The Loss of Everything (A Retrospective)

This blog up until now has been a look forward.  In an attempt to catch everything up to today, in this post I will take a look back.

In 2007, I met the Marine and my life changed for the better.  We began dating in October, but by February the next year the distance of our relationship had taken it's toll on me.  I lost him for the first time.

In 2009, I met the Soldier.  We didn't so much decide to start a life together, as much as our lives just kind of crashed into each other and became one.  We got married in October and December of that year.  Our beautiful baby girl was born in May 2010.

In June of 2011, my life took a dramatic turn.  The Marine and I, both on vacation in Vegas, met up for the first time in years.  And I realized that I missed him.  And we began down the slippery slope of reconnecting and slammed into the ground in a relationship...

In July of that year I got to see The Marine on my birthday.  I was down visiting an old friend near where he lived.  My mom had asked me if I was going down to see him.  The honest truth was no.  But that didn't stop it from happening.  And I quickly began falling for a man who used to be my boyfriend but was not my husband.  And we sat together on the street and I poured my heart out.  And he told me things like "there's no one else."  And the next day I met him to apologize and tell him that we needed to clarify some things and make some decisions.  And I was under the impression that he knew what I wanted.  What I had always wanted.  I thought he wanted it too.

But that didn't stop him from taking someone else to his Marine Corps Ball that November.  A "friend."  A girl that he would have dated if he'd had the chance.  And while I was lying in bed alone at my parents' house that night, writing a letter to him, he was at the ball, kissing her.  And he lied about it.  And every time she came up, he lied again.  And when he was finally coming clean about the lie he said he did it because he didn't want me to leave him.  And the thing is if he had just told me about it then, I wouldn't have.  It wouldn't have been a question.  Our situation was difficult and we were both still trying to figure it out and we were sure to make mistakes.  But the fact that he lied to me about it, about her, for over a year was pretty devastating.  And yet still it was something we overcame.

Before he left on his deployment in May 2012, I sent The Marine two 5050 Cord Bracelets.  A matching set of Woodland MARPAT bracelets, the smaller one with purple trim.  I wanted something that was just for us, that only meant something to us two.  Something to wear while he was gone, while I was waiting for the day I had his hand in mine instead of a 5050 cord bracelet on my wrist.  And I enclosed a card on which I had written a quote: "In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged."  ~Hans Nouwens 

And I imagined us together, with our matching bracelets, finally getting to hold each other when he got home.  And it made me happy to think I was doing something to show him how much he meant to me. Something to take with him to remind him of my love.

And he gave it to her.

Did you hear me?  I said, he gave it to HER.

I managed to get a phone call in in March during a trip to Target.  And I walked around that store like a zombie for an hour on the phone, while he told me that he knew that she wanted him in her life.  And he said "I'm sure you've seen the pictures on Facebook," which of course I had, but had been telling myself they didn't mean anything because they were just friends.  By the time we got off the phone, I had no idea whether or not he wanted to be with me anymore, and I couldn't breathe.  He made it sound like he cared about me, but he wanted to see if this other thing would work out first.  I barely managed to get to my car before I was in tears.  And I had to get on the phone and call him back.  And I was clear, my marriage to The Soldier was over, and I believed my future was with The Marine, and I thought I was going to be the girl waiting for him when he got back from his deployment.  And he said, "Let's keep going."  And I told him that he was not allowed to say that to me unless he meant it.  Unless he was absolutely sure that he wanted to be with me at least as much as I wanted to be with him.  And he said yes.

The Marine was gone for 8 long months.  We even stole away for a day together on the beach before, and I wiped his tears and told him, we had no reason to be sad, but a lot of reasons to be happy now.  And I missed him everyday.  We emailed, Skyped, and IMed on Facebook.  Every time he would say something like "we need to talk" or "I have something to tell you," my chest would get tight and I would brace myself to hear him say he wanted her instead.  I was constantly panicking, worried that I was going to hear news that never came.  Until a couple months after he got home.  He had a few drinks and called me on the phone.  He was audibly upset and I was once again thinking the worst.  And then the bomb dropped.  He had kissed her, he had lied, and he was so sorry.  And he said he was afraid that I was going to stay with The Soldier and that he would end up with a broken heart again.  And I told him again how that was not possible.  My life and my future were with The Marine.  But with The Soldier being deployed now, things were at a temporary standstill.  And still I took a deep breath, and I told him we were ok.  We would get through this.

