The Emotional Roller-coaster

Love is complicated as it is. Throw in a deployed Marine and you have yourself one ticket, front row on the emotional roller-coaster.

Now I like to consider myself cool, calm, and collected. Which I normally am. But some days you just reach emotional overload.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Before he deployed I made (nagged - you know po-ta-toe / po-tat-o) Marine sign me up with the Family Readiness Officer [ FRO ] for the Battalion newsletters, etc.

Yesterday I got an email giving me a number that I could call in to and listen to a message from the Battalion commander.

Of course I stop what I'm doing and call the number.

Once I hear the message, I hang up and call back - 3 times - to allow the message to fully sink in and to listen for any hidden meanings.

Then I sit there feeling slightly overwhelmed.

The news wasn't bad. Just said what had been going on and where they were located {this information has yet to make the news therefor I will refrain from giving to many details or locations}.

Basically it informed me that Marine was not wandering aimlessly in the dessert as I had hoped but instead had been in combat.

I handled the news well. The rush of emotion brought tears to my eyes but I held them in.

No sense crying.

So I stay strong.

But then around 9:30 the phone rings.

It is Marine, and it had never been so good to hear his voice. To know he was ok. Or as good as could be given the situation.

We were able to talk for 2o - wonderful but short -minutes before he said he had to go.

When I hung up the phone I burst into tears.

The first tears that have fallen since he has been gone.

I was at my moms and she comes into the room a panic stricken look on her face as she asks me if Marine is ok.

I tell her he is.

"Then why are you crying?" she asks.

They were tears of relief.

So relieved that he was ok. So relieved to hear his voice.

Physically he is ok. Mentally though I could tell he was shaken.

"It's no Iraq," He had told me with a heavy voice.

I know this deployment is not going to be easy for him. But we are one month down. 7 to go.

Please Lord just watch over all of them and keep them safe.

Loving a Marine --- what a ride. But I wouldn't trade it for anything, if nothing else with everyday that passes I think I love him more.

This song was originally sung by Reba McEntire and Faith Hill but this is a live version of Reba and Kelly Clarkson... pretty much sums it up.