Post 31- Whats love got to do, got to do with it?

Dear Journal,

I am not doing so hot right now. My life has been spinning and spinning around me but sometimes I feel like I am standing still in the middle of it, hands on my hips, trying to scream but nothing is coming out. I'm not depressed. I spend tons of time each day with friends, laughing. Last night I went to dinner with a friend who has been out of town for almost an entire month and then I spent the night at my friend Amanda's house. Amanda, Mandi and I had a girls night. We watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith, ate pizza, Ben & Jerrys, and Cheetohs. We oogled Brad Pitt. It was fun, the three of us together on the couch just laughing.

I spend a lot of time laughing and I spend a lot of time being laughed with. I say things that just really should be filtered but I don't think before speaking. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's bad. I was going to be going out of town this weekend but last minute cancellation changed the plans. I ended up crashing on Amanda's couch and having breakfast and shopping with the girls all day. Tomorrow I get to hang out with another friend during the day, and I am looking forward to it.

But as much as I am hanging out with friends, as much as I am laughing, inside right now is so dark. Eventually I have to be alone and be quite. And sometimes I just hate that. I hate sitting alone with myself.

And Ive been feeling sorry for myself lately and I know I shouldn't. Ive never given in to self pity. Ever. Not in my entire life.

But right now, for the first time, I have. And one of the major issues I am having is lack of family. My husband is deployed and I don't have a "home" to go back to to visit. I don't have parents. I don't have grandparents. My husbands grandmother calls and we talk occasionally, a couple times a year and I really appreciate her love. But the rest of his family, no one calls or emails or reaches out to me. I guess part of it is because they don't know me, but even the ones who do, I think they just go through the actions. I don't get random calls checking on me or how I am doing, outside of his grandma, ever. Ill get calls occasionally about KC, but never about me.

And I don't have a mother to call. I miss that. I miss having someone I could call and talk to about random girl things, or just to vent about missing Corky Bear, or to get advice on cooking, or to talk about something I bought, or my weight loss or just about anything. I feel so left out. And I don't like bothering my friends, I don't like depressing them, I try not to talk about things that are negative or sad around them.

I don't like complaining about my husband being gone to my friends because either their husbands are also gone, or they tell me it's what we signed up for. Sometimes I just really want someone to listen to me and nod and tell me it is going to be ok.

I don't have the same support system other people have. And right now I wish I had the support of a family. The thing is sometimes my friends say they are like family, and some of them are really close to us and I love them. But, I cant use their mothers, they are still THEIR mom. And if anything happened to that friendship… and at the end of the day there is nothing there that keeps the ties going outside of friendship, there isn't unconditional love. There isn't the sharing of blood, or a last name. There isn't the ties that time will hold together until we are eighty. And I still, even with some of them, choose carefully what I say and let out.

I don't have that long term ability to talk about memories from when we were younger, or what it was like growing up, I don't have anyone to look at and wonder if Ill go gray prematurely or if heart disease runs in the family. I don't know what my mother's pregnancies were like, or her favorite foods. I don't know.

And I wish I did. I wish I knew my mother. I wish I had a family. I wish I had a "home" to go to, that didn't belong to other people. While I appreciate the words from my friends, and offering their families, I know that it's not MINE. There are just some things that you cant share. And as much as I can go with them to their homes I am still a guest, I am still the stranger, I still cant relate or jump into the past memories and the photos on the walls of kids growing up and going through awkward stages. As much as I appreciate the love now, its simply not the same. Its not mine. I cant magically blink eight year old photos of me with teeth missing and huge glasses into frames, because I don't have photos like that.

I wont be able to share with my children what I looked like growing up because I don't have those photos. I never had parents who loved me and wanted to take photos of me for memories. I have a couple, very few, photos of myself from before I was married. I never knew to take photos until I searched for photos of my mom and could only find one. When I realized that sometimes, photos are all you have left I decided to start taking a lot of my own.

I am all over the place tonight. I am random. Very random. I had a dream last night that there was a koala bear cub and a kangaroo in the bedroom with me. The koala bear was on the ceiling and the kangaroo was hopping around the room. They both ended up in bed, cuddling with me. It was all mix matched. The kangaroo mommy shouldn't have had a koala bear cub. I've been thinking about that dream all day. I don't know why. I don't believe in analyzing dreams or trying to figure out what they mean. I really don't, but I do wish I had a koala and a kangaroo right now.

But more so, I wish I had a mother. I wish I had a mother to tell me I was beautiful, loved, and deserved the best out of life. Someone to call if I ever get pregnant again to share the good news with, to help my choose baby names, who tells me that I should name the baby after her grandmother. I don't even know what my mom's grandparent's names were. I wish I had a mom to teach me hand me down recipes, or to tell me stories about her labor and delivery. I wish I had a mom to call and talk to about my husband and how irritated he makes me or how much he makes me smile. To talk about life to.

But wishes are all I have.

Sometimes I wish I had roots.

I think about the wives in our unit who have gone "home" during the deployment to spends weeks, even months, some of them the entire deployment with their families. The wives, who are surrounded by family who loves them and are there for them. Or the ones whose parents come and visit during the deployment, just to play with their grandkids, lend a helping hand, or simply to offer their support. I think about how nice it would be to have that, as I am sitting in a huge house, alone, and yes that is by choice, but I can only impede on my friends so often, and most of them their husbands are home right now, and let's be honest no one wants a random person over all the time intruding, but parents are different. Theyd want me there, theyd be ok with me staying as long as I wanted, they wouldn't feel like I was intruding, I mean, that's how it works right?

Ok, three pages later and it's time to wrap this up. Otherwise, Ill keep going and going. Yes, I am having a pity party tonight. Its pathetic. Roll your eyes at me. Tell me to get over it. I know, I know. I don't normally give into these feelings but right now I am overwhelmed, and lonely. Im yearning for unconditional love yet knowing in my life, such a thing, simply put, does not exist.