It has been forever since I smelled skin like that.
I had changed clothes after stepping off the plane, messed one last time with my hair and walked through the terminal doors. What brought me to be there, in a foreign country, it was a tense situation. Gauntlets thrown, a choice of reaching back to something that I once needed so desperately or pulling away and heading towards something unknown, something that was safe and comfortable. I was way too far from home, in need of a shower, and walking my gigantic bag towards Utah.
I made excuses to leave, after weeks of the YES/NO sea-sawing I put my foot down, I was risking it. I was throwing caution to the wind and leaving. And there he was to meet me at the airport, my ex, the pain I have had to survive, the light of my life, the love I lost, the anger I let get the best of me. There he was in his jacket and smile, and I, like a child, walked towards his open arms and was lost.
We both needed to know, we were both standing in the way of everything else, even if we didnt intend to be. Sure, there would always be unfinished emotions between us, but could we make it? The grand gesture was nice but what came before it… well, what came before it was a grotesque show of just how cruel a person could be. And I suppose that was what did it. All the eMailing came to a head and I said NO, I was done, I needed to never hear from him again, I had reached my end; finally. All i had done was lay my cards out on the table, I had told him that I could not go along with his plans. I had been so scared to tell him what I was feelign and the second I did he lashed out, told me things that I didnt need to know, and I thanked him. I had been wondering just when I was going to reach my end and I was so glad he had cleared that up for me. Communication ended. Or, so I thought.
I get an eMail containing directions, ticket numbers, a wire of a thousand dollars, all to be used at my discretion. I could go and meet him in Prague, or not. It was “come to me or fuck off” and that is what I wrestled with for weeks. To go or not. On one hand he was a prick, he broke me over and over again, I never knew quite where I stood with him and invariably wherever I decided I wanted to be was wrong. On the other hand, he had quit his job in Iraq after my last eMail, he was coming home, we loved each other, no matter the pain we have always loved. ::sigh:: So, I got my passport and still I wrestled. Id like to say that my ole’ man was a huge consideration but he was not, this thing proving once again to be bigger than anything it comes into contact with, and that is why I was in a car, zipping through side streets, looking in eyes that I once held with reverence and I was confidant. I was, for a while at least.
The problem with all consuming love is that it destroys all around it and one must adjust to life living in an inferno. One must also learn to hold ones breath for an ungodly amount of time just to survive. That first night in the flat in the middle of Old Town, I held all the cards. I was all kings and queens and jacks, aces and spades and even an Old Maid thrown in for good measure. He shed tears after we kissed the first time, he held onto me the way one clings to a dying dream, and I ate up every last second of it. Vindication. You asshole, this is what you could have lost.
Sinners
We had lazy days of wandering the city, conversations that were painful, long moments of silence that seemed to tear the very soul out of my chest, but in between that we allowed our self to enjoy each others company, we held hands, we kissed, we closed our eyes at the mere touch of the others hand. This is what we could have lost. So we extended teh travel plans. What was supposed to be 6 days of soul searching turned out to be an entire month of country hopping. It could have gone wrong at any moment I suppose, there were vital seconds where it could have taken a dive but we stepped away from the ledge and headed the other way. We cried in each others arms and we laughed the night away in tiny hotel rooms. I have my best friend back. Every day I was more and more thankful for that but as the nights faded to day I began giving away my cards, slowly, unknowingly. Suddenly I had nothing, I was bare and feeling insecure again. I needed a reality check so once we reached Germany I grabbed the phone and called a friend who I grew up with. I had spent weeks talking to no one but Utah and sitting in the hallway of a friends house whispering angry words into her VoIP phone I began to slowly feel like myself again. Later that night the boys went go cart riding and Liz and I headed out to walk around, eventually finding ourselves at a dimly lit Italian restaurant where we shared a bottle of wine and bared the darkest parts of our hearts.
The last few days in Germany were slow and sad. Reality was seeping back in and we were making plans to head back to teh States. He would kiss my face in the morning, run his hands through my hair and blink at me. And so Tuesday we said our goodbyes at the airport and rushed to make the last flights. We made it, back to the US, back to the car rental place, back to the front door of his house in Denver, … and then I paused. THis was the last place we were together before he deployed. This is the house that caused so much pain right after he left and strained every relationship I had back then. This house brought that all back. But it was late, too late to be worrying abotu such things, so we tip-toed through the hallways and crawled into the bed that began it all, and there we made love before falling into a deep sleep.
I have not told my soon-to-be-not ole’ man that Im back in the States, selfishly Im avoiding any confrontation until Utah flys back to his family’s house tomorrow. On this trip I have done a lot of thinking about what I want and what I dont. I want to re-marry. I want kids. I dont want to be with someone who smokes. I dont want to be with someone who drinks all the friggin time. I want to settle down and not live in a party day in and day out. I want a real life. I dont want to be someones everything. I want to be someones someone.
It is snowing out and Im missing Utah, who is at the post office. Im missing the scent of his skin and the touch of his lips. I suppose it should be no surprise that this comes back around. I suppose it has been no surprise to find that it never really left.
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::
It is raining. Fat angry drops throwing themsleves against my window. Death Cab For Cutie is on and they are singing “I need you so much closer” and while I agree with the lyrics as well as the rain, … I am lying on my bed, wrapped up in the same fuzzy pink bath robe that I have been wearing all day and my cat is lying at my feet. I feel content. There is a bottle of wine on the dresser and maybe later Ill pour a glass, play some poker but most likely I will remain here, in my pink fuzzy warm bed and cuddle some more with Viggen, my cat.
I finished working at the Shelter yesterday and while I have had many days off during my time there, today felt different. It was the shedding of any responsibilities, and I took advantage of it. Tomorrow I have a gym to get to, resumes to send out, eMails and calls to make, a future to plan and a life to begin. But today the thought of even leaving the house has not crossed my mind and for the first time in a long time it is not bcs of this blinding depression. It is because today I feel no stress. I need sometimes to stop runing so far away from the life I ve here and remember what is most important.
I thought I lost my cat a couple of months ago, and it wasnt in getting her back that I realized how important to me, it was remembering how much she brought to my life when she was here. When I did eventually get her back I promised to never forget those moments of domestic bliss: sitting on the couch with a cup of cocoa and her purring away by my side. Sometimes she annoys the hell out of me bcs for something so small she seems to take up the entire foot of my queen sized bed every night, but then I think about how if she were not there I would not be able to sleep.
Today Im just happy to be hanging out with her, watching her run around, sleep, jump and play. I dont know, sometimes I think it is kinda cool to have this tiny little life that depends on you for day to day things, but can feed and clean itself. 
I was talking to a friend, Farrell, for the first time in years the other night and we were talking about kids and the reasons we have never had nor really had any desire for any, and when it comes down to it, if I want to get on a plane and fly to far off places, all i have to do is pack the kitten into a carrier and off we go. Viggen has been on planes trains and driven across the country with me. I suppose thats selfish but I think thats the point. A child is a decision to live your life unselfishly, and to be honest I dont know if Ill ever be in the right frame of mind for that. At least I know it.
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.
