Filed under: "Utah", Bad Day, Camper, Deployment | Tags: Annoyed, Deployment
SO, I realize that I havent written in a while… and maybe its bcs I havent had anything to write about. Seriously. I get up every day and IM with Camper for hours, and then I get a letter or two from him, and then he calls and I get to spend an hour trying to come up with things to say. Maybe… maybe I was a horrible person but when the shit hit the fan I took the first door I could and exited stage left. Ok, the fact was that he was paranoid, needy and somewhat creepy, but thats not it… oh wait, that was ENTIRELY it!!
On hte other hand, I had been keeping in touch with Utah, and as if on cue, the second he heard about Camper and I getting together he threw a hissy fit and … then when he found out that we had parted ways he eventually admitted that while visiting his friend in Kuwait he gave her the special working over. And then told me that he wants to marry me. Still.
::sigh:: You have got to be kidding me. Why cant I have a normal relationship with someone who is actually in the UNITED STATES???? I mean crap!
Filed under: Bad Day, Camper, Deployment | Tags: Bad Day, Camper, Clearances, Deployment, Marbles
I couldnt sleep last night. I spent part of the night crying at the bar in one of those moments of full disclosure between two friends, and when I got home the words would not leave my head. Some of it was fueled by vodka and part of it, well, most of it was fueled by the conversation I had earlier that day. So there I was laying in bed, not sleeping and when i finally passed out from sheer exhaustion I was wrapped up in teh sweatshirt that still smells like Camper. What kept me awake and what made me cry had nothing to do with missing Camper, it was what my friend had to say abotu clearances and how things that I have had no controll over in life will now affect my current relationship.
I was born outside of this country, raised in a middle eastern country for 2 years before settling into a very comfortable life in a very comfortable area in NY. Im adopted. These are things that a person should be thankful for: to have never had to want for anything, to have been lucky enough to be adopted into a cultured family with strong religious ties in the community, to have a strong heritage. Yet, it is those things that in the end I cant get away from and in the eyes of the gov’t, it is these things that will prevent me from getting serious with Camper bcs of his security clearance. And I have to tell him.
My friend asked me how it felt from the other side. He understood the reasoning from where he stood but when I told him how it felt to be cruely judged for things out of my control, maybe he began to understand. Had I gotten arrested for criminal mischief or possession of a controlled substance, that I could understand. That was something in my life that at one point was in my control, that was a mistake I would have had to accept responsibility for, but being adopted? I got dealt a great hand, and yet because of it I know how happy a person can be, yet Im not allowed to be.
How do you tell someone that becsue you have maintained friendship with various foreign nationals that you are now suspect. You do what your career can handle, I know that, but on fragile footing will he risk everything just for the possibility of happiness? Doubtful. Im sure when I tell him that if we were to ever move forward that he would have to disclose our relationship, he will see the gravity of the situation, and he will most likely go. Yes, Im being negative. I have never seen this situation turn out for the good.
Filed under: Camper, Deployment, Good Day | Tags: "Utah", Camper, Deployment, Marbles, walking away
Ok, so I know what this looks like, I know this all seems so fast and all seems improbable, but in my life I have always had to allow for the possibility of greatness. This has caused some hard times, leading with your heart instead of your head is always a tricky undertaking, but it also brings great joy and millions upon millions of moments of absolute perfection. It becomes those moments that you hold onto, but eventually, when there is nothing else to add to that jar of memories and trinkets its those moments that begin to slowly fall away.
I cared for Utah, in most ways I still do, but there is a huge difference between responsibility and inability. It is an odd twist of fate that I just happened to meet Camper and we just happened to get so close and he just happened to be leaving. Utah had a choice, he could have stayed, he could have given his life in the states a chance, but in the end he took his contract with DRS and when he said good bye he literally never once looked back. He never turned his head or waved as he descended the escalator. The moment he picked up his bag and headed towards the gate he had mentally closed the door on his entire life here. I remember looking back at his mother and his sister, and they both wore the fatigued look of painful familiarity in their eyes, they were used to being left behind. They were used to saying good bye. They were used to this upended and uncertain future that Utah handed them, and it is these exact things that I have refused to accept. I have traveled the globe. I love new places and meeting new people and the solitude of feeling like you are standing at the edge of a great big world, but I also crave the feel of my roots. I crave my home.
I cannot tell you how Camper and I became so close so quick. While I have dated since Utah and I broke up I have remained guarded and anyone who ever threatened to get too close made me automatically pack up camp and run. I was in control. I said when and where and how much. And then I eventually said no and walked away. Thats how it always was, and for the most part there was safety in that, I never had to worry about getting my heart involved or hurt bcs in my eyes, my heart was already involved, my heart was already hurt. I was already surviving someone.
