When Danny comes marching home again. (Hurrah!)

I read a lot of blogs. Most of them are written by people I actually know in an effort to keep up on the happenings of their lives. I love to read the inner-most thoughts of my friends and hear about how their lives are really going. Or, just see silly pictures of their silly, cute kids. Sure, facebook exists for that purpose, too. As everyone knows, I luuurve facebook. A blog is different, though. It feels more personal and seems like a place where you can be a little more revealing. I could tell you how I'm really feeling in a status update, but is it going to make much of an impact when the very next post you see is of someone taking a (usually crooked) picture of themselves with a weird duck-like pout on their face? (C'mon. You know what I'm talking about. The same photo that will have the caption "I look so bad today." Even though they're actually saying "Look at me! I'm so pretty!" Because, really, if you thought you looked bad, why would you post that photo? ...Sorry. Rant Ended.) Right. So facebook doesn't always create the atmosphere one might be looking for when one wants to "go a little deeper". And I'm certainly not saying that all of my blog posts have been intellectually deep ramblings on the meaning of life. (Although, my relationship with my cat is pretty meaningful.) But I appreciate that someone has come to my blog to read about me because they wanted to and not because a News Feed threw my status in their face.

Then there are the blogs I read that are written by people I don't know. I usually stumble onto their page because of a link from another person's blog or a posting on facebook. It could be an author I'm interested in or a friend of a friend or, as was the case today, a military wife whose husband just came back from a year deployment in Afghanistan. I confess, it made my cry. I don't know these people and I'm sure I never will, but I will be in that same situation one day. Her feelings of joy were palpable, through her writing and through the pictures she posted. They were just. so. happy. The looks on their faces were priceless. She wrote about their first hug and their first kiss and how, as military spouses, we get to experience those "firsts" all over again, and several times over again, with each deployment homecoming. She even mentioned they knew he would be deploying again, but it was okay. He was home now and that's all that mattered. I can put myself in her place (326 days from now) and I just know my blog post that day will be the BEST ONE EVER. (Assuming I actually blog that day. My husband will have just come home after being gone for a year. Helloooo! I probably won't even be on facebook...Okay, who am I kidding. I will be on facebook and I will be posting photo after photo of my returning hero. It's good to be honest with oneself.)

Contrary to this, I follow another blog that I really shouldn't be reading. My husband knows I read it and has told me several times not to, but I can't help myself. It's the blog of a military wife whose husband was killed in Afghanistan almost ten months ago. No matter how many times I tell myself not to read it, my morbid curiosity gets the better of me. The palpable joy in the other blog? Is now palpable sorrow in this one. The heartbreak and the misery and the utter sense of loneliness is devastating. And if that's how it makes me feel? I can't even imagine her feelings. Nor do I want to try. I don't want to put myself in her place. I don't want to think about how I would feel if my husband was one of the ones who didn't come home. I don't want to think that the person I am counting on spending the rest of my life with could be gone in an instant. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to. But I do. Because, as I mentioned before, it's good to be honest with oneself. I know it's a possibility and accepting that doesn't make it any easier, but it also means I'm not kidding myself. I'll keep reading her blog because it also helps to know that life does go on. HER life does, and will continue to, move forward.

Fret not, my friends. I don't allow these thoughts to consume me. I don't cry on a daily basis while thinking about my husband in harm's way. He's there, and I can't change that through tears, whining, or temper tantrums (but that's not to say those don't happen. Honesty again, dear readers). I have a plan for my life, but God has THE plan. What good would non-stop worrying do me? Not a thing. And since I'm generally an optimistic, happy (albeit snarky) girl, I abso-freakin'-lutely believe my husband WILL come home, safe and sound. We will have our (second) first kiss and I will post photos galore of his happy return. Even now I'm sure he's shaking his head over everything I've written and thinking I worry way too much. I'm okay with that. Just as long as I get to see that cute, shaking head again.

   I mean, really. Who wouldn't want to see this?