wish

Dear eyelashes, wishbones, dandelions, pennies, shooting stars, 11:11 and birthday candles, Do your job and bring him home! Respectfully yours, the wisher of a single wish ♥

Proud Mommy Moment

proud mommy moment ♥ I gave Lily and Jax each a glazed donut (went to walmart, got them a treat) and Lily waited for a bit to eat hers and when she was about to, she realized Jax was out so she tore hers in half and gave him it. ♥ awwwwwwwww SO PROUD!

My daughters overwhelming kindness to her brother, an action so seemingly small to her, has added a tiny crack to my heart, a crack because my heart grew a little bit more in love with my children,more in love with my soldier, more in love with my life and all that is in it, despite the stress and worry and loneliness I endure for that love... ♥

Being a mother is a thankless job, maybe once or twice a year and on the odd occasion she might be thanked, but it is rare... our satisfaction is seeing the qualities we wished them to possess shine, especially so young. It's reaffirming to know they have it in them.

I love being a mom. It's the hardest job with the crappiest pay I have ever had and I'm usually up to my elbows in toys, messes and all around chaos. I want to scream 99% of the time. But that 1%... that one moment where you see all the best that exists in the world shine through your child... There is nothing like it. ♥

My kitten, who like every animal that has truly ever been mine, puts absolute faith in me that I will always do the right thing. She trusts me to feed her, to be gentle with her, to love her. Just like being a mother, it's rewarding to have someone who will always have that absolute faith... Children often lose that in their parents, once they are revealed to be just as confused by life as they.

I am

I don't know if I'm good or bad, so I'll just say I am. I am an artist. I am a Mother. I am an Army SO. I am a sister. I am a daughter. I am a friend. I am a supporter. I am a dreamer. I am a bookworm. I am a writer. I am a poet. I am a person. I am a Heroine to some, I am an Enemy to others. I am American. I am Canadian. I am Native American. I am Irish. I am Scottish. I am French. I am a Military-Brat-Grown. I am a Jersey Girl. I am a lover and I am a fighter. I am a believer in my own beliefs and a victim to no one else's. I am a Rocker chick with love for Country. I am a Metal Child born to be kind. I am a Redneck Biker with a touch of sophistication. I am the caregiver and sole supporter to two children most of the time. I am the daughter of a Serviceman who died doing his duty honorably and for many years, I am the Love of another who has my heart, my hopes and my dreams all wrapped up in him. I am the former lost girl who found her way. I am brave. I am strong. I am who I am. It's all that I ever was, but not who that I will ever be.

I don't know if I'm good or bad, so I'll just say that I am. I am an artist. I am a Mother. I am an Army SO. I am a person. I am a girl. You decide where I fall.

Smile

You make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed, sing like a bird, dizzy in my head, spin like a record, crazy on a Sunday night, you make me dance like a fool, forget how to breathe, shine like gold, buzz like a bee, just the thought of you can drive me wild, oh you make me smile <3

We could try out for the Amazing Race!

mo Captaen

Love in the face of Hate

Epic

Thoughts on past and present love

I am so glad I knew him. Even though, he and I are no longer even friends, I am glad he was in my life for as long as he was. I did love him for who he was but we were never meant to be and one day, I just woke up to the reality and ended our relationship which had lasted for over 18 months. There are good memories that make me tear up to remember but there are countless others that make me feel more grateful to have Steve in my life. I don't like having regrets and although I have more than I'd like, the path of my life is what it was meant to be, I made choices, good or bad and the results and consequences are mine to deal with. I realize sometimes I carry a burden inside that no one ever knows because I can't trust anyone with that shameful part of me that feels like I fail at my ambition to be who I want to be. I spend my life trying to live up to my own expectations and even greater, but like all people, I fail myself daily to do the work, to put in the effort, to hang on and stay strong. I find myself lacking and I realize that I am okay with that because I am human. I am a woman who is capable of many things and do many things, not only for myself, but for those I love, my friends who are family and my family who are friends. 

He was an important part of my life though, for three years we were just friends. We had movie nights with other friends, we played poker and monopoly, we bullshited and joked and had adventures as only friends. And then one day it changed from that. I don't regret it, really because I was able to have another adventure, another chapter in my life. I have memories I wouldn't trade, even though sometimes, the pain I feel of knowing I lost a friend at the end probably will last a lifetime. I value my friendships with my exes. I have several good friends, whom I dated once upon a time. 

Would I trade Steve for my friendship? Never in all the years of the universe. He is my love. Today we were talking and he told me that he planned to be with me forever. I cried because it was the first time he actually said forever and it was the first time anyone has said that to me. I feel so loved and blessed. I am lucky, and I know you can't have it both ways sometimes, but those times there is a tinge of sadness in the happiness that I feel.

