I have this plastered everywhere, because I just love the way it came out. I wrote it the night before my husband left for training in Virginia for 3 weeks. It’s just one line, but I couldn’t sleep that night, and this is what I did while I was writing. I was just giving him a kiss on his shoulder, and went to sleep.
“So I plant a kiss upon thy shoulder love, and bid thee sweet goodnight.”
I should be making the bed, honestly.
But instead, I’m staring out the window, watching the California pines that grow so far from home bend and sway. The sky’s a bright gray, not the bruise-like yellows and purples that usually hint the sky when it’s waiting for the rain. The rain is different here. It’s ocean rain, picking up salt and scent, and dropping it for miles.
The air isn’t quite electric yet. Doesn’t put that feeling in your skin, that feeling that alerts the blind that rain is coming.
And yet, I’m not thinking so much about the sky, or the air, or the smell of rain on asphalt. No matter how much I love it.
Instead, I’m thinking about what rain would do to your hair, how it would stand straight up after you put your fingers through it, and how light your eyes are even when the trees are muted green from the downpour.
Liquefied bullets make attempts to pierce the roof, and yet, it’s background noise when the symphony of breathing and heartbeat fills my ears.
And these are just the thoughts. I look forward to the reality when I hear you pull in, so loud and distracting.
I hope it rains soon.
It’s dark in here. The only light coming through the horizontal breaks in the blinds, cutting lines of incandesence across your face.
Your chest is bare, with only the brush of my fingers tracing unseen veins and sinews under your skin. Your breathing is soft and ragged, from sheer enjoyment and comfort.
Soft petals slide slowly open over dark hazelnut, somehow seeing past the pretenses of cheek and lip, and seeing electric pulses from synapse to axon and back again, forming words and that ever present bum-bum…bum-bum…that gets slightly erratic sometimes.
“God you’re so beautiful.”
The softest of your whispers that wrap me up like down blankets and warm tea. Almost like the comfort of a child. As much as I don’t want to, I believe it, every word that falls gracefully in my open palms like the trickles of a fountain.
I look at you and can’t help but believe it, that perfect sincerity that swells from you and burns deeper and deeper into me.
There is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, no alarm clock at 4am. Just now, resting my head on your shoulder, and feeling calloused but gentle fingers tracing symbols and lines on my back, warm trails of fire that cool as quickly and they arose.
A soft brush to my forehead. Softer than the highest thread count I could lay my head on.
And I turn, and take in every word you have to say, without saying a word at all.
I don’t know why, but the closer we get to my husband’s deployment, the worse my thoughts about it get. I really don’t know why either. I don’t think I did this the first time around. But this morning after he went to work, I was having the most MORBID thoughts ever. I was imagining myself standing at his funeral talking, I was picturing Marines in dress blues coming to my door to tell me the worst news of my entire life. It was so bad I almost started crying. I had to actually smack my forehead so that I would stop, and had to think to myself, he’s on his way to work, he’ll be home tonight. I was fine the first deployment. Why am I doing this now? Because I know what deployments are like? I know what kind of fear it is to wonder where the person you love the most is, and to have to tell myself all day long “no news is good news.”?
I have to tell myself to stop thinking like this. It’s awful, and it scares me. I remember having thoughts like these months before he deployed the first time, now that I sit here and think about it. Maybe I’m mentally preparing myself again? Facing the worst now instead of ignoring it, because I know that ignoring it until that day that he does have to say goodbye makes it that much worse to watch him leave. I just don’t want him to have to leave again. The Marine Corps thanks the wives and familes constantly for our support and strength. I wonder if they really know how painful it can be. And how strong we really are. We sit, and we wait. We live our lives, but our minds sometimes don’t. We crumble, we fall. We pick ourselves back up, help from our brothers or not. ;] I guess that’s true strength, when you can carry on when everyone else would think it’s okay if you fell apart.
I like to think now, after writing this, that it isn’t just my mind being morbid, or my heart being upset because deployment number two is coming up. But that my heart and mind know what we have to go through, and what it takes to get through it. And so I’m building up my defenses now I guess. Damnit, I’m a Marine Wife. And a BAMF at that.
But you want to know a secret?
Sometimes when I think about him having to deploy, I wish that I could switch places with him, because if anything were to happen (God forbid) he would be safe. Back here.