I got to see him a couple nights when I was on vacation with my mom and cousin.  We hung out with our friends, we watched a movie.  We got to actually hold each other in our arms.  And I finally felt enough relief to broach the subject.  It wasn't a fight.  Not in the way most couples fight.  But it was the closest thing I had had to a disagreement with this man the entire time I had known him.  There was yelling and crying and it was so strange to be engaging that way with him.  So when he dropped me off the night before I was leaving, it didn't feel right at all.  It felt as if we were just left hanging in the middle of a discussion.  We covered the "what happened" but we never made it to the "what happens next."  And the next day I was on the road driving home, and he took the day off of work, and it was an off day for us both.  I knew that if we left it at that, we would not make it.  If our relationship was going to continue, we'd have to finish the discussion.

And we met in the middle.  Each of us going exactly the distance we needed to get to each other.  And there was more yelling and crying, but there were tears of love and desperation, not just hurt.  And eventually there were tears of relief.  And we cried and we held each other, and we committed to each other to move forward.  With honesty, forgiveness and love.  And I drove away the next day feeling confident in our love for each other.  I felt like we had finally bridged the gap we both had been afraid to cross.  We went there to prove to each other that we were exactly where we wanted to be.  Together.

About a month later I found out suddenly that The Soldier would be coming home early.  I wasn't expecting him until the end of the summer, so I was pretty shocked.  I'd heard of troops coming home four months later than expected, but never four months earlier.  I wasn't ready to address the decisions that had been made yet, I'd thought I was going to have a lot more time.  But the Army makes the rules and the schedule, and I've learned by now that things rarely happen when you're ready for them.  So I told The Marine I was going to take a step back.  I was already preparing myself for darkness so I wasn't talking to my sisters or friends anymore.  I was gearing up for battle and I knew I had to do it alone.

We were supposed to visit for two weeks.  Two weeks and then I would be back at my parents and able to explain everything to The Marine.  But when The Soldier got back he was different.  He said a lot of things that I had waited our whole marriage to hear and he confused me.  I thought for a minute that we might be able to work things out.  I thought that maybe we just needed to try again, after the real break that the deployment had given us.  But before the end of our two week stay at the cabin on the lake, I knew that everything was exactly the same as it had always been.  There would be no saving us now.  But we had the Baby to think about and also only one car with us, so we had to plan carefully how to get his truck to him.  We had agreed that school was going to be a priority, that I would get help from him to be able to go back.  And The Soldier was only going to be fulfilling his current contract and that would be up in January 2013.  So it made sense that the baby and I could stay there while I went to school.  It would take me about 9 months or so but I was have him to help me with our daughter so I wouldn't have to balance a job, school, childcare and bills.  So we decided to find a small apartment that we would share.  I would still need to go back to retrieve our belongings from the storage unit and I figured that would give me the opportunity to explain it all to The Marine.  That we finally had a timeline, a light at the end of the tunnel.  And then the Army threw us another curveball.

The Soldier came down on his dream orders.  Orders that would send him to the desert to be an instructor in the area of his MOS.  He would finally be doing something he cared about again.  And his plans to get out changed.  Which was great for him, I totally supported it.  Except that the move would land right in the middle of any program I started.  We wouldn't stay long enough for me to finish one in the rain, and we wouldn't be gone soon enough for me to start one in the sun.  And The Soldier brushed off my concerns telling me that I would just have to wait a year for school.  He had no interest in working with me to find a solution.  So I brought up the idea of the baby and I staying with my parents so I could go to a school there.  It meant a change of plans, but if it meant I got to start school sooner rather than later it seemed like a good idea to me.  I couldn't think long term any more, I had to focus on the right now.  I had just gotten him to consider the idea when life jumped in.  We woke up one morning early in June in the apartment we had just rented to a burst pipe in our ceiling and an inch of standing water in our kitchen.  And the apartment complex fought us the whole way from that moment.  We are technically still involved in a legal battle with them.  So that back-burnered my plans to return home right away.  We had to deal with moving out, finding a new place, moving in and trying to get our money back from the original complex.  And I didn't realize it, but the stress was wearing on me.  Not talking to The Marine was hard, and having one of my very best friends pregnant with high-risk twins, and having a very complicated pregnancy was difficult, but the biggest struggle was keeping my spirits up.  I didn't realize that I was slipping back into a depression and that I was slowly shutting myself off.  Being there was supposed to be so temporary, but it felt like forces were working against me to keep me there longer.  I'm not sure I even realized all of the factors that had contributed to it by the time I recognized the depression.  But that's how it was before.  Slowly, you stop contacting your friends and family, because you have less and less good things to say, and you struggle to find the joy in their happiness because you cannot find your own.  Then you start to feel so bogged down by the loneliness that all of your energy goes into the things you have to do, and leave you no energy for anything you might want to do.  Even when I hadn't got up off the couch for myself in weeks, I still had to feed and take care of my little girl.  But that was all I did.