Manhood for Amateurs: the Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon

By far one of the greatest books I've ever read. It's brilliant, well-written, raw, honest, prevailing. It's sweet and touching and compelling. His mind is clear and consice. It's a memoir of a real man, not a novel, not an imaginary world but this world and in his life. I highly recommend reading it.

I am only 61 (out of 306) pages in but I can honestly say I've never read a more real piece of art, at least not in a long time.

Here are my favorite parts::::

"I don't know what a woman needs to do to impel a perfect stranger to inform her in a grocery store that she is a really good mom. Perhaps perform an emergency tracheotomy with a Bic on her eldest child while simultaneously nursing her infant and buying two weeks worth of healthy but appealing breaktime snacks for the entire cast of Lion King Jr. In a grocery store, no mother is good or bad; she is just a mother, shopping for her family.

Good mothering is a long-term pattern, a lifelong trend of behaviors most of which go unobserved at the time by anyone, least of all the mother herself. We do not judge mothers on snapshots but by years of images painstakingly accumulated from the orbitting satellite of memory. Once a year, maybe, and on certain fatal birthdays, and at our weddings or her funeral we might collate all the available dat, analyze it and offer our irrefutable judgement: good mother.

‎"I define being a good father in precisely the same terms that we ought to define being a good mother--doing my part to handle and stay on top of the endless parade of piddly shit. And like good mothers all around the world, I fail every day in my ambition to do the work, to make it count, to think ahead and hang in there through the tedium and really see, really feel, all the pitfalls that threaten my children."

‎"The daily work you put into rearing your children is a kind of intimacy, tedious and invisible as mother itself. There is another kind of intimacy in the conversations you may have with your children as they grow older, in which you conf...ess to failings, reveal anxieties, share your bouts of creative struggle, regret, frustration. There is intimacy in your quarrels, your negotiations and running jokes. But above all, there is intimacy in your contact with their bodies, with their shit and piss, sweat and vomit, with their stubbled kneecaps and dimpled knuckles, with the rips in their underpants as you fold them, with their hair against your lips as you kiss the tops of their heads, with the bones in their shoulders and with the horror of their breath in the morning as they pursue the ancient art of forgetting to brush. Lucky me that I should be permitted the luxury of choosing to find the intimacy inherent in this work thrust upon so many women. Lucky me."

‎"Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the greatest original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger and sometimes calamity. For the most part the young adventurer sets forth equipped with the fragmentary map that he or she has been able to construct out of a patchwork of personal misfortune, bedtime reading and the accumulated local lore of the neighborhood children."

Father's Day 2011

Of course I am missing my first Hero today.

I'm just like my Father. Strong, stubborn, determined, loyal, impatient, loving, kind, ruthless when wronged, and a big believer in what the Military does. You see, just like my father, I am Military to the bone. It's in our DNA. We bleed red, cry tears of blue and dream in bright white.

♥ your strength is the power that carried me through Your kindness for weakness I never mistook I worried you often, yet you understood that life is so fleeting, these troubles won't last forever inspired me truly you did from the start to not be afraid and to follow my heart there's a piece of you with me they can't tear apart

Daddy, I love you. I miss you and I think about you every single day...

Truth.

A beautiful for horse to carry my thoughts.

Maybe not for the first time, and I pray not the last, I received the most perfect gift I have ever been given. Yesterday, I received a package from Afghanistan. Some of Steve’s stuff he’s sending home early. In the box was his book collection (he’s an uber-nerd and I love it), a few random things, decks of cards, a card from a 6 year old boy and some paperwork. But also inside the box, a special surprise for me. It’s a beautiful leather-bound journal from Afghanistan. Handmade, clothlike paper, with the most beautiful design: a horse with an English saddle, beautiful patterns all over it repeating and bound together with a thick and strong string. To close it, the cover must be put down properly and the string wrapped around it a few times, looping it at the end to hold. The best part is that he wrote in it for me. I never asked for a journal and although I know he knows I write and search for the right thing to write in, I don’t think I fully expected the kind of heart he really has. This just proves it.

I’ve never had a guy before who really knows me. He knows that I love postcards from random places (I got another yesterday) and he knows that I love to write and read and that my dreams are more creative than practical. He knows I’m emotional and have issues and that I don’t really know a lot of things that other people know. He knows that I just dream of happiness and love and that if there are struggles in every other way, it’s ok. That I don’t need the fancy car or a ton of shoes (although I do have a boot thing going on), all that I really need is a book, a place to write, a camera (ok I really like my laptop and I like my phone, I’m was raised in the 90s, what do you expect?) and that it doesn’t bother me to sit outside in the middle of nowhere and just watch the clouds pass by. Sure, I am an adventurer, there is no other way to explain my life and my continued faith in a good outcome. I thrive with adventure as much as I enjoy being boring. I need a balance in my life. I feel I don’t get enough adventure anymore and when I do, the fix doesn’t seem to last as long anymore. I hope that changes.

