One of the gifts I've been blessed with is insight. It's been a very useful tool at times, and frustrating at others. Even as a child, I was the one that others seemed to come to with their problems......I guess they somehow knew I would understand. In my teens I began to turn that inward and try to figure myself out in addition to everyone else. Of course, as a youth, my experience, and therefore my understanding, was not nearly as great as I thought at the time. Although the search to "find" myself or figure out "who I am" has not occupied all of my time in the years since high school, there have been occasions for reflection, musings, and introspection upon my memories, beliefs and character in order to determine what my present actions should be. These periods of psychological self-examination seem to coincide rather suspiciously with long periods of time that I have spent alone over the past 8 years. I'm hoping and praying that this one won't be as bad. Perhaps by analyzing what's happened before, I can prevent myself from repeating the same mistakes. Maybe.
I'm lonely. That much should be obvious. It's a no-brainer, really. I mean, my husband is gone, and will be for a total of at least 15 months, and although he should be able to come home for a couple weeks leave in the midst of the tour, at this point we have no idea when. It's not the first time he's been gone either. Before he left we had figured out that by the time he gets back from this deployment, we will have spent a full half of his (then) 9 years in the service apart from each other. That's the biggest reason he's not staying in. We want to actually live together, have the opportunity to start a family. That's another part of the loneliness. I've been married for 11 years and I don't have any children. When I go home, all that's waiting for me are the cats, who are cute and sweet, but they don't give me a reason to keep going the way I see others with kids function. And I haven't met any other spouses here without kids. There's not much of anyone here to talk to or hang out with. Those that I would enjoy spending time with don't have much to spare for me.
I did retreat into myself for awhile a few weeks ago when my friend went back home after visiting. I needed a break from the frantic pace we'd been keeping, and some time to let myself finally deal with the loss of my grandfather back in June. After a week or so, though, I felt like I was going through withdrawals. Lack of human contact can be a pretty severe punishment for me, even when self-imposed. One of the best relationship books I've ever read (The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) helped me several years ago to understand several things about myself and my husband. My primary love languages are physical touch and quality time. And he's gone, so I have neither. I've learned to deal with that better over the past few years, and neither one of us feels less loved by the other when we're apart. But we definately feel the strain. There are times I feel like I could scream with the pain....the tension coiling through my body, tightening muscles to the point where they should surely tear from the strain.....all for lack of the touch of another human being. And it's more than sexual tension, though there are some sensual overtones to it. It's more the need for just thouse casual everyday touches.......the accidental brush of the back of a hand on a leg, the deliberate touch of a hand on a forearm, fingertips on hair, a hug. These are the reasons I dream of being held in someone's arms, kissed on the forehead and my hair as I'm told I'm loved....and I feel guilty for hours after waking.
This is where the fear comes in. Fear that I will let the loneliness win and do something I would regret. In previous bouts of introspection, I figured out that somewhere in my subconcious lurked a fear that was sabotaging my weight-loss efforts over the years. There were legitimate health reasons as to why I gained so much so quickly back in college, though I will forever wish the doctors had figured out what was going on quicker and perhaps prevented some of the other complications that have arisen. However, then there was the time in CA when I was losing weight and doing well with my health. And then came the time for my hubby to go to Korea for a year. It was the first time I was completely on my own, and I didn't handle it well at all. I became a hermit for most of the year, venturing forth to go to work when the temp agency called with an assignment, and I regained everything I'd lost in California. I'd regained some of it before he left though, and I truly believe that though a good bit of it was pure depression, part of it was a subconscious fear of making a mistake. You see, the last time we'd been apart for an extended period of time, I'd done some very stupid things. Not as bad as they could have been, but I'm almost certain that if I hadn't been the size I was, it would have. I was absolutely terrified that someone would pay attention to me and I would fall prey to their charm. I couldn't bear the thought of doing that, so instead I undid all the hard work I'd spent months on and allowed my husband to come home to a wife completely unhinged in many ways.
This time around, things are different. I'm still definately lonely. I'm still a little afraid, but not enough to allow myself to be deterred from my goal, and I'm working hard. I'm also trying hard to distract myself from the loneliness and the fear, and one of those ways is by trying new things. Alot of them it seems. I tend to be a creature of habit, OCD and all, but lately I've been doing things that my husband deems out of character, and I think it has him a little afraid this time. The new ear piercings, talk of more, thoughts of tattoos, and a few other things I won't go into right now. Part of me sees it as distraction, and part of me thinks, I'm 30 now, and I'm not sure who I am, so why not? I went from being my parents' responsibility to being my husband's with less than a year of being "on my own" in the dorm at college, and I've never had to actually fend for myself. I don't know if I could. I don't know that I'd want to try even. But I do enjoy trying different things, and so far so good this time. I guess we'll see when he gets back whether he likes what I've done. Hopefully I will have done a better job this time around, and I can try something else new, like being thin, healthy, and happy with who I am. It may be that those pigs I've been collecting will sprout wings first, but who knows? Anything seems possible right now.