I dont want to survive someone. “Something” maybe. I can survive a deployment, but that was never it with Utah and I. It was us and every day was something else I was supposed to live through… and yes, I met Camper quickly, and yes… Im crazy about him. My walls fell the second he picked me up for our first date, it was something in the eyes, the way he handled himself, the confidence in which he spoke, the way out of the corner of my eye I would catch him watching me as I spoke while my body was facing away from him. I had slipped off my shoes, my feet were curled around my body, my hair was down around my body and my sunglasses were shading my eyes from giving away too many secrets, the way they tend to do. And I saw him, committing every word to memory and I knew that he was listening not to figure out what to say next but actually listening. And when neither of us had anymore words to say we watched the water and sighed as the sun played games across our skin. I felt like I had known him forever and while I wanted to learn everything there was about him I also never felt hurried. I was actually scared the first time I held his hand, the gesture so casual and yet so intimate. And so I began to fall.
Cartelli once called me a coward for not seeing the greatness in other opportunities, I never took risks in love, and while at the time he was trying to get me to come back to him and leave Utah Ive always wondered if he was right. Am I a coward for giving up the possibility of Utah for the assuringly solid bedrock of Camper? No, I think I would be a coward to follow a fools dream than to face the blaring reality. Maybe I am no better that Utah, whose name is not really that, maybe it was more that I liked the idea of him, he was a boyfriend on paper but a stranger in reality. And when Camper, whose name is not really that, came to me and said he wanted to build something not based on the physical but on the mental, I signed on the dotted line.
I need something I can count on. When Camper walked down that jetway he slowed several times to look back and smile. And I knew I was right. This was fact, not fiction.
Today is the second day he is gone and already I feel stronger. Already I know that this is going to be a quick 6 months. Right now Im smiling bcs already Im planning for him to come home.
Filed under: Camper, Deployment, Good Day | Tags: Camper, Deployment, Frustration, Happy, Marbles, PTSD
Today seems like the last normal day I will have n a while. Around 3 am tomorrow morning I wake up in Camper’s bed for the last time and drive him to the airport where he will begin 2 days of flights before he reaches his base in Afghanistan. It seems somewhat impossible to me that a week ago this very second I was reeling from our first amazing date, unknown to me whas the fact that he was leaving, and I was wondering how in hte world I was going to keep htings moving forward. As with all things there was a moment -ours too early but that could not be avoided- where one decided to take the risk or to just walk away and when that second came all I could do was hold my head up high and agree to hold on for dear life. So, we are doing this. I find it funny that he wories about weather or not I can handle this and while I see where his concern stems from I keep having to remind myself: You have done this before.
I myself have been worried. I wanted to make sure that this was not a rebound from Utah but he has been gone for 9 months, and we have been “officially” broken up for much of that time. Yes, we have attempted to work on it, and Yes, there is still a lot of unresolved mushiness left between us but none of that can be taken care of until he comes back. IF he comes back and therein lies the rub. I feel like I stopped waiting for him a long time ago but was stuck on pause while I walked out the door. I could say that it was Hoss who broke me out of it but in the end it was Camper and the ease at which my guard crumbled. I felt with him something I havent felt in a while: Calm.
One of my few claims to fame has always been the fact that I am not “That Girl”. I am very protective of myself and while I love to mess around and have a good time, I do not drop my pants for every guy who takes me out to dinner. What sometimes shocks me are the skyrocketing percentages of women who actually do give it up on the first date, or very shortly thereafter. I, on the other hand, choose to wait. This sometimes shocks, sometimes annoys, sometimes pisses off, but in the end it does one of two things; weeds out the guys who are in it just to get in it or it shows me the true colors of those who truly do respect the decisions a woman makes. With Wrestler, Tattoo, even Hoss, I feel like they have put so much pressure on me to give in that I stress out when we are going to get together and eventually make excuses not to see them anymore. But Camper made a point to address the issue with me, saying he wanted to wait, he wanted to build something more substantial, something not built on sex but on mutual trust and respect. And this is probably the biggest reason my guard fell immediately. It was no a line to win me over, ti was a statement about where he is at in life and what he is looking for. It was meant to weed out those who are incapable of building a relationship, and we were both fascinated to find out that we wanted the same things.