Right now I’m riding the high of receiving the journal and the letter and postcard, He has a heart of gold and I hope I always keep that in mind and never forget and disappoint him. It’s my worst fear these days… I didn’t write this in my new journal because the words in there should be more beautiful. It’s so beautiful that everything in their should be an effort to create something beautiful, something lasting, something real and profound… I said an effort.

Well, I should go. Early morning “Mom” duties are calling. My kids should learn how to sleep in.

my hero in a frame

Daddy and me, Steve, Grandpa 

how lucky can one girl be?

There is a hero in all of us.

I really do, firmly, believe that there is a hero in all of us. It is up to us what we do with the potential we have inside. I find that life is amazing when you know for a fact you have saved someone's life. It is humbling and truly moving to remember just how it felt to know that it was because of you they got to see tomorrow too. I wish I had more chances to save people, but I know there are different types of heroes.

There is the mother, who is the hero in her child(ren)'s eyes She is resilient and firm, yet loving and kind. She remembers that she is their guide and their moral compass. It is up to her, more so than anyone else, who the child one day becomes.

There is the friend who listens when she gets a call at 2 in the morning as her best friend cries about a guy who broke her heart, the boy she grew up with who came home from war with ptsd and nightmares who needed someone to listen. She is the ear and comfort, the strength when they are weak She carries their burden as readily as her own, and yet, almost, never shares her true heart, the secrets she has never written, never spoken.. She is a hero and yet she is unsung.

Then there is the child who stands behind a parent that deploys. Quietly accepting his/her life serving the country without recognition, without choice, drafted by birth. The child who serves is more patriotic and heroic than any other. The child that serves accepts that his/her parent might not come home and they accept it because of honor, duty and love of Country. They understand that there is a sacrifice that must be made for the arrogance of failed diplomacy, because that's what war is...

That sacrifice sometimes must be paid in blood, but it isn't the blood of the diplomats or politicians, it is their blood, their parent... It is their burden, as well as the mother's and the father's. While only one might die, all might pay. The truest heroes are the Serving families that pay the price for our freedom. It isn't free. Why do so many forget? So why can't we also be heroes? At least, when we can...

Pay for someone's lunch, call that friend you haven't spoken to in a while because they were angry or sad and you just couldn't take it. Spend your life trying to do good. Try to be a hero in some way to someone... Believe it or not, it doesn't take the ultimate sacrifice. Not all of us are brave enough to be that way... And that's ok. We don't have to be. Just do something good. Pick a place and start. It's better than doing nothing... Just my thoughts...

Goodbye... again

It's been six years, Tommie. I still miss you and love you with that part of me that has remained untouched since you left my world. I miss you. I will see you up in Heaven after my time down here is over. Until then, watch over my Soldier and keep him safe. You and I both know that I don't have great luck with deployments. And say hi to my Dad and Grandpa when you get a chance. See you when it's my time.

Random thoughts.

I am cleaning today. I tend to get this overwhelming sense of energy (probably Monster induced) where I clean the whole house. So far I'm doing laundry and cleaned both kids' rooms and organized my closet. I also am doing the bedding for both the kids and probably my own before bed. I am feeling a little more relieved than I was a few days ago. It's all a matter of what happens next, I suppose. But all will be ok. Megan and I talk about that stuff. Her dreams with Eric and mine with Steve and ours together. Haha. We have a whole plan. Anyways, I haven't talked to Steve yet but who knows? he may yet appear online. He does that. Gone with the Wind is on while I clean. I'm in my Scarlett mood :) I love that movie...

Have a sense of humor! :)

Dog wanted by Nick Kenny with commentary by me haha

Alright so last summer Steve and I went book shopping after we got tattoos at my favorite artist in all the world Spider in New West, BC. He's awesome. Anyways, we found this book of poetry by Nick Kenny, a former US Navy Sailor and former crew of the USS Arizona that sunk in Pearl Harbor. Anyways, he was an amazing poet and quickly became one of my favorite of all time. Tonight, as I am cleaning my room (insomnia strikes again, so might as well make it useful right? haha), I pick up the book, which is titled Favorite Poems by Nick Kenny, published in 1948 and opened to a random page and this is what it said:::

Dog Wanted

Wanted...a puppy who knows the art

of filling the ache

in a lonely heart!

