Loneliness sucks....

I've never done a blog before, so I'm kind of new at this, but here goes nothing...

Joe deployed the beginning of October and I've been having a pretty hard time coping. I knew what I was getting into when we first started dating, but NOTHING can prepare you for this. It'd be easier if I knew that he was gone for a year on a business trip. But how can you ever expect to prepare yourself for being away from the love of your life for a YEAR and not even knowing with absolute certainty if they'll come home safe? I know that he is surrounded by prayer more than I probably even know, but I can't help but worry. My secret hope is that Obama will be elected and that he'll send Joe home... he can keep everyone else over there, just send Joe home! Hey, I'm allowed to dream.

I keep being told that I should be thankful that it's "only" a year. Yes, I know that it could be an 18 month deployment and I also know that back in the day they were gone for YEARS. But how can anyone expect me to be THANKFUL for losing him for a whole year? My son will be a few months away from being SIX by the time he comes home! He won't even be here to go with me for his first day of kindergarten. **great, I'm crying now** I just don't know how people do this. I think the hardest part is that I have no friends here and I'm 3 hours from my family. I get so lonely. My kids are great, but there's only so much conversation you can get from a 2 or 4 year old. I just don't even know how to function. Most days I feel like I moved a mountain just because I was able to get dinner on the table without it being PB&J or Mac & Cheese. More often than not, I just want to crawl into bed and take a 4-6 hour nap. If I didn't have 2 kids, a dog, 2 rats, 2 turtles, my job, a house to keep on top of, and bills to pay... I would never leave my bed. I would lay there all day just praying that I would wake up a year later. But reality sucks.

So anyway... there it is. My first (horribly depressing) blog. I hope the rest of my blog posts won't be so awful. I promise I'll brag about my kids or something next time.