I find it absolutely hard to fathom that we have known each other for little more than a week, and that he is leaving so soon. I find that already Im unsure of how the next 6 months are going to be and yet we are already making plans for his return to the states. I suppose for me the perk is that I know he is coming home, there is no questioning about contract hopping or returning to a different state, Camper’s life is here and he wants to come home to me. Utah, I think he would like to come home to someone. But thats the thing, Im not looking to be a someone for him, I am wanting to be THE one for the right person. Im not making any claim to that effect with Camper, but Im also not going to let 6 months of separation ruin the one week of pure simple bliss that he and I have shared. My only hope is that he does not come back as horribly changed as I have seen in the past.
PTSD is something I have seen in many of my friends and past lovers, and because of where he is going to be I fear for Camper. With Utah it was the talking in foreign languages in his sleep, the way he would wake up in the middle of the night unsure of who I was or weather or not I was someone who meant him harm. It was the way I needed to be careful how or where I touched him when I tried to wake him . It was the far off look he sometimes got in his eyes when for a second he was reminded of something. With Turpin it was the crippling nightmares that required serious medications, it was the slowness in his speech, the pills he needed to take just to get through the day. And then there are the others, all with their laundry lists of ails and issues… I worry that this will affect Camper and he will come back hardened, broken in some way that is almost unfixable. This is the scar war leaves on you when there is no cut to see.
I had decided to try to put myself back out there and in doing so I have come to one decision: There is something about me that makes the men I like need to leave the continent.
I have been on multiple dates with two men lately, Hoss and Camper, who are polar opposites of both me and each other. It has been interesting getting to know them and while I have enjoyed my time with both I found out yesterday that both of them are deploying. Hoss in August and Camper THIS FRIDAY! Its enough to make me want to rip my hair out.
Lastnight Im out with Camper when he sheepishly tells me over oxtail stew that he is deploying and I was silenced for a while. I looked at my phone to call my roommate and pass on the sadly hysterical news (we had just had this conversation not an hour earlier about me scaring men to a different country) and I saw that I had missed a phone call from Utah. ::sigh::
Utah has been calling more and more lately. Maybe it is the temporary distance from the war that has allowed him to relax, maybe it is the distance he feels growing between us, maybe he realizes that the distance is his doing, but regardless of the reason it has been the calls that made me realize I needed something to change. I love him and I have a feeling I will love him till the day I die, but this kind of wishy washy undefined un-relationship is nothing I want a part of. I want someone who is sure, someone who will fight, someone who can look me in my eyes and hold my hand, and who knows if Utah will ever be able to meet any of that. I no longer want to be the person he calls just because he knows I will answer. I no longer want to be his only link back to a life he left behind.
Hoss decided to follow through on taking a contract with Blackwater, and to be honest I have almost been pushing him towards it. Not that I want to see him go but I want to see him do something better for himself than he is doing now, and Blackwater has offered to move him to VA where he will finish his EMT training and then head overseas to be attached to a merc brigade. As a former Ranger this is something that he almost misses, I know, Ive seen the same look in Utah’s eyes when he began mulling about with the idea of contracting to go back, I knew with Hoss it was only a matter of time. Once again I put on a smile and support unwaveringly even knowing the repercussions.
But Camper was a complete shock. He is in the Air Force and I thought that with his specialty he would be undeployable, but apparently I was wrong. We met by absolute chance and he knocked the first date out of the park. We had a sunday picnic next to a babbling stream and then hiked up to a waterfall where we sat and talked for a while before heading back down. We drove through an artsy area to get to a fresh spring and then ended up at a different park where we sat beside a pond for hours just talking and enjoying the slow passage of sun across our faces. Lastnight we got all dressed up and headed out onto the town with another couple. I was nervous as to the implications of that, I was worried that he was thinking of things too seriously and then he dropped the bomb… he looked at me scared that I was going to drop his hand or want to leave, and inside I counted to ten and thought “so here we go again”. At midnight it was just he and I walking through a park, running through the sprinklers, holding hands and speaking in hushed tones as we walked past houses full of sleeping people. I stayed over and he slept the entire night with his arms around my body, never once making any move to take things to another level, thankfully. Im not sure that I could have handled that after the news. Today he is getting his final orders, making all the last minute arrangements and Im sitting here feeling useless and confused. I think I have been here too many times before.
He has asked me to come on base Friday and see him off.
Im getting so tired of watching people walk away.
So Ive decided to do humanity a favor and never date again. We dont need any more of our most eligible bachelors running off to war, and I fear I have that effect on them. ::sigh::
Filed under: "Utah", Deployment, Good Day | Tags: "Utah", Deployment, Good Day, Marbles, MSSN
I have decided that Im adding two new categories to this Blog: Good Day and Bad Day. The truth is that I feel like my life these days either falls in one direction or the other. Yesterday: Bad Day. Today: Good Day. See what I mean?
