Open up the Floodgates

Today has felt like one of the longest days of my life.  In just 5 hours, I will be picking up my hunky husband from the airport and reuniting him with our Little Man while we wait to greet our little Meatwad.  So far today, I have taken my dog for a walk, cleaned the house (even though I have paid a cleaning company to come over today), done yard work, reorganized my bathroom closet, gone grocery shopping and finished up some laundry.  And I still have 5 hours to go.  This gives me a lot of time (almost TOO much time) to think, which is probably why after 7 months of pregnant solo-parenting, I finally started crying.

Let me give you some context real quick.  I normally cry at everything.  Every single wedding I have ever attended, I have shed tears, including ones where I was just the date and barely knew the couple and one where I was just there to babysit the children.  I have fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube to cry to such videos as “Husband finds out he’s going to be a father” or “Dog Reunites with Dad after Deployment” or even “Fun Daddy/Daughter Dance at Wedding”.  When I see people cry, I cry.  I am usually a blubbering mess when it comes to everything EXCEPT my own life.  I didn’t cry at my own proposal, wedding, pregnancy news, or even birth of my child.  We found out we were pregnant 2 days before our 5 year anniversary and 5 days before he reported for duty.  Just let that sentence sink in.  If you told me that about YOUR life, my eyes would be welling up with tears.  But me?  Those are just the facts, man!  In fact, when I have told people about my situation, they usually do start to get emotional. “Whoa, whoa, it’s ok!  We’re fine!  Don’t get upset!” I say, consoling them.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have pity on my situation so I get surprised when other people do.  And they really try to pity me!  “Really, though. How ARE you doing? I can’t even imagine how you do it,” friends will say, giving me every chance to just collapse in their arms and throw my hands up in defeat.  But I don’t feel like it has been that hard.  Sure, I have a really tight schedule during the week and I probably do more than I physically should and I get really lonely on nights and weekends and going grocery shopping is a pain in the ass and the stupid Internet always cuts off my phone calls with my husband and it makes me want to throw my phone into a wall… but really!  I’m fine!  I can handle this!  I’ve been handling this!  And now, it’s almost over.  I have so much to be excited for.  This baby should be here any day now and I managed to keep it inside of me until my husband gets home (that is, if I don’t give birth it in the next 5 hours).  My emotional state has been like water: easy enough to spill over but strong enough to sinks ships.  I just needed to make it to the finish line and then I can ease up.  And THAT mentality is how I let my guard down.

I took my son to daycare yesterday and the teacher was so excited to see us.  “Just a few days now, right?”  “Yes,” I exclaim.  “He comes home tomorrow!”  She then tells me that Little Man talks about Dada every day and they keep telling him that he will be home soon and that Dada will be flying home in an airplane.  This stops me in my tracks and makes the hair on my neck stand up. You see, he has been OBSESSED with airplanes recently.  When he hears them in the sky, his eyes light up and he points up and says “Airplane!  Airplane!” It’s very similar to Tattoo from Fantasy Island.  But now it all makes sense.  He is excited because he knows that Dada is going to be on one of those planes.  I cry the entire car ride home.

Then I completed my Thank You cards for the Sprinkle my friends just held for me, holding out on the last cards for my best best friends here.  I could not get through a few of them due to the ugly tears.  There wasn’t enough room to write all the ways in which I am thankful for their support and trying to find a way to express that destroyed me.

This morning, when I took my son into daycare, the staff was buzzing.  “It’s finally here! He’s coming home today!” Then, his teacher reaches behind a crib and presents me this:

And I die. I still can’t look at this without crying. All of those little hands!

Finally, I got a text message from the cleaning service.  The woman who came over was also an Army veteran.  She actually just got back not too long ago and made great accommodations to help me today.  While I was out of the house she sent me this message:

And. I. Die.  Something about the term “Thank him for his service.”  I hear that phrase all the time and I never really take the time to appreciate the sentiment.  Half the time, I get annoyed because I feel like the people who say it really have no idea what military life is all about and it just sounds so flippant to me.  The other half, I don’t take it to heart because my husbands job is very low-profile and has never really put him into much danger.  But today, as I sit here and think about all the ways in which people have supported our family, it overwhelms me and reduces me to tears.  The phone calls, the texts, the food drop offs, the babysitter offerings, the cards, the lady from the Family Readiness Group that calls every month to check-in on my wellness, the guy at Petco that brings my dog food to the car because he knows I can’t lift it, the back rubs my friend gives me because no one else will, and all the ways that my friends look at me to let me know that I can breakdown and cry if I want to, it all just means so much to me.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, before my life gets crazy again and my postpartum hormones take over my personality, Thank You.  From the bottom of my heart, Thank You.