I need a sense of hope. A way out of the smog of my mind, but I can’t do that when the headlines are ruling me again. Boxing me into this tiny square of fear and anger. I am terrified. The simple mathematic truth is that a person can only mess with fire so long before he gets burned. I’m terrified this deployment, he has a date with fire.
Before he left, I began having panic attacks. Desperately trying to hide the fear that burned in me. The worry that if I spoke my truth, my fear, I will somehow make this happen. I began counseling to fight this torment.
I spent the first two hours on her couch listening to ways to cherish each other. Ways to prepare ourselves. I didn’t know how to tell her that I had prepared myself a little too well. Somehow, I had decided that this deployment had his name etched in stone. And the shear imagining of this moment made me gasp for air. Pull on imaginary strings in my lungs.
When I finally told her. Finally explained to her that my fear of confronting the images was contorting my body, she told me simply, and calmly, “You cannot make this happen. You are not that powerful.”
Instantly, I was relieved. I could breathe again. Pull in the fresh air again. Expand my chest and move my mind past the one image that held me hostage. “I cannot make it happen.” I posted it all over my house. Repeated it over and over again like a mantra. It helped. Things moved. Time began to pass.
Until that first headline invaded my email homepage. In bold letters, the words “killed” and “Iraq” lunged into my heart. Then, just beneath it, “killed” and “Afghanistan.” Déjà vu.
Fear. Panic. Worry. And my immediate knee-jerk reaction: Anger. Just like a child running into the street, my panic and fear make me want to hit him. To smack him. Yell at him. Scream. Writhe.
“Why?” “Why you?” “Why me?” “Why us?” “Why do you feel like you have to do this?”
I try to breathe. To repeat “You cannot make it happen.” But, now my new fear, the one that has gripped me with icy hands is, I can’t make it NOT happen, either.
So when I went back into her office, eyes burning, nose twitching, I waited for the answer that seems to be tossed out most often. “You just have to put it in the hands of God.” True. I agree. However, I need some magic mantra to stop this writhing. I need hope. I need a sense of control in some form, or I may go insane. I cannot lose him.
Instead, what I got was, “When you choose to have a relationship, any relationship, you take the chance of getting hurt.” This hit me like a ton of bricks. Then, slowly moved up my spine and settled in my brain. I have always heard it said, if you let someone go and he comes back, then he was meant to be yours. Well, I let him go. Have let him physically go many, many times. I don’t want to let go emotionally. If I create that wall, build myself into a concrete block, then I may as well consider him gone. How would I ever let him back in if I let him go?
“So, basically, I choose to hold onto him emotionally and just absolutely hurt like hell if something happens?” I asked. “Yeah.” She said.
And there was my hope. I can choose that. I have a choice. I now have new post it notes up. A new mantra. “I choose to hurt like hell so that I don’t have to let him go.”
What is your mantra to get through deployments? What bargain are you willing to make to gain some sense of control?
