Dear...

Dear... – 05/14/2011

A couple of weeks before my husband deployed last year is when the movie "Dear John" made it to theaters. I had seen the previews and really wanted to watch the movie, but something made me avoid it. On my way home from saying good-bye to my husband at the airport, I stopped at a store to do some major retail therapy. As I was walking through the store, avoiding the stares I got from people who were probably wondering why my face was red and blotchy, I came across a shelf full of books. The entire shelf was filled with copies of Nicholas Sparks' "Dear John." Knowing what the book was about, my eyes, still burning from the 45 minutes of crying in the truck, welled up with tears. I grabbed a copy, tossed it in the cart, and kept shopping. By the time I got home I had completely forgotten I bought it.

Later that night, after I played with our dog and hung new framed photos, I saw the book on the kitchen table. It was still early but I put on a pair of my husband's comfies and climbed in to bed to read it. I only got a couple of chapters in before I started to cry. I couldn't put the book down so I got through it with watery eyes. Within three hours I had it finished. By the end of it I couldn't get hold of my emotions. I was happy for the couple in the story but I was angry and sad for myself, which made my furious for feeling so much self pity because of a book. I threw the book across the room and turned off the light and cried. The next day I went to see the movie.

The movie was on TV today and I sat down to watch it. I've actually only seen it a couple of times since last year. Watching it again brought back all of the feelings I had reading the book, watching the movie the first time and thinking about what my life is like today.

There's a part in that movie/book that hits home with me so much that I really wanted to share it. The characters have a conversation that is almost identical to one that we had before my husband deployed. Our conversation started when a friend, who had been through this whole process before, told me about a journal she kept for her now-husband. She would write to him and put newspaper clippings in it, keeping him updated on what he was missing at home. I really loved the idea and thought it would be great if my husband and I both kept a journal. I told him that if we each kept one and wrote to each other every day (or as often as possible) we could exchange them when we were together again, read them and it would be like we didn't really miss anything. It would be our way of staying connected, no matter how many miles there were between us. We went to the store and picked out the journals together. I stole his and wrote to him in it that night. This is similar to what happened in "Dear John," only for them, instead of writing journals,  it was writing letters as often as they could. They told each other everything that was going on- good, bad, insignificant. But it kept them connected while they were separated.

We kept these journals going the entire time he was away last year and have started again since this deployment began. I keep my journal next to our bed and write to him, usually three or four times each week. It helps to know that, if I have something going on or I just need to tell him how much I miss him, he'll see it when he comes home and he'll know all of the things I didn't want to worry him with while he was overseas. The journal, for me, is my way of keeping my husband here with me. I tell him all of the silly little things that happen throughout the days, how I'm feeling about school or work, how much I worry about him and how much I love him. It's comforting to be able to have that "conversation" with him, even if it'll be a few months before he knows about it.