The loooong and the short of it all.

I am in the mood to count my blessings. I know that I have many and the heavy Christmas marketing that is already starting is making me start to feel merry and emotional. I thin.k that this desire to sit here and catalogue all of the positive things in my life is a reaction to a small (okay maybe not so small) freakout I had today.

I thought about what it's been like since Chris has been gone, and I did the thing that you should never, ever do. I counted. I realized that he has only been gone less than two weeks, and that there is so much more to go. I know that he is going to be home for a short period here soon, but then the year doesn't even start until after that. And that is just such a long time.

I think that maybe these separations are a little like walking a tightrope over the Grand Canyon. You just need to put one foot in front of the other and take it one step at a time. If you stop to look down or at how far you have left to go, you are just plain screwed. And I think that I did that today.

But I have a lot to be proud of so far in how I am handling this deployment. I think that the most important thing for me to remember is that life doesn't end when he is gone. I can't spend the next year just waiting for him to come back, because one year is a long time. It is 1/30th of my life, 1/5th of Zoe's, 1/2 of Abby's. And so we are all going to do things and truly live and enjoy the next year.

Yes, there is a hole. There will always be that hole. But we fill it. We talk to him daily. He watched the kids play from hotel rooms far away. Heck, he even watched Zoe while I jumped in the shower the other day! And I miss him. Oh, do I miss him. I guess the best thing about deployments is that the distance really makes you stop and realize just how much of an important role that someone plays in your life. Chris is my rock. He makes sense even when nothing makes sense.

But I am handling this very well. I am proud of myself. I have amazing friends who fly from across the country to be with me. I have a mom who is coming to man the troops at Christmas. I have a sister in law who came to make the weekend less lonely. I took initiative and made a new friend who is in a very similiar situation who has been just great for me and the kids. I am doing things, teaching the kids, reading to them, reading to myself and living life. I am going to be okay. We are all going to be okay.

And that is the biggest blessing of all.