35 minutes...

Today the kiddles and I spent 35 wonderful minutes in an office at the base talking to my amazing husband through a video teleconference. I was a little hesitant about this whole thing because I felt like it would be like it must be in a prison--in that we would have a pane of glass between us and we would just not have a connection. I couldn't imagine what we would have to talk about for 3o minutes because it's been so rare that we've been able to talk that long in the last five months. I was apprehensive but excited. I didn't know what to expect...

I walked into that office today at 11:20 and saw my precious husband sitting 6207.90 miles away. I didn't make a lot of eye contact with him initially because, in all honesty, I had to compose myself. I didn't want to cry in front of him, or seem sad at all. That's not what I was there for. The only thing I wanted to do was somehow morph myself into air and travel through that tv screen to where he was. Even though that wasn't possible, I was determined to make those few moments we had the best few moments we'd had in the past five months. It went too quickly. It seemed like almost as soon as it began, I was told we had two minutes left. How do you convey the love you have for someone in two minutes? How can you tell the person you love more than anything in the universe that you're miserably sorry that you argued yesterday? How do you apologize and not close it by hugging that person so tightly that you can feel their breath on your hair? How do you let your eyes speak what's in your very soul and somehow let them know that nothing else in this world matters except being with that person? How do you show the joy in the moment that you're with that person and not show signs of the constant stomach ache you carry until that person returns? I suppose it's impossible not to. I can only hope that Mike saw the sheer bliss I had at seeing him for the first time in five months.

Five months tomorrow. One hundred and fifty some days. One hundred and fifty days in which I have slept alone, fixed an alarm clock, drank over one hundred and fifty cups of coffee, shorted out the microwave about five times, gotten my hair cut twice, hosted friends and family in our home four different times, sat through two nights of projectile puke with Aiden, sat through three different fevers through the night, finished two school years (one with each kiddle), attended two soccer parties, one ballet recital, been nearly killed on the interstate by crazy drivers four times, hired a lawn guy, earned a trip with my company, had three doctors appointments, washed approximately 18,000,000 loads of laundry and painted and redecorated one bathroom. Through all that, I have grown more in love with my husband, questioned my own strength and sanity and managed to not get liquered up every evening. It's been a long road thus far, and I don't expect it to get any shorter quite honestly. It's going to be a long road even though (hopefully) we're more than halfway through at this point. The end result is what's important and that's all that matters right now...making it through the next four months and watching a plane carrying my husband land and feeling his breath on my hair again. That's the goal. One hundred and twenty days...