Days 4-5

I am a woman possessed...or was. Now I'm tired. Emotionally drained? Gee ya think?

I've have tackled jobs in my house that I've been avoiding for months. I have exhausted myself physically this weekend. Its good to see progress but I think all the avoiding is wearing me out, as well.

I try not to think about the time...how much time this all will take. How much time we'll be apart and there is nothing I can do about it. Its not like she'll be on the west coast and I'm on the east, that I can hop a flight and be there by tomorrow. It just doesn't work that way. And that is conceptually hard for me.

She has asked me to think in small bites, like small milestone events. Which has made things a little more bearable over the past year or so, but now is when the time stretches out. And the milestone events are holidays coming up, and then the holidays we won't spend together. That's when I have trouble.

I get hormonal, I get sad, and then I over-think and get a little freaky to be honest. Which, of course is now, the first weekend. So lets hope that this will be the first major hurdle and I'll be over it soon.

Day 3

Chapter 1

I started rearranging my house yesterday…it was a wild hare to be sure. I really don’t know why I started doing it. Well, I take that back. I have been plagued with “stuff” since I left North Carolina. The detritus of a 9 year relationship that faltered badly after my partner decided to join the military. Honestly it was headed south before that, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I digress.

I moved into a warehouse building that my parents owned that was full of  stuff so it has been an ongoing struggle dealing with the stuff  . So my life revolves around stuff, my stuff, my partner’s stuff, my parent’s stuff, my brother’s stuff, and my business’s stuff. STUFF!

After 2 years of cleaning out, selling off, donating and trashing the stuff, there is now some room to move around my 3500 sq. ft. warehouse flat. It has such potential to be a cool space, but the battle continues.  I’ll admit I get tired, so I just deal with it, walk around it, and ignore it. 

It drives my partner nuts because it makes the place hard to clean, and it appears that there is no rhyme or reason to it. Even though I have made huge leaps since I first moved in.

I guess by now you have noticed my use of pronouns, “I” versus “we” . Yes you’re correct in your assumption if you think that we don’t live together. We don’t, and haven’t for some time. It seems to work for us. 

She comes for a few days or weeks as the case may be, and I go to where she is. We are together as much as we can be. But we each have our own lives, and then our life together. You would think that it would make the separation easier. It doesn’t.

She has volunteered to go wherever the military asks her to go. And she has reduced her life to a 10x10 storage space and a few duffle bags. I however, still have a saddle of “stuff” to deal with. She has left a few thing with me, so I can send things to her that she may need, but even though its very little, its more stuff. I like pretty things and my past homes have been attractive and comfy, but that seems so far off right now, but every time I dig in, I make progress, happy progress but it’s still frustrating as heck.

I spoke to her on the phone, sent pictures via text of what I was up to, and was saying that I wasn’t sure why I just started moving and cleaning. She said it was probably because I was trying to gain some control of what was going on because I was feeling helpless in what was happening to us. I think I agree with that.

The first night she was at her pre-deployment base, she called me in tears. Her luggage has been tampered with on the trip and personal things were taken. Then arriving to a very sparse and baron place that was dirty and unkempt. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t fix anything or make the pain and anger for the violation go away. I couldn’t comfort her with anything but words, and that was insufficient to me.

I hate hearing the pain in her voice and the fear of what she’s signed up for. I remember that voice, from when she called from basic training. The “what the hell have I done?” voice.  I know that she’s ultimately happy and has excelled in the military, but it still flies in the face of who I am and what I believe in. It’s hard to reconcile that sometimes, especially when it ties my hands. I feel undermined at times, and start questioning my own value and abilities…another symptom of feeling out of control.

So, I clean, re arrange and occupy my brain and body to not think too much about what she has to tolerate and deal with. I can only make my life better, so when she comes home, I’ll be happy too.

Day 2

Today is the first day of a 400 day journey that started 3 years ago. I have no training, no preparation that has come from past experience. I have no chain of command or support staff. I am alone... and for now, invisible. - Day 1 of 400 day journal

I begin today not at the beginning, but more the middle of the story. True it’s the beginning of a 400 Day journey that my partner and I will be taking. Not together, but very far apart and in very different ways.

She will be dealing with the war on terrorism and the fight for democracy in a cruel and inhospitable place, far from home during her deployment with the Army, while I stay behind.  I am left “minding the farm” so to speak, dealing with life and business and the business of our life together. I am the silent partner  in this equation since we are a gay couple, and I technically don’t exist in the eyes of the military, as someone who has let her person go to war, who suffers at the absence of a loved one in a war they don’t believe in.

The silent partner doesn’t get TV shows made about them, we are not "ARMY WIVES" and yet we are. A silent partner doesn't get the benefits of a military spouse, or acceptance as a major contributor to the success of the military, by our love and support of our soldiers.

So I write. I write for me, and I write for you. I know you are there, feeling very alone in all this, and fearing even the slightest touch be seen , will bring chaos, heartache and an abrupt halt to their military career. That risk still exists but fortunately, I am happy to say, on the eve of the first anniversary of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being repealed, we are emerging. Slowly and very cautiously but we are coming out of the shadows, because we need to be seen, and recognized.

As the saying goes ”what’s past is prologue” and in this case it’s the literal truth. So I write today, and have written over the past 3 years, almost daily about what a choice of a military life has thrown at me, and the trials we have faced as a couple. You will read excerpts from my journals past that you will hopefully find some solace in, or even find the anger in the "me too", knowing you are not alone in how you feel about being left behind as “the silent partner.” Maybe now you will find your voice, as I have, or share in the chorus of my words.

 I invite you on my journey.