Calendar of Obsession

The first few months of my calendar of obsession are pretty full. Steve was calling from places like France, and Greece, and various other places. He also called from on ship a few times. His eventual destination was Kuwait, where he spent most of the deployment doing training drills. He also spent a lot of time on ship monitoring “the waters” and even spent time “chasing” pirates near Somalia. Overall, it was expected to be a pretty care free deployment. All of the places he was going were mostly secured, without much threat to his safety. For this, I was thankful.

I started out writing letters frequently, although not as frequently as when he was in boot camp. I had just started a job, and was starting my third year of college—which meant harder classes—so, I cut back to writing about 3 or 4 letters a week, instead of every day. I would have liked to write more, but it just never seemed to work out.

In December, about halfway through the deployment, it was like I hit a brick wall. Steve was spending more time on ship, which meant very BAD phone connections. So, phone calls were becoming few and far between. I was writing few letters. I would like to say that it was because I got busier with work and school, but I’m not entirely sure that was the reason. I was staring Christmas in the face—my first Christmas without him.

I had a couple roommates, but each of us had our own lives, and spent quite a bit of our time doing our own individual activities. And they were my only friends remaining in the Marshall area, after the others had transferred schools or moved back home. I hadn’t really made friends with the people at work who became my lifeline during the second deployment. I didn’t know any of the girlfriends or wives of the people that Steve was with, or the resources from the Marine Corps that were available to me. I really felt like I was ‘going it alone’. Although school and work kept me busy, it didn’t keep my mind off Steve being gone, it didn’t keep me from missing him, and it didn’t keep me from becoming discouraged and feeling defeated.

I also was faced with my first Christmas without Steve around, which was also a huge struggle. I went to Christmas with his family, which didn’t make it any easier. His family was always encouraging and positive, and tried their hardest make it seem ‘normal’. But, it is very hard to go to Christmas at your boyfriend’s house with all of his family, when he’s not there, and not feel a little out of place, and not miss him even more than normal. It was a struggle to make it through the holiday, and the struggle didn’t get any easier after Christmas was over.

With each month that went on, my calendar became more and more blank. Fewer phone calls, fewer letters being written, fewer “life happenings” to keep me busy. The month of February has one thing written on it. February 14^th marked 2 years in the military—the halfway point. That’s right, the one thing written in February wasn’t even a form of communication. One full month. One full month of no letters, no phone calls, no emails, no nothing.

It had actually been since the beginning of December that I had mailed him a letter. Now it pains me to know that he went that long without receiving anything from me. I also ended up missing more and more of his phone calls because I was in class or working. I wanted to just give up. I had never experienced something so difficult to cope with in my life. Each day I struggled to continue on and to face another day that Steve wasn’t a part of.

I’m not sure why I quit writing him letters and sending him packages, and answering his phone calls. I wish I did. I know that it’s not because I didn’t miss him. I did. Very much so.

I think that I just couldn’t handle him being so far away. I couldn’t handle hearing his voice, not knowing when I would actually be able to see the face that goes along with that voice. I couldn’t handle continuing to write him letters, pretending that it was just as good as talking to him. I couldn’t handle continuously living my life waiting for the next phone call or letter. I couldn’t handle feeling like I was by myself. I couldn’t handle any of it anymore. I was ready to be done. I was ready to just give it up. I was wondering how on earth people were expected to endure something like this for so long. Because I was certain I couldn’t, but there was no way to get away from it.

As hard as I tried to push all of it to the side and ignore that it was there, it didn’t work. He was still gone, my heart still ached, I still missed him, and I still wished it would all just go away.

I don’t even know exactly what day he arrived back in the United States. That somehow eluded my calendar of obsession. It was sometime at the end of March—about 7 months after he left. I was thrilled that we had finally reached the end of the tunnel, but at the same time, I was nervous about what the future held. I had talked to Steve for less than 5 minutes over the last two and a half months of the deployment. For this reason, it was a struggle to pick up talking to him every day again. I had so much to talk about, but so little to say. I no longer knew how to form words when talking to him on the phone. I didn’t know how to talk to him. What to say to him.

He had to stay in North Carolina for about a month after he initially set foot in the United States. Over time, we got used to being able to talk to each other more often and from there, things began to turn around. I was finally beginning to be okay with the military lifestyle again, and was no longer trying as hard as I could to push it out of my life. I realized that when I was trying to push the military out of my life, it also meant that I was pushing Steve out of my life.

This deployment, although one of the biggest struggles I have experienced, was a revolution for me. It was a turning point. A turning point that changed both, my individual life and the way I look at things, and also our relationship.