Wanted...a puppy with a wagging tail

that can cheer you up

when all other things fail!

Wanted...a doggie to light the dark

with two trusting eyes

and a friendly bark!

Wanted...a puppy to calm the fears

Of a gallant lady...

and to be her ears!

Such a lovely poem and so very true. Good night. Sweet dreams world. Perhaps the sleep fairy will visit me, I'd even do with the Sandman, however he's far creepier (says the girl looking at her hanging head on a chain in the corner of her room that she named Marvin). 

PS. I'm wearing my LARMC scrubs shirt. It says "LARMC not for self but for others". It still means alot to me. Anyways I'm really comfy despite my sleep deprivation. Only XX days left.

dreaming of the future for my children

I am made of love and dreams. I am made of hope and heartache. I am made of flesh and blood. I am made to be a mother. I am made to be a wife. I am made to be a leader in the fight for others. I believe I am made to be whatever I wish to be.

Today I am dreaming… My son turned 3 today and he’s so much a little boy, the idea of it alone seems fantastic and absurd. It seems as only yesterday he was in my arms for the first time, but, no, it’s three years since the morning he was born after intense labor and my anger issues out of control for the last hour of that. I remember cussing out the nurses and calling them names, I remember telling everyone in the room that I hated them and that I couldn’t do it. But at 5:45am, my son, Jaxon Michael Ray, was born into the world. He was placed into my arms and I breathed in his newborn scent and kissed him for the first time. My second-born but my first-born son, my angel. I was never more blessed then that moment, when I had not only my amazingly beautiful daughter, but also a son, strong and healthy, with all the potential to be anything he dreams…

My dreams for my son are not so fantastic, but may be more detailed than most. I’m not sure. I dream of my son growing up, proud to be an American boy, proud to be a Hero’s grandson as well as an Army brat. I dream of him playing football and finding his place on the field. I dream of him earning a scholarship and playing for Texas A&M until Graduation. I dream of him either playing for the NFL and hopefully the Redskins, but I’d bend to the Giants or Bears. If that doesn’t happen, I dream of him becoming an Officer in the American Military, either the US Army or the USMC. Don’t get me wrong, the USAF and USN are great, but I see my son as more of a fighter than someone who would sit behind a desk or fix things. He’s destructive and constructive, he’s brave and unafraid of anything already. I see so much potential for him to lead and become someone of great importance. It would be my absolute pride to raise a US Soldier or Marine. Nothing would make me more proud.  

Obviously, West Point is often on my mind for his college career. I don’t know what it would take but I’m starting to think about it. I want him to be successful as a person, as a student, as a leader of men. I want him to be happy and to continue to be fearless. It is his fearlessness that I most admire. I dream of him becoming someone of great strength and admirablity. Perhaps I am selfish, but my dreams for him are something I cannot control. I love my son and see the most amazing things.

My dreams for my daughter are different. I see her being more of a free spirit, which could be very concerning. She loves to draw and paint, she’s creative, she loves to dance and sort-of sing. I imagine she could play soccer and be really good at that. I did. I also think she could probably do something musical if she wanted. I know she’s got so much potential  as well.

My kids are my hope for the future. If I can raise two good, kind and decent human-beings, that would be my absolute lowest expectation. I want more for them. I want… no, I need them to be better than me. I have messed up so much in my life and my past is riddled with dark mistakes, but I have never broken my moral code or my own rules. Still, I don’t have rules for everything, so sometimes, I still mess up. And I want them to learn from my mistakes. I think I need them to. They deserve better than I ever had, or even feel like I deserve sometimes.  I have issues.

Anyways, I’m proud to have a son like mine. I hope he gets to have everything he dreams of, even if his dreams don’t match mine. I’ll be ok with that, as long as he’s happy. 

My creativity from last night... Caution, lots of pictures haha.

I was bored and in desperate need of a distraction last night. So I started getting creative with my laptop, picnik.com and that hopeless dreamer feeling I always get.... here's what I did::::

And these ones I did for a few of the RBL ladies...

Jax

turns 3 today. Right now. My Baby is three. And you can bet he wishes you were here to celebrate with us. We miss you!!!!!!!!

I remember when he was born:::::

Fear.

I'm scared.  Since finding out that my rundown feeling was more than just being rundown, I was wondering if any of you have gotten sick without your man (and I mean more than a flu or something) and how did you handle it? Because if I am truly honest, I'm scared to death somethings going to happen to me. And I don't know what would happen to my kids or anything. 

