Separation.

The word doesn't seem to do justice to the feelings that go along side it. It doesn't imply (or at least not enough)the endless nights, the heartbreaking goodbyes or that constant ache in the pit of the stomach.

K has been gone for 2 months 1 week and 3 days now. It feels like a lifetime. There are many of my military friends who have been separated for greater lengths than our mere 4.5 months, who have more reason to fear, who have much more responsibilities to take on in their husbands/partners absence and I tip my figurative hat to them.

I am not ashamed to say I am struggling or that I have raced home for a bit of shelter at my mum's. I needed it. I have accepted that. At first I was ashamed, deeply infact, that so many of the other women left behind had managed to do so without any help, being miles away from home with more children and more commitments and I, with just one child and no other commitments than staying in touch with K had ran so quickly for help. I felt I had let myself down, let K down and let our boy down. Now however, I see that it isn't right to compare myself to others, they have different strengths but also different weaknesses. Although I admit I am struggling, I also need to admit that I am coping far better than I thought I would. I thought I would be a shell without K, I thought I would shrink into oblivion, okay so I'm exaggerating a little there but I didn't for one second think that I would be able to go a day without crying. I thought life would be miserable and yes, sometimes it is, sometimes the ache of missing him is unbearable.
I have to be honest, it's the lack of communication that's the worse, the wi-fi out in the sands is shocking (as you can probably imagine) and he doesn't get a lot of time to line up for the phones so daily chats are out of the question. Every few days we'll have a little chat on Facebook, or a 20 minute talk on the phone and I'll forget every single thing that me and P have done over the last few days, and you can put money on it that the burning question I had been waiting to ask him will only pop into my head as I press the end call button. But just hearing what he had for tea that day or how well he did at the last weekly poker match somehow makes everything seems okay again. Hearing the smile in his words when he tells me he got my last package, or the excitement when he talks about our holiday, just knowing that he's okay, that he's coping, that's enough for me. I know we'll survive this deployment. We couldn't not survive it.
Something my Mum keeps saying to me keeps playing on my mind "I don't know how you do it", you see my Mum's in a long distance relationship, her fiance lives about 200 miles from her, she see's him every second weekend for 2 nights and she's asking how I cope. I think that's the thing about seperation, it doesn't matter what the reason is, how big the distance or for how long, it all hurts just the same.