The Days Before

24 Jan 2011:
We have been waiting for a deployment date for months. They moved it up from June to March and finally to early February. Why can't the Army get their shit together?

TH mentions briefly that they finally set a date of deployment to Iraq. He's leaving the 3rd. It bothers me that I had to ask him again whether or not he was given a date yet. "Oh, I thought I told you," he replied nonchalantly.

TH's family say their final goodbyes to him since they are leaving the next morning and he will be at work. This is finally hitting me for the first time since we found out about it last June.

25 Jan 2011:
TH's family say their goodbyes to me and remind me that I can always call them if I ever need anything. Because with our luck, the car will decide to die on me either via a bad battery or a flat tire. It feels so wonderful to be supported.

"I guess we're leaving the 2nd," my husband says to me. "Oh, fuck it. It doesn't matter."

One less day to enjoy having a husband.

28-31 Jan 2011:
We've made two trips to Austin in one weekend. I've documented it here.

I wanted him to try and eat everything and anything that he wants. Money was (almost) no issue in my mind anymore because, quite honestly, I could not stop thinking: "What if he never gets a chance to do this again?" Because we don't want to think about it, but what if something horrible happens and he doesn't return to me?

What if?...

We go shopping for some things that he needs to take with him. Apparently, the government issues him certain things, but they're all shitty so instead we have to buy everything with our own money. And I tell him to buy anything and everything he needs because if a more expensive head lamp will allow him to do his job better then so be it.

I help him pack his toiletries by taping everything shut so that nothing explodes in his bags. I also do a final load of laundry for him, which allowed me to stick random notes inside his socks, shirts and pockets.

I don't know if you can imagine what it feels like to help your husband pack for deployment. It's a strange feeling because you want to help him so that he has less to worry about, but then you also fight the feeling of wanting to hide everything in hopes of him saying, "Well, I guess that means I don't have to go!" But of course life doesn't work this way.

1 Feb 2011:
I can't believe The Hubby had to go in for work the day before his deployment. He told me that he would be home by 1000, but of course that wasn't the case. I guess he had to get a haircut and buy some last minute items. We've spent hundreds on haircuts alone. I really need to learn how to cut his hair.

I use this time while he's away to write him a letter and laminate a pocket-sized picture of us so that he can carry it with him anywhere he goes.

The last trip to the commissary together before he leaves. Depressing is the only word I can think of to describe it. "Get whatever you want. You're going to be the only one eating it," he so annoyingly reminds me. This means that I can drink orange juice completely pulp free if I wanted to. TH likes pulp so we always get the Tropicana "some pulp" option. But now I have grown to like pulp so I still get the one with "some pulp". It doesn't make sense at all.

We don't have to get on post for his formation until 1200 so we stay up talking. He lists all the things that I have to do when he's gone: check the locks and windows, turn on the alarm, clean the air and water filter, change the oil of the car in March, file taxes, brush Bella's teeth, clean her ears...

I wonder what it feels like on his side of it all. He must think that I cannot survive without him, and sometimes it feels that way.

The entire night I fight back tears because I know that TH doesn't want to see me cry. Me crying won't help a damn thing.