I'm only 23, almost 24. I'm young and I'm scared this time. I've almost died before, but i wasn't a mother then. It scares me so much that they would be alone. Their biological father has not seen them since summer of 09. That's almost two years. Two years august. He's spent less than 5 months with my son and 22 months with my daughter, where he was barely around, because hanging with the boys was too much fun. He barely makes payments and doesn't have a job. It's a miracle I've managed to raise these kids on my own half the time. 

And then I met Steve and my whole world changed. He is the kindest and smartest and funniest and most understanding man I've ever known. He cares for my children but he's not their father and I don't know how that would work for them... 

It's so hard for me somtimes because I can't have anything happen to me. I have to be here. And then I thought, what would being sick do to Steve, who is deployed right now? What would I tell him? How would I tell him that we didn't get to have happily-ever-after and not because of an act of war but because my own body betrayed me? 

I'm sitting here, crying, feeling so alone. Because the idea of losing him and losing my kids is hard enough, but the idea of me not being there is absolutely devastating. How could I handle that? How could I leave my babies without a mother, alone in the big bad world? We don't really have anyone who could take care of them. It's been forcing me to think about a will. I don't have one, but I do have a living will. Which basically says if I'm on life support, take me off it if I am confirmed brain dead and donate what organs you have except my heart. I want my heart cremated. I know that seems weird but I want my heart scattered amongs the most beautiful garden I've ever seen, in Germany. It was where I really started becoming the person I am. 

I'd just arrived in Germany in 04. I was feeling really alone and lonely and my mother was sick and my Dad was in the Spec Ops and he just wasn't home and when he was, he was drunk. So my first month there, I take the train and two buses to get there. And as I'm walking around these gardens surrounding an old crumbling castle, I pictured the old world, the homeland, the royals and nobles that walked around there. I imagined the men and women that fought there. That spent their lives there without what we have today. I imagined the simplicity and the values. 

I imagined the girl who waited for her Soldier, just a regular footman, living in the village below and looking up at those gardens drinking in their comfort. I imagined a life that came before. And as I walked those gardens, imagining these scenes, I realized that the path I was on, the one that was leading me straight to hell, well it couldn’t continue. I mean it’s okay to be rebellious, it’s in my very nature to rebel or challenge the “rules and standards” where I see unfairness and treachery. 

And now all I see is unfairness, if I am sick. I see my beautiful happy children lost and alone and without me. I see the love of my life alone with all of my things and I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. I was there once before, surrounded by my first love and best friend’s things after he died. I’m scared. I’m really scared. And I just want everything to be okay.  I wish Steve was here to tell me everything’s going to be ok. I am so alone.

I want you to know that

and I love you <3 Come home soon.

Dreaming

we talk about taking trips somewhere and I want to go everywhere with you....

to the ends of the earth... to the ends of the universe...

I want to be with you everywhere.

Because, you see, Darling, I'm madly in love with you.

Just one of those days.

I'm sorry for feeling sorry for myself. It's just been one of those days for me... My prayers still go out to the victims of the horrible storms that swept across our country and for all the families of every Soldier, Marine, Airman, Sailor that never makes it home. <3 I'm sorry. It's just been one of those days for me.

In an effort to make myself feel better I thought I'd post songs that mean something to me... Starting with Kings of Leon ~ Use Somebody... While Steve's been deployed he got to take part in a British version of the USO shows and heard a band play the cover of it. He called me later that night and said he kept thinking about me and that it's one of our songs...

Recently, I reheard a song I hadn't heard in quite a while and it reminded me of why I love Steve, why I need him in my life. The song is called Last Train Home by Ryan Star.

And if you wait for me, I'll be the light in the dark if you lose your way... And if you wait for me, I'll be the voice when you don't know what to say. I'll be your shelter, I'll be your faith, I'll be forever, wait for me. I'll be the last train, I'll be the last train home.

That part always hits me so hard. I miss him with all my heart but I know he's everything for me.

The next song is probably one no one knows. It's called "No you, no me" performed by One Less Reason. It's an amazing song and I know who wrote it (not sayin names haha).

This song is so important to me. And the words never cease to be true.

I'm writing you a letter, at least I'm trying to, but I hate every single word I choose. I tore up lots of paper full of things I thought I meant that never would have wound up getting sent. I keep coming back to these four words, I keep writing them over and over..... NO YOU NO ME. It's a stupid kind of thing to say. I hope you get what I mean. And It's ok that I miss you more than I'm supposed to. It's hard to be No you, no me.

The last song I'll post is more my song... The song that reminds me of me. It's just true. I won't give up. I'll always be there for him. No matter what.

Ok. I'm out.

