.  I can’t wait to be in his arms again.  I can’t wait for him to be home and the pressure to be lifted.  I can’t wait to smile again.

I’ll be ok.  I just need to remember to pray for my strength and for my peace of mind.  Sometimes I pray so much for Phil that I forget to pray for myself.   God will get us through this deployment, so that we can continue our life together.