Friday Nights. (Day 147)

Oh how I hate Friday nights. It's funny how things change. When you're in high school, Friday nights are pretty much your entire world. Football games, dances, parties, etc. And maybe after high school you still count on Friday nights to make the week a little better. I used too. And then my Fridays became the day to wait. Or should I say, "hurry up and wait". That's when it all started. I worked hard all week at school, wore his sweatshirt when I missed him, and very impatiently waited for him to show up at my door in the late hours of Friday nights. It was always different, sometimes 11 o'clock and sometimes 2 in the morning. Sometimes I could stay awake until he got there and sometimes it just wasn't happening. Every 5 days for almost 3 months, it was the same Friday night.

Then, we got married. Most of the time, Friday nights were amazing because it meant not waking up at zero 5 to send him off to work. But sometimes Friday nights were more than that, it was the best dinner of the week, no bed time, and just us - Marine Corps not included for 2 days.

Now, to put it nicely, Friday nights are no fun. They suck. If he were home we probably wouldn't be doing anything too much different - just laying on the couch watching movies, enjoying each other. But Friday nights spent alone are painful. I sit and wonder what he's doing, which is never the same thing I am doing because my Friday night is his Saturday afternoon. It's just hard. Living close to base means my apartment complex is full of Marines, and civilians of course, who still enjoy their Friday night regardless of whether or not I am. And, if I haven't heard from him in awhile it makes it even harder to get through the weekend. The days just drag on.

It's crazy to think that we are almost 5 months through this deployment. It's even crazier to think about how "unreal" his homecoming seems. I miss him so much and I still cry every so often when the world seems to be working against me. It seems like the littlest things can set me off just because of how much I miss him. But, when I think about him coming home - I don't feel like he ever will. It's gotten to the point where I am used to missing him. I'm used to not feeling him, seeing him, touching him, knowing him. And I guess that's what the Marine Corps considers "in the groove". You still miss them just as much, you just get used to it. Missing him is an every day thing, it's part of my daily schedule to stop and think about him and now my brain doesn't know anything different. So I guess it's like when he left...It didn't feel like he was leaving until the bus pulled away and it won't feel like he's coming home until I'm in his arms. And I have to be okay with that. I have to be okay with being used to missing my husband. That is hard.