Vultures circling

Shadows of thoughts are haunting me, teasing me with their whispers that I can’t quite make out. Yet I know they are there. I hear them inside my mind as I see their memories, glimpses and clips of what once was. The thoughts circling my mind like vultures in the sky, I know they will attack at any moment and force my sanity to run for cover, or what’s left of it, at least. All around me are weeds of bitter memories threatening to overtake the softer, more vulnerable parts of me,  the blossoms of hope where around it is desolation and loneliness.  

I was prepared for this life, you know. The constant moving and new people, rules and regulations, conformity among uniforms. I was a daughter, born and raised within the Military. A part of me always knew that I’d marry a Serviceman (and although my father was air force, I’d always been partial to Marines) but after a failed relationship with a Soldier and the loss of the only Marine I’d ever been able to love, I had given up that dream. I still expected my father to walk me down the aisle one day, but that day would never come.

On October 27^th, 2009, I had my entire life changed. That was the day my father, TSgt Charles T. Gose, died. Not even two years ago and every day I miss him. Every day I look at his flag that I received on my twenty-second birthday in Honor of his unfailing service. He was supposed to retire the next month. I remember when I got the news. I was so incredibly unprepared for it. I thought I died. In my heart, I suppose I did, at least for a while. I slept all day, not even caring about myself, only getting up to make meals and fix snacks and change diapers. I didn’t clean, I didn’t brush my hair and I didn’t eat for nearly a week.

At first, it was this cold, blinding pain. When a daughter loses her father, especially one who was always proud of him, who was planning his retirement surprise, who loved him beyond any other human (besides her own children), she doesn’t see it coming. The shock of it was the hard part. It came so close to my birthday (I was to turn twenty-two in just five days).  When the funeral was scheduled for my birthday, I didn’t even care. I’d lost the best man in my life, my Daddy, my one constant hero, no matter what. I know he loved me unconditionally and I lost so much of myself when I lost him.

 For six months I was so lost. I finally managed to make it back to my feet and back to being a mother, but at the time I was in an unhealthy relationship and that ended on March 1, 2010. When we ended, I was broken. I had lost my father and I’d lost the only man I relied on since and it hurt. But with encouragement from my friend, Kelsy, I started going on dates (nothing serious, just a few dates that led nowhere) and at the same time, I’d registered for a pen pal program with Military. Through that, I met my friend, Eric and my love, Steve. (I recently introduced Eric to my friend Megan and I see amazing things in their future).

 Steve was amazing, funny and smart; compassionate and caring; kind and generous; understanding and romantic. I really liked him from the start. He made me laugh and listened to me cry on days where I was upset and did his best to make me smile. In July, we met face-to-face and spent an incredible few days together, but he left and we made no promises except to write letters and consider each other.

He never stopped trying though. He sent flowers, a beautiful bouquet of white lilies, while I was preparing for my move back to the states. He wrote me letters and I wrote him back. He called me every week and we talked as much as possible, considering where he was. I told him that I would wait for him and that I had been without the promise and he was so happy.

In January, after Lily’s fourth birthday, we had R&R, which was absolutely amazing. We decided then that I would move to Louisiana and be settled for when he came home, despite his previous feelings of not wanting to live with a woman he wasn’t married to. (Which leaves me wondering…  when… if?) When he drove back to the airport (he rented a car) and we said our goodbyes, we were both in tears. I couldn’t fight them off. I’d finally told him I loved him during our time together. And it hurt so much to let him go that I held on to him for over  an hour. It broke my heart to know he was just not there beside me anymore. I went back inside and I cried until a friend stopped by.

In March, I moved to Louisiana and it took a long time to get my furniture and with two kids 4 and under, it was the toughest move of my life. All alone and nothing in my house to keep them busy. A month later, my stuff finally arrived and April was a month of insanity to me, missing him, trying to get a life started here, picking up a creepy stalker instead. I spent my time alone, doing schoolwork and playing with my kids, mostly instead.  I also got attacked by some crazy bitch in April.

May brought Steve’s promotion and news of Osama Bin Laden’s death on the same day. I planned a playdate (which I will do again as soon as I feel better) and overall things improved a little. Except that I started feeling rundown.

Now it’s June and I really still feel sad. Memorial day weekend brought my Father’s death back into focus and I spent the whole weekend crying randomly.  My son turns three on Tuesday which is also bizarre to me. 

Next month is my first 4^th of July in the states since 2004. And it feels sad to think that I’m celebrating it with no one. My father is gone and my mother… well, needless to say the day my father died, she did to. (deep thoughts). My brothers and friends are scattered across this world with the Military and Steve is deployed.  I do have my children who will happily celebrate a holiday they get their face-painted and balloons from. Plus the fireworks should be visible from the house (or so Steve says). Other things are happening next month, including me going insane preparing for his homecoming. I wish he was here already so I didn’t have all that time to think and over-analyze and worry and fear. 