And then the third strike came.  While looking on Facebook, The Marine had changed his profile picture.  No longer was he standing with his feet shoulder width apart and a rifle in his hands.  Now he was seated with his arm around the girl next to him and smile on his face.  Her hair was back and she had devastatingly blue eyes.  They both wore hoodies and they seemed happy.  Happy.  And I had no idea what was going on.

The next weekend I left for a girls weekend.  I had been numb for a few days now, but when I got to my friend's house I put on a smile and made small talk with her husband while we waited for her to get back from the store.  When she offered me a margarita at 11:30 am I was relieved I wouldn't have to wait any longer for a drink.  My girls were the perfect distraction.  We played drinking games and did jello shots, some of us jumped in the ocean together.  One of us even fell out of the shower, and it wasn't even me.  But I managed to wake up early in the morning and write an email combined of the hurt, anger and most of all the betrayal I was feeling.  It was a slap in the face to forgive someone so many times and have them turn their back without even an explanation.  And very little effort.

Three words pierced through me with the force of lightning: Yes, it's over.  He told me he was tired of waiting.  And he was happy now.  And the pain spread from my heart, to my head, to my stomach.  For three days I stayed in bed, not eating, barely breathing.  One minute I would be tired and numb, and the next I would be sobbing in tears, wide awake and in agony.  I'm not even sure now without looking back at the text messages that I exchanged with my family and friends, how decisions were made or the sequence of events.  Things are a little blurry still, but the decision was made and the process was started.

My mom drove up to get me and the baby.  Before I left I got to visit my friend and one of the twins in the NICU and give her snuggles and tell my friend my plan.  She seemed really relieved.  She had been there through it all and is one of my first friends from when we moved.  She told me that my eyes looked excited and animated again.  She was always able to tell when I was going through a rough time.  I'm so happy to have her support.

But my biggest support is coming from my family.  My family that I was born with, and a family that I have been blessed with to pick up along the way.  One of my very dear friends has been a tremendous help.  Her mother and father are taking the Baby and I in so that I can find a job and start school.  Her mom happens to run a daycare so I have someone I trust looking after my little girl while I try to make a better life for us.  I start school on August 19th and I couldn't be more excited.  And getting to be close two two of my very best friends again for the first time in years feels like exactly what I need right now.  The three of us are all in very different places in our lives, but they are all special for different reasons and I cannot wait to bring them together again!

So I'm here soaking up my family while I can.  I've got my birthday to celebrate and some good friends to see.  And while I'm here I'm sorting and boxing and packing.  And after I take The Soldier's truck to him and leave some things that I will eventually need brought to me, my baby girl and I will be starting out on a new adventure.  Starting fresh and making a change.  We will travel through six states until I get to our new, temporary home...

Colorado Springs, here we come!




Holding On

The Picture

That didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.

Earlier today I had been trying to locate the various things I had collected during my relationship with The Marine.  I kept stumbling upon things that would remind me of him and decided to make a mental catalog of it all so I could box it up and keep that from happening.  I located a few items but could not find the framed photograph that he had given me for Christmas.  I was almost relieved that I wouldn’t have to see it yet.

Until, just now when I was looking for my purple pen, I opened a box I hadn’t looked hard enough in and found the frame under my journals.  And it was kind of like having a sack of rocks thrown at my stomach.  I felt the pain in my heart when I looked at the smiling couple, but it didn’t destroy me the way I probably suspected it would.  I had to put it away quickly and change tasks right away, but the tears didn’t last long and I was able to calmly work through it.  But it made me see that I was right and I should probably put away all the things that were special to me and The Marine.

Now to find a big enough box.

Holding On