Decisions

I was going through my email account cleaning things up when I got to the drafts folder.  In it was an email I'd started a year ago, and I remembered being wrought with emotion while I was writing it.  I never ended up sending it, although I still tear up thinking about that period of time and where we are now.  It was exactly one year ago that we found out that D had to leave CA and go to another unit, either in North Carolina or Japan (and I guess we know how that went...)

D came home late from work one day and I could tell something was wrong.  So I asked him what was going on, and he told me.  Just like that.  No prep, no easing into it.  The bomb was dropped.  And all at once I felt like my world was crumbling around me.  I couldn't even look at him as he discussed what our options were - he'd had all day to process this information and think it over while I was speechless, pretending to wash the dishes with my back to him so he couldn't see the tears rolling down my face.  We'd been told only a month before that we would get to stay in CA for at least another year.  We'd just gotten married and had started looking for a house to buy.  I'd finally started to plan my life here in San Diego, something I hadn't really allowed myself to do before and suddenly that was being taken away.  I was bitter, but I couldn't show it because I wasn't allowed to be.  I chose this life when I chose D.

On top of it all, after spending the day weighing all the options, D told me his first choice was to go unaccompanied to Japan.  It would mean only two years away instead of three, and a slightly better chance of getting to come back to San Diego instead of being sent somewhere else.  All I could think was, "but that means we won't be together..."

I cried myself to sleep that night.  Everyone knows that with military life comes these possibilities, but it's like getting a vaccine: even if you know it's coming, it can still hurt. A lot.

My email was to one of my best friends, LT.  She's my voice of reason when I have a difficult decision to make, because I can always count on her to give it to me straight.  No sugar coating or just telling me what I want to hear. I outlined the pros and cons for each scenario and wanted her to look at the situation from an objective standpoint and tell me if there was anything I was missing.  Any silver lining I couldn't see. Because really, when I looked at all my options listed in bullit points my eyes kept going to the same lines:

Option 3: D goes unaccompanied to Japan
Cons

• we won't be together
• life will essentially be put on hold for two years

At that point we'd barely been married for two months.  D had only returned from his fourth deployment three months earlier.  I'd just gotten him home and was now having to contemplate living apart from him for years, not just months at a time with a set return date to look forward to.  All of our options felt like one big lose-lose for one reason or another.

Ultimately I didn't send the email to LT because I realized that as much as I wanted help making this decision, nothing anyone said to me was going to make me feel better or make the situation easier to accept.  I knew that whatever decisions D and I ended up making would be with our best long term interests in mind, and at the end of the day a few years of our life spent apart would be a drop in the bucket when we have the rest of our lives to spend together.  We ended up finding out a few weeks later that D was being stationed in Japan, and at that time he requested to go unaccompanied.

I still have moments where I wonder what things would be like if I'd gone with him.  And conversely, I have moments where I'm glad that I stayed.  I struggle with the lack of communication at times, and I get frustrated when I have things I want to say but no one to say them to.  When I have a good day and no one to share it with.  When I have a bad day and just need a hug, but come home to an empty house.

Overall, I miss my friend...