Desire has eyes that seek
another’s to get lost in.
Desire has ears,
that strain to hear the crescendo of laughter.
Electricity sparks wildfires in my eyes.
Paint the air with foreign words
and colors
of other lands.
I can light the air between us on fire.
Stain my shoulders with your lips.
The sensual and sentimental
blur into one-
Lying not so alone
in my kingdom
of fire and shadows.
My last post was a little depressing, I will admit that. But what woman has never gone through monthly bouts of BLAH days? =]
I’m much better. I was just so off. FOR NO REASON. This month has been bad as far as emotional rollercoaster is concerned. I feel bad for my husband though, because he has borne the brunt of it, even though I try and redirect it sometimes. I’ve just been frustrated, annoyed. Everything has set me off recently. I don’t know how to describe it. Since we moved, I’ve been more stressed about a lot of things, totally throwing off my cycle more than usual, and it’s never been normal. I have just taken a lot of things so personally, and it’s been driving my husband insane really. He tries so hard, just to make me smile, make me laugh. So I felt bad because I was just MLEH.
But now, I’m the way that I always have been, the way that I’m used to being. If that makes any sense. Going to the beach, the sunshine and the waves and the water always make me feel better. I always smile just driving to the beach. Going over the bridge to Emerald Isle the other day made me smile, and everything was all better. With the music on the radio, the sun coming down, my sunglasses on…That’s one of my favorite things in the world. Especially when it’s some of my favorite songs. Nothing can be bad then.
I want to feel like I can fly. And that’s the closest I can come with my feet on the ground. Hand out the window, cutting through the wind.
I don’t really know what’s up with me today, could be the weather, or something else, but I just feel odd. I just don’t feel like laughing, which is really strange for me. I just feel……weird. That’s the only way to explain it. That feeling that you get when you have had enough to eat, but still want to eat more anyway? Nothing you put on looks right or feels right? You can’t sit still, but yet at the same time, you don’t feel like doing anything?
For example: my husband just asked me if I wanted to go outside and help him work on his car. Normally, I would either tell him yes or no, but today I said no, and was thinking, “why do you have to go work on your car?” And he asked what was wrong, and I told him that I didn’t want to sit inside anymore today, even though I have been all day long, because it’s been cloudy and raining. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like going outside and sitting on the sidewalk bored out of my mind while he does something that he wants to do. Thrilling. I don’t mean to sound bitter. I really don’t. But I just feel BLAH. I guess I feel bitter, even though I don’t mean to be. So I haven’t said much today. I just kinda sit and watch. Not really sure why. I know that I’m in a crap ass mood, but I am not doing anything to correct it. *shrug* Guess it’s just going to be one of those days.
I’m still living at my husband’s duty station, and I’m finally feeling really settled. Sure, I still have days when I feel out of place, and lately those have been kind of frequent. But after talking about it, well, more like arguing about it, I feel better.
Today my friends back home participated in a martial arts tournament, and if I had been there, I would have had a really good chance of taking home a trophy. Not in the same thing that they did, but in weapons or forms, I would have had a chance. My really good friend took home a 1st place trophy. And as proud of him as I am, I can’t help but feel a little jealousy. How would I have done if I were there? I know that I made the choice, but I still can’t help but wonder, and be a little sad at the same time, you know? It’s a hard thing to get used to, missing something, and yet, loving someone so much that I will miss something else. I can’t let go of that patch that I wore there, that’s still on my gi in the closet. I’m not replacing it, by any means. I’m just adding something else. The ring that I wear is a permanent fixture, something that I could never live without. Sacrifices are real, and everyone makes them, big or small. I just hate to think that my husband feels badly because of the choice I made. Anytime that we get on the topic, he always apologizes profusely because in his words, “If it weren’t for me”…but if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have him in my life at all. I wouldn’t have the knowledge of love, and that the whole “give it all for the one you love” thing in novels really exists. You just have to look hard enough. Or like us, not look at all. I wouldn’t know what butterflies in my stomach felt like, wouldn’t know that light-headed feeling from being kissed. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be all that I am.
Things are incredibly different, and we are still trying to adjust to living together, being married, being a military family, and everything else that comes along with that life. I know how many wives think about a lot of the same things I do, and there are a lot of similar things that we all have to go through. But all it takes is communication, understanding, and above all, love, and you can get through anything.
