It's a date!

We have dates!!

*insert happy dance here* Gah!! I'm so excited. He's so excited. The long awaited time is finally around the corner. He'll be leaving that country in single digit days!!!

A while back when we first started talking about moving his leave up I was getting anxious about it. All these worried thoughts and feelings were washing through my mind and I wondered if I was even looking forward to him coming home. As if his leave had been some sort of White Whale to our deployment saga and now that we were catching it, it had lost is illustriousness. It wasn't like I was feeling as though it didn't matter one way or the other if he came home, I wanted him home... that was very clear. However it sometimes felt like his leave would end up a huge disappointment or that I was scared to let go of this idea of my boyfriend that I'd had for over a year since we last parted and that seeing him again might be seeing another person entirely than the one I remembered.

I might still be a little anxious but I can't even tell. I'm just too excited. It doesn't even feel like he's been gone a year now, it feels like he's been up in Garrison the last two weeks and he's finally coming down for the weekend!! Like we don't have all this time to make up for, we're just getting time to enjoy each other.

We were talking online earlier today and I said something about having been nervous before and he was being really reassuring "Those feelings are normal darlin'. You're not the first person to have to go through this and to feel that way, you're doing great! We just gata talk about them out in the open" "Yeah, well, sometimes it's just better to leave it alone..." "haha, ok how about this. A little later tonight, YOU, ME, girly mushy feeling talk so that way it's not maddening when I get home" He told me to think about it and to think about what I wanted to ask him and talk about and then we would... so we'll see how it goes. He's so good at picking up on stuff... I wonder if that's ever going to get annoying. :) Even if we're only talking about it so I'm not driving him crazy when he gets home, the man's got a point. We might as well think about it and talk about any fears we have so that it's all out there and the time we have actually together is spent in better ways than tip toeing around unaddressed issues or whatever you want to call it.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's completely normal to be a little nervous and a little apprehensive. As Sgt. put it, being apart for so long is not normal, but it IS normal to be a little concerned about that. I think I'd be a little more worried if I had never felt any concern about it all... but I must admit I AM glad that the excitement is overpowering any hesitance at the moment.

In other news, Sgt. is trying to quit smoking!!! I'm so glad, so happy for him and so proud of him for making the decision. He made it all on his own and is going cold turkey. I've never been a smoker so I can't attest to how hard it is to quit, but I've seen many a family member and friend try and fail so I'm rooting for him. He said he's probably going to gain about 10 lbs in the process but I told him it was well worth the trade off!! He's at the end of day 3, ready to gouge out his eyes, but hangin' in there :) You can do it babe!! Hopefully he'll be out of the mood swing phase of the withdrawls by the time he gets home ;).

He's coming home. :) I can say it now, and I can say it with some gusto! Whoo hoo!