So soon the Knight in his dirtied camo armor will return to his redneck duchess in faded denim and flannel. He’ll come back from war, alive and safe, unharmed, to a household full of people who love him. The young princess sleeps with the picture of her Knight and her brother and the young prince is ready to give up his role as man-of-the-house to him. Their mother, his love, waits and every night sleeps alone, until he comes back home, back to her arms. She will finally feel safe and loved again soon, when his arms are folded around her and she hears his heart beat. Soon the Knight will return from war to a family awaiting him.

And I’m scared, because I've been through so much pain already and I finally found the one man who accepted all my flaws and faults, helped encourage me to gain my confidence, allowed me time to heal and come to grips on what happened before him. And now, my worst fear is that he won’t love me anymore….

The vultures come full circle, snacking on these feelings like field mice. I sit quietly here, alone, with these thoughts and so many more left unsaid, in the safety of the darkness the words hide from that which would destroy the remnants of my sanity.

You are...

You are everything to me/ you are my only love.

I love you...

Tonight was ok. I've got a bit of a headache but other than that I'm feeling ok.

I miss you. I don't know if you know that by now, after 307 days... but you should.

You should also know that I love you. <3 

Dear Steve,

 Today we talked, about us. About what I was worried about and about what you had to say too. It was good. I fell in love with you nearly a year ago and I know that our future rests on your heart and your mind, because I know where I stand. You are the man I want to spend forever with. I'll never change my mind there. I have always been my worst enemy but this deployment has taught me about myself in more ways than I thought. This deployment taught me that through sacrifice there is strength, and through strength there is hope. I realized that you are the only man who would do anything for me if it's possible, just to see me happy and healthy. I love the man you are, both in your own life and to me and I'm so thankful to be yours. Hopefully for always.

This deployment has been difficult at times. Moving and getting settled without you here has been so hard to do because it feels wrong, like we're missing something. And we are. We are missing you. I want to start our lives. I want the years of being your wife and mother to our kids to begin now. I want to watch you grow as a man and as an Army Officer. I want you to live your dreams and I want to support those dreams, the way you have supported me since we've been apart. I want to be the woman you deserve for the rest of our lives. I want to be your Nancy.

When I heard your voice today, I felt the fears run away from me for a moment. You are safe, you are alive, and you are thinking of me. I need you in my life, like I've never needed anyone before and I cannot wait to have you home, in my arms and sharing our lives. I love you. I love you. I love you. I could say it a million times more but what good would it do? I love you just the same, even if it's unexplainable to you as to the whys. There are too many reasons, it's overwhelming, remember that list I sent you? Keep that as a reference.

Anyways, the kids are playing and driving me crazy. I have to get organized and I will. I need to make a list of what I need to get done before you come home. I won't tell you all of it, but know that I plan to make it very special. It's a big deal, at least to me, if not to you, so please let me celebrate the returning of my Hero. Until then I hope you stay safe for me and remember the promise you made me... not to make me cry... (which btw, you broke today when you said all those sweet things.)

Come home soon, my sweet Soldier. Come home soon, my Amazing Captain.  Come home to me, Stephen. <3 I love you

me + you = we

I miss you more than anything. You should know that. You should know that you are my everything and that every single moment of every single day I worry that I'm not worth you. Captain and soon-to-be Master of Engineering... you are so incredible and so good. You love me, though I'm not sure I deserve it. I love you more than anything...

have a little faith

Can't sleep tonight. Not really sure why. I was cleaning my room and organizing stuff. I should really go to bed now. I miss him too much though. I keep thinking about how he'll be home soon and how much that scares me because I've never loved someone more than him. He's this wonderful, truly good man and I don't know how I somehow managed to "get" him. He loves me too, which is amazing... Just everything about our relationship has been amazing. He wants to grant my every wish and make every dream come true but all I really want is to have a good man love me, marry him and be the best wife and mother to our children. I'm dreaming of the day I say I do...

Riot won't leave me alone. She's the biggest suck of an animal. Bigger than Chias even though she's much smaller, which works to her advantage because she can sit on my arm as I type this and snuggle with my chin. I'm her mommy and she knows it.

Well like I said I should go to bed... <3 much love

don't want to lose you

Arms to hold me when I’m sad are all I’ve dreamt about since you left

You’re coming home soon and I don’t know if you know

How much I love you and how much you mean to me…

I’m not sure if I told you, I’m not sure if it’s clear

But I don’t want to lose you that I couldn’t bare.