Just as the title says, I’m starting to really feel the effects of married life. My husband and I have finally gotten into a real swing, a schedule of what we’re used to. After the move, things are a lot different. Married life, as to be expected, is much different than anything I have ever experienced with my husband.
The freedom of things is nice, but the responsibility that comes with is is much greater, also an obvious. Our relationship now, is far different than anything we’re used to. Usually we would see each other for a couple days once a month, maybe, usually every few months. And during that time, we would be around each other all the time, and never need anything else but just sitting together, holding each other, or anything else that we would not normally get to do. But now, now that I can turn my head and see him whenever I want, I take more advantage of the fact that he’s always here, which is not something I would have done before. Time is something that would never be taken for granted, and just looking at each other would never be taken for granted either. But he still looks at me and says that I’m beautiful, no matter how many times he’s looked at me that day. I can look at him thousands of times each day, and be melted to the core with the gaze he always gives me. I’m sure people will tell me that this kind of honeymoon stage will change, but why does it have to?
Why do we have to get into a rut, where we take full and complete advantage of just being with each other? Not that every married couple does that, but everyone gets into their set way of living. Yes, with us, we have something like that. He comes home, we spend time together, I make dinner, we spend more time together (he’s usually playing videogames and I’m on my computer) and then later we go to bed. I don’t want to lose that happiness of being able to reach out and touch my husband at night if I want to. I’ve waited long enough for it, so now, I will be damned if I don’t enjoy it. I guess that’s the way it goes if time is something that gets taken away from you a lot.
Yep, I’m 20 years old. Yep, I’m a married woman. And yep, I’m enjoying it, whether people will tell me that they think its stupid or not, that I’m so young and married. That’s a thing I’ve heard enough times to be used to it. My husband just always says that we were lucky enough to have found the one person we were meant to be with so early, so that we have even more time in our lives to spend together. I moved out of state to be with my husband. One of our friends said that I am crazy, and my husband is incredibly lucky. When I asked him why, and he said it was because I am willing to go anywhere and deal with anything to be with the man I love, and that makes my husband lucky, and me crazy.
Just makes me crazy enough to love a Marine.
Well, my husband came home, finally. I got to spend two night sleeping beside him, finally. And I can now call him my husband, finally. It still kind of catches me off guard, calling him my husband. Granted, I’ve been saying it to him for months now, but to everyone else, he’s just been my boyfriend or fiance. My dad refused to call him my fiance for the most part, up until last week when we got married.
My dad came to my blue belt test two weeks ago, and for the first time saw what I’m so passionate about in that place. For the first time, he saw what drives me every day to want to go and train. He saw it for the first time, and that was his last chance to see it for a while. Made me wish that he had taken better advantage of seeing that. But alas, it has passed.
Now I’m facing the end of my semester, and getting ready to get my finals done, and then withdraw from my college, so that I can move in with my husband in a whole other state, much like many other military wives do. Packing up my life in a truck, saying goodbye to all that I’ve known for the past 20 years, and saying goodbye to the things that I’ve only known for a short time, but things I’ve made part of me. Its scary. I can’t lie about that. But I have become more and more comfortable with the idea, because I know that I’ll be back here soon. The main thing that I hate to leave behind is martial arts, and my husband knows that. He knows what kind of passion I have for it, and knows that I want that for the rest of my life. But the choice between the two was placed before me, and I made my desicion, without hesitation or regret. Slight sadness, yes, but no regret. I would never give up the chance to be able to live with my husband, no matter what other things I have to sacrifice in order to do so. He asked for my heart, I gave it willingly. He asked for my hand, I gave it without hesitation. If he asked for my life, I would give it, without a second thought.
That is one thing that you always find in military relationships of any kind. Spending time together is something that we NEVER take advantage of, because of how little of it we get. We don’t know when the call will come for our husbands to go overseas, we don’t know when he’s going to have to go in the field for weeks on end. So that time we do have, we cherish it, and hold onto it with everything we possibly have. Not to say that women with husbands that are civilians don’t cherish every moment they have, but its different somehow. Yes, we made the choice to say yes to marrying our military men, but can you deny us that? We didn’t fall in love with them because of their jobs. We fell in love with the men behind the uniform, the name after the rank. The military doesn’t matter to us. All that matters is that love that we share everyday, even if it has to be shown through a phone call from half a world away.