I have also decided that Im going to get back on the MSSN boards. Somedays I feel so intolerably alone and its not that I dont have friends, and its not that Im not surrounded by people, its that no one can relate to the pain Im feeling. It is not like a break up and it is not like a divorce, it is a deployment and while I cant point out or quantify the differences, I know they are there the same way anyone else in this situation knows they are there. I found MSSN (Military Spouse Support Network) a month before Utah deployed and during that time and the time right after he was gone, I dont know if I could have survived the lows without those girls. Every time I had a question, a concern, a fear, they were all there with support and suggestions and love. It was priceless. I guess I just miss having the camaraderie. I miss not being alone in this.
And I guess I made one other decision. I love what I do. I love working in Aerospace but I also love working with the animals at the ASPCA. So Im going to try to get a job doing both and whichever industry I land in first is going to be the one I stick with. No regrets. No second guessing.
Filed under: "Utah", Deployment, Uncategorized | Tags: "Utah", Deployment, Marbles, Missing
aaaah, Saturday night and Im home with the roommate and watching the UFC fights. It has been a crazy week with Utah leaving for vacation and me getting all pissy about my birthday. I wanted to write about it then but I needed a couple of days to process. It turns out that Utah did attempt to contact me on my birthday but the networks were down and when I finally did get to talk to him the next day he was in transit, temporarily in a tent city and could not tell me where he was. This is the annoying part of loving someone who is deployed, here I am being all pissy but I have no way of knowing what he is going through or where he is at, and when I eventually do find out I feel like an absolute jerk. But I know that he knew I was bummed about it bcs he actually called me the next day as I was on my way to the gym and we managed to stay on the phone for an hour just talking about things: his family, my family, the weather, my new gym membership, the roommate situation, anything and everything to avoid actually talking about “us”. But maybe we dont need to, maybe we can just step back, enjoy the calm every day feel of laughing together without the stress of everything else weighing on us. When we were getting off the phone I told him that I loved him and then immediately regretted it, i forget the crushing feeling that is always the result from his hesitation to respond. We say it in every other txt msg. We say it in every eMail. But when we are on the phone it is more personal, it is real time, it is honest, and every nano second of silence that goes between us before he responds just reminds me how much damage we have done to each other.
What came after has been days of rapid fire txt msgs professing his intentions and me trying not to commit every single word to memory, which is a hard thing to do. He says: I miss you in my arms. He says: You belong here. He says: I love you so very deeply. He says: You are precious Helena, and I love you. He says he says he says, but when it comes to actually speaking the words his telling silence belies his stated intentions. And so dance some more.
Wednesday I was up in Denver for traffic court and decided that after I deserved a Caipirinha for all my troubles, so I stopped into CubaCuba. Maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe it was something I shouldnt have done but I was feeling good and so when I checked my gMail from my phone and saw a msg from Aran, maybe it was the Caipirinha talking but I invited him out. Aran is the man I dated right before I began dating Utah. We were well suited in so many ways but when it came down to it Aran wore down my patience and right around that time Utah stepped in, and just like that I knew that I wanted something more than Aran was ever able to give. And then he walked into CubaCuba and if I have ever had any doubts they were dashed.
In all honesty, it was good to see Aran. Sure, there was still an undercurrent of resentment, but we were careful to stay clear of most topics and just went over the past handful of months. THere was a huge swelling of pride on my part when I began to tell him about Utah but when I sensed a pang of hurt in Aran’s face I moved onto another topic. Maybe I shouldnt have but I told him the moment that things flipped for me and Aran took it in stride. I needed him to know where it went wrong and why I had ended it with him. After that we moved on to The Cruise Room where I had another drink or two and then left. The next morning I woke up at 5am to head back down to the Springs and the world moved forward with me.
So after a long week I know some things. I know that I miss Denver a lot and once I am done with my bad girl classes down here I plan to move back. I know that while it was nice to sit and talk with Aran, I have to be very careful not to give him the wrong impression. I know that while Utah and I may bear the scars of time that most relationships weather, there is a lot of love. I know that I need to learn to just let things unfold as they will and stop trying to place labels on everything. I know some things defy description. I know that life is strange but it has an amazing kind of logic that is undeniable. I know that I miss him. And I know that he misses me too. ::shrug:: Sometimes that is all that matters.
