{"id":684,"date":"2012-09-03T21:36:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T00:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/?p=684"},"modified":"2012-09-03T21:36:10","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T00:36:10","slug":"purging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/?p=684","title":{"rendered":"Purging"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an effort to purge myself of some negativity that has been surrounding me today, I thought I would write some of those feelings out here. Then I’ll head to bed and tomorrow will be a new day.<\/p>\n

I don’t know that anyone or anything can really, fully prepare you for the hardship of being a military spouse. Don’t get me wrong – our Canadian Forces members are paid relatively well, they get awesome pensions, we all benefit from the health insurance (particularly the spouses; we have different, and better, coverage than military members so that, for instance, I am covered for massage therapy whereas Neal isn’t. Go figure). And that’s not to mention the job security, and in our current economic climate, that is HUGE. <\/p>\n

But the ability to really see all of those perks becomes poignantly difficult when that member of the forces goes away for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m crumbling away here, or that I’m crying everyday, that I’m a mess, etc etc. I pride myself on being fairly self-sufficient. That’s not to say that I don’t need help from friends and family once in awhile, but I’m quite capable of finding that help. And the instances of needing that help are pretty few and far between – at the moment, all I am thinking of is when I need someone to watch Claire while I mow the lawn (thanks, Nina and Brad, for watching her on Sunday!).<\/p>\n

So I think I’m doing rather well. I go to work, cook supper and eat with Claire, play with her, get her ready for bed, take care of the house and myself, hang out with some friends. But that’s not to say that it’s not hard, sometimes. I miss Neal every single day. I miss his wonderful company and I also, yes, miss the help he was always more than happy to dish out. We talk on the phone every day, but it’s not the same as being able to wrap my arms around him and feel his close around me. Or sitting down to watch “The Colbert Report” with him after Claire goes to bed and we’ve finished all of our chores. Or being able to talk about our day while driving from work to go pick Claire up from daycare.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness for Claire, though. For one thing, she’s pretty easy-going. Oh, she has a temper, but she usually gets over it pretty quickly, and she mostly just wants to have fun and make me laugh. For another, she keeps me company. The last time Neal was in BC for three months, we weren’t even married. I remember looking forward to the work week and almost dreading – yes, dreading! – the weekend. At least when I was at work, I was busy and it was a time when I wouldn’t normally see Neal anyway. The weekends were just too quiet and lonely. Not anymore! I still really miss Neal, but my weekends are really busy as well and I have this incredible little person to play with.<\/p>\n

I don’t know. Maybe this feeling of sadness and negativity is here because our three-year anniversary is coming up on Wednesday, and it’s the first one we’ve spent apart. And maybe the time between now and November won’t seem so long once the countdown gets into the single digits.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Our early celebration of our anniversary at The Colby (Excuse the graininess - taken with Blackberry tablet in low lighting)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Our early celebration of our anniversary at The Colby (Excuse the graininess - taken with the Blackberry tablet in low lighting)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an effort to purge myself of some negativity that has been surrounding me today, I thought I would write some of those feelings out here. Then I’ll head to bed and tomorrow will be a new day. I don’t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mommyhood","category-real-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andromeda.qc.ca\/guthrie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}