Looking Back....

wow that just instantly made me think of Garth Brooks. LOL Looking back, on the memories of the times we shared, beneath the stars above, and for a moment all the world was right.......ok i'll stop that now. I was just looking back over some old blogs. I find that i write about Jay a LOT. LOL he's either deployed or bugging me or i want to make a point about marriage, submission, friendship, or something or i just babble about how much i love him. I was just reading one i wrote back in November of 2007 about treating our husbands like best friends when we refer to them as our best friend. Great read....if you haven't read it go to my archives and take a peek. It got me thinking though......he really is my best friend. With his tbi and ptsd, we have been dealing with a lot lately. There have been moments where i have been feeling rejected bc he is being antisocial or he's so tired and as soon as his head hits the pillow he passes out. Only part of this is the tbi and ptsd affecting him. Part of my reason for feeling rejected is because of a bad hernia surgery he had several months ago (October). He hasn't healed properly from it and is in severe pain every day. And now he feels like he has another hernia starting in the same location. He's having nerve blocks done weekly now to help with the pain, but he says they aren't really working. So as you can expect, this is severely affecting our personal life. And logically i know he's hurting and he's missing that part of our life too. But at this point, emotionally i'm feeling rejected. I have wondered if he would be better off without me. BUT logically i know he'd say no to that question. He's struggling and the LAST thing he needs is for me to tell him that his hard times are making me sad. He needs me to stand beside him and support him and let him know that good times and horrible times, i'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not just his wife, i'm his friend. Yes i will always be there to make sure he has dinner, clean socks, a nice home, but i will also be there to listen when he needs to talk, to hold him when he needs a hug, to encourage him when he needs help, to hold his hand when he needs support, to push him when he needs a shove. Just like i know he'll always be there to do those things for me. We sat here last night after we put the girls to bed and watched the new show Coming Home on Lifetime. Seriously this show has been on for 2 weeks and we've watched both episodes. We both cry through the whole show. But it's giving us a chance to talk about the joys of what we have been through. Like when he surprised me when he came home from R&R early. We were planning to surprise the girls together and instead he got me! LOL i will never forget that moment as long as i live. Deployments are difficult, no doubt. The after effects of deployments are difficult, life changing, challenging. But there are joys in deployment too. We just often forget them. Joys don't have to be big like being surprised with a home coming. They can be things like getting flowers from him when you don't expect them (or even when you do), getting to use the web cam (especially on christmas morning), long conversations instead of short ones (or just any conversation), i can go on and on but you get the idea. I challenge you to find the joy in the times of separation and difficulty with your best friend.