Filed under: "Utah", Deployment | Tags: "Utah", Deployment, eMail, Jack Ass, Jerk, Leaving, Marbles, Selfish
I got it last night, after my friend left, after we decided to turn on the AC, after the house began to cool off from the heat of the day. I got it last night and as I have been with most of your communication: I was pissed. Days before my birthday and its like you are doing everything in your power to destroy me. And the sad thing is that you dont even recognize it.
I sat down and read it, this eMail from my love, and he asks me to come over and work with him in Qatar. Qatar?! He is in Iraq now and all I can think about is him coming home, and instead he basically tells me that he wants to go work in Qatar after Iraq. And then I went to bed as I do most nights, crying.
It occurs to me that I have been avoiding the truths of things. In relationships and in love we ignore all the flags, we see the past and we refuse to believe that this can be the future. When I met Utah he was back in the US for maybe a year. Our courtship was intense, passionate, unworldly, quick. Three moths alter he was in the truck heading to the airport, he was getting his tickets, he was walking away and as he promised, he never looked back. But Im skipping ahead.
Utah has been contracting for years, he has been in places Ive never been and places I’ll never know about. He has never stayed -anywhere- and I suppose that I was foolish to think that he ever would. In the back of my head I never really thought that he would leave. I was supportive when he began to talk about taking a contract in Qatar and then eventually he settled on a contract in Baghdad and I never wavered, my flawed logic thinking that if I was supportive then he would realize this amazing thing that he is leaving,… and he would stay. You can see the idiocy in it, cant you? Yeah, me too. But I stood by him bcs just being there was a form of holding on to every last second. And I tried. but what I didnt realize was how much he looked forward to leaving, and it begs the question, would he ever really be able to stay?
Utah’s legacy this far, in this situation, has been one of confusion. He says one thing but acts another. He is conflicted between what he wants and what he needs. Those two I doubt will ever meet, but there I am trying to bridge the gap regardless, in the vague hope that it might matter. And then I hear about Qatar, even if this is nothing but a fleeting thought and I have to face the fact that he might never come home. Not because he is dead, but because something out there is more alluring than the things he has waiting for him here. And that my friends, that is a bitter pill to swallow.
Filed under: "Utah", Deployment | Tags: "Utah", Birthday, Deployment, Iraq, Love, Missing
Deployment is a mother fucker. I dont mean to be crass but there is no other way to describe it. Distance is tough but deployment… deployment is quite possibly the toughest thing on earth. It is a sword that cuts even without provocation.
My birthday is next week. Monday the 30th. The same day that Utah leaves for his R&R. ::sigh:: Being a contractor he is granted tax free pay but there are some technicalities that the public does not know. In order to keep their tax shelters most contractors must stay off US soil for a certain amount of time, so he cannot come home to see me or his family. Instead he is going to Qatar to see friends, Rome to see his mother, Somewhere else to visit an ex girlfriend (loving that!), Malta for some scuba and I think Turkey after that. A week ago he called me begging me to come meet him in Malta for a couple of days and while I wanted to… I couldnt. A billion reasons for both sides come to mind but most importantly there is the fact that while running off to an island to spend a week with my love sounds like the most amazing opportunity in life, I felt like an absolute afterthought. He gives me two weeks before he leaves for vacation for me to get my shit together and leave,… I have other responsibilities to worry about. And then there is the part of me that wondered: Whats the point? I go to Malta, we spend an AMAZING week together and then…? I head back to the US and he goes on his merry way. Nothing changes. I may have backed out bcs Im a weak little girl but I just cant watch him walk away one more time unsure of where or what we are. I cannot handle the immediate fallout that comes from the separation. Not again.
But I digress…
My birthday is next week and as such gifts have begun arriving. My friend Lisa sent me wildly amazing soaps, Kat bought me some Tequila, Double T has something for me up in Denver and then UPS shows up at my door today with a three tiered birthday cake looking box choc full of bath products. No card but it was sent via 1-800-flowers which is a favorite of Utah. 2 hours later I get some flowers. Again no card but Utah loves to send flowers. And then I sat down on my couch… and nothing. I felt empty. This is how deployment kills you, it shells you out. I wanted to feel joy, I wanted to be excited but you remember that no matter what you feel he is still gone, he is still on a different continent, he is still your ex, and he is still not even close to coming home. You get to the point where even simple joy cannot be joyful.
This brings me to a point Breathe With Me made “Happiness shouldn’t be so difficult”. No. It should not. For me I can see happiness, I can almost reach out an touch it, but it is always lying just outside of my sticky fingers. Sometimes I even get the feeling that it is laughing at me. Fucker.
::sigh:: Happy freakin birthday to me.
