Getting Ready to Walk the Longest Road

Pre-deployment leave starts soon. I am so happy that I will get to see K for a couple of weeks and yet I dread the passage of time of the next few days. I strangely want to fast forward time and get him off to "The Suck" so that the clock can start ticking and he can come back...and yet I know once he leaves, time will drip slowly.....like the way wax would melt to the dull heat of a small lightbulb and so I want to stop time.

I am a newlywed. So in love. So knowing that I married the exactly right person. I am mature, self-sustaining, have already been a single mom 11 years and yet I feel like a small child when I think of all the things that can happen in 18 months.

I do not want to lose momentum in our relationship. I crave our growth and discovery. I crave his love, his attention, his touch, his kiss, his friendship, his voice, the comfortable tangled up embrace we sleep in. I hunger to massage and caress him and scratch his back lightly as he falls to sleep enveloped in kisses and deep love.

And yet soon I will have to open up my arms to release him from that last hug. I will have to unclentch my hand from his...release every single finger. I will have to stand up straight when I want to curl into a ball. I will have to trust God when my mind wants to fear. I know wherever my hands cannot touch him, God's love will caress him. Where my voice cannot carry, God's ways will be able remind him that he is loved. I know what's down the path and that we will walk down the longest road together, one day and one step at a time.