You are my Hero and I love you so much

I will never be perfect, I will never be amazing on my own

Next to you I shine, next to you I bloom into who I’m meant to be

Without you, I couldn’t get by, without you, I couldn’t survive.

I love you, more than life itself, I don’t want to lose you

In your arms is where I belong, in my heart you’ll always stay

I don’t know what’s going to happen, if it will be hard to find a normal

But I do know that I love you and I want it to be, only you and me.

I don’t want to lose you, I don’t think I could survive.

June 1st, 2011

I’ve been alone for a while. Deployment kind of sucks major ass. I’ve been sad for a while and I’m not really even sure why. Steve has been deployed for exactly 305 days and will be deployed for a double-digit number more. It’s something I’m used to by now but I miss him every single moment of every single day. I’m trying to get used to living in his house without him and the idea of living with him here is giving me huge nerves. I’m excited and really really nervous. What if he doesn’t want to live with me? What if he doesn’t want to love me anymore? I worry because he’s all that I love and want in the world. I never want to live without him. I want to marry him and I want to have his babies and I want to spend the rest of my life as his wife. But lately, I’m afraid he just won’t want that too. I look at his pictures (they are everywhere in the house) and I love him even more when lines from his letters enter my mind or a song reminds me of how I feel. 

And I’m just sad. I have a good life right now, but it could be better and will be better when Steve comes home. I have a cute kitten who loves me beyond everything, two beautiful kids that drive me crazy but are smart and happy and will hopefully have a better life than me. I want to give them the world and I don’t know how to do that. Right now, I’ve been struggling. I think I need to see a psychiatrist but I really don’t want to. I’d rather talk to an Army Chaplain but I’m not sure how that works. I realize I’m the daughter of a Hero and that helps, but I’m also “just a girlfriend” and it’s really odd for me. I hate how I am not at home yet. I hate that I still feel pretty alone. I’m trying to convince my best friends to come see me. I’m lonely and the phone makes me feel lonelier. Texts are just disappointing and phone calls are rarely a joy anymore (only his). I miss my homestate, I miss Germany, I miss Vancouver and I miss my friends. 

I miss my friends in Jersey because back then, despite how fast we grew up, we still had this core group that hung out and talked and I remember one day in Marmaluk’s classroom, I had bruises on my arms and Dustin exposed them. Different kids were suddenly telling me their stories. Drunk parents, dead-beats, drugs, alcohol, the same different story over and over. And it was the first time I’d ever been accepted for the darkness in my writing. In Jersey, I had guys that would have done anything to protect me. Once a girl made me cry and Dustin made her cry back. I got stalked and suddenly I had body guards. I had people who loved me, even if there weren’t that many.

In Germany, I blossomed into the full-blown rebel that I would become and eventually move past. I drank a lot and smoked a lot. I was popular and had tons of friends including some pretty amazing ones. I miss it sometimes. But mostly, I wish I could change how it ended there. It was such a terrifically sad way to end an era.

Then Manitoba gave me two children and lessons learned before Vancouver opened my mind up even more. I loved that city. I watched the Olympics and watched a Country explode with happiness as they won the most Gold medals after in the overtime against USA Hockey game. I met an amazing girl who became one of my best friends for life. I met the man I love today there after I’d suffered two great blows. Sometimes I know that these places are chapters of my life that one day, maybe I’ll write about every shameful detail, but until then, these memories and the faces that I knew… most of them who are gone now due to war and cancer, mostly, they haunt me.

New York sucked except that I got to see my Gram a few times and made friends with some pretty interesting and good people. It was too cold for my taste and too dirty and depressing. I was glad to get out of there.

Now I’m in Louisiana and I really don’t know what to think. I was attacked by some random chick who proved her ignorance, I have been getting creepy stalkerish messages and had middle of the night visits from three different guys that I made leave (one neighbor and two friends of neighbors) and it’s just weird. At the same time, some people are really great but I have no idea how to make friends anymore, so I’m sort of lonely.

And in a certain amount of days, my future is truly going to begin. Starting when Steve finally kisses me for our third first time and hopefully continuing forever. I just hate not knowing. I hate being so unsure. I am madly in love with that man and couldn’t imagine anyone else. He’s all I ever need. And I miss him. I fell in love with a Soldier and that means I have too much time to think. I do pray more than I ever have though. To God, to my grandfather, to my Daddy… I pray that they will protect Steve and give him peace and to send my love over the miles of ocean and land and that they will bring him home to me. Nothing else matters.

Well, I have to go. I just thought I’d write for once. I’ve been kind of neglectful.