Hearts pinmanship

When I first started writing Pete I had a hell of a time finding a pen, then finding a pen that worked. Everything is e-mail now and days. I dont even write checks anymore. It felt weird writing again. Im use to typing and I had to slow down my thinking so my hand would keep up.

Letters are so much more personal then e-mails. More depth. I got a letter from Pete today, with an address to send my stack of letter too. God, it felt so good to just look at his handwriting. It didnt even matter what he was writing about. I imagine his relief when he gets all of my letters and pictures. It will make him smile and maybe forget about his swollen bloody feet, or the millions of pushups he did that day...and has to do tomorrow. Relief.

Today is my little brothers 27th birthday. I cant believe it. When he was born they only gave him a 10% chance of living. He was born with a broken heart. So his birthdays mean more to me then my own. It wasnt until I became a parent did I start to understand my mom's anguish. I was driving home from Charlies first immunization shots crying my eyes out. To stand and watch your child in pain, is one of the most painful things ever. Ever. Now imagine watching your newborn go threw open heart surgery, or watch him poked with needles so many times that he just stops crying. Life changing for a mother. It wasnt just Brandons heart that was broken. It was my mom's too. So, my little brother is 27. Take that "odds". Tonight I go to bed grateful for the old school romance of pen to paper, and grateful for a great big heart that beat all odds.

Patience

Im running low on patience. Im assuming this is a side effect of the last 3 weeks of my life, that has been trying to say the least. I find myself looking at the clock all the time. Is the mail here yet? Is it time for Charlies nap......please? Is it time for a glass of wine? Is it time to go to sleep? Yet, when I took the rental car back it said on the invoice 14 days. Really? Has it really been 2 weeks? I think im in a cloud. I dont like it. I dont feel good, and im oh so irritable. I think all of this would be lifted if I just had an address. My daily letters to Pete are starting to look more like "Dear Diary's" because I feel as though im talking to myself, he isnt reading them. I called his recruiter and he couldnt get Pete's address for me because I dont have a unit number for him. Im just praying that I get a letter from him today with a return address. Im doing my best, but damn its hard. Im exhausted. I went to my cloth diaper group today, and usually this puts me in a wonderful mood. Not today. My heart has been aching so much, that I feel like ive separated it from my body. Disconnected. I went to bed the other night and laid on Pete's side of the bed staring at the ceiling. All of a sudden I sit up, and start feeling around the bedroom floor looking for the shirt of his that I didnt wash. I couldnt find it and I started crying. Crying because I caught myself in the desperate act of a woman longing for her husband, crying because im feeling sorry for myself, and crying because I just want to go to sleep with his smell. Ive always been an optimist. Always. I still am, Im just out of energy.

We watch Charlies "Daddy DVD" every morning. Gives me some time to drink a cup of coffee, because she sits so attentively watching his every move. Here is a video of her watching him. She loves him so.

Day to day

Day to day. Today.

I got an unexpected phone call from my love a couple days ago. It was awesome. I had just woken up, and heard my phone ring. Expecting it to just be the stupid insurance company just telling me something else was wrong, I answered hastily. When I heard his voice say "Bre, its Pete" I immediately broke out in a sob. Its funny that he always tells me "its Pete" on the phone. Like I wouldnt recognize his voice from a million miles away. He sounded just as relived to hear me as I was him. Its funny. Couples get so use to having each other there, that I think they dont realize how in sync and reliant they are on just each others presence. So many nights over the past 10 months, after we got the baby to sleep, we would just sit in silence. Him watching something on the TV and me on the computer dorking out over cloth diaper and mommy things. I would give anything to just sit in silence with my husband right now. Only parents can understand the romance of silence after a day of taking care of an active baby. Every once in a while we would look at each other and smile...thats all we needed.

I find myself just pretending Pete is at the beach lifeguarding. It helps. I still dont have an address to send Pete his letters. Im going to call his recruiter tomorrow and see if he cant help me out. I picture pete going to mail call, just to not have anything there and it upsets me.

I think the transition of him being gone would have been smoother if I wasnt dealing with the car crap. I really despise it. I think I have found a car that would be great for us, and I will find out tomorrow if they accepted my offer. We will see.

The days are going by faster,and for that I am grateful.

First Class-Forever

I got my first letter from Pete today. It was just in the nick of time. I just got back home from collecting all of our personal items from his car, that the insurance company, today, determined totaled. I was sobbing the whole way home. As I was gathering all of the things from his car i was flooded with my husband. His smells, his receipts, his random things he collected from the beach, his empty water bottles and energy drink cans. This was his car. He picked me up for our first date in this car. We listened to music for hours, while parked in the parking lot of my old apartment building, just talking and kissing. Listening to each other ramble about stories, and music. I felt as though I was putting to rest a part of our past that I, at times, thrived on. Now I dont have a car. I dont have the money they are going to give me for the car, because I dont have the title with Pete's signature on it. Fuck, I dont even have money for rent because I missed work due to the accident and I have no idea when I will start getting money from the Army. So, never the less my drive home for the collision shop was filled with sobbing for what was, and the longing for my best friend.

The first thing I noticed when I saw the letter was that the return address was MY home address, not the address to write him back at Ft. Lenordwood. I opened the letter, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Hello honey" I said out loud. The letter was wonderful. He started off by saying how much he misses me and Charlie. How he wakes up at night expecting to be in bed with us, and instead he is greeted with a drill Sergeant yelling at him. When he wrote the letter he was still at Reception, so he didnt have and address for me to send my letters too yet. I read the letter about 4 times. Then, I took a big breath in, and I felt better. This car crap will pass, we will get another one.

I found a stamp on the floor of Pete's car when I was cleaning it out. It had the liberty bell on it and it read "First class Forever". The same stamp was on the first letter I got from my soldier today.

Picture perfect.

I decided to dust off my film camera. I was so passionate about photography a couple years ago, but got side tracked with life, death, marriage, and kids. Horrible I know. Not that I wasnt taking pictures, but they were more for memories sake then art's sake. The moment I loaded the camera and started clicking away, I felt that old familiar love come back. Pete would be happy with this. Ill post some pictures when I get them developed, see if ive still "got it".

Got a card from Ft. Lenord Wood today. Pete had filled it out. It just said that he arrived safely and would be writing be once he is assigned to his training group with an address. It was nice to see his hand writing. It also said, that incase of emergency I had to contact the red cross to get in contact with him. Reminded me of finding the red cross letters sent to my grandma saying that my Grandfather had been killed in Korea, only to get another letter a couple days latter saying that he was alive, but wounded. What a horrible couple days that must have been for Nana.

I keep trying to focus on positive things, so I just dont sit around and mope that my husband is gone. I get to watch whatever I want on the TV, less laundry, one less person to pick up after, and I havent been kept up with Pete snoring in a week..... although im so use to it, that im finding the silence in my bedroom annoying. Ive been writing him every night, telling him all the things that I would normally share with him threw out the day. It helps a ton. 1 week down 9 to go.

30 second phone call

Got my first, and probably only, phone call from Pete today. He said he would write me with the address, he made it there fine, and he loves me. I asked him if it was what he expected, he hesitated and said yes. I cried when I got off the phone with him. After Charlie went to sleep last night I wrote Pete my first letter. Living in the age of email, its been ages since I have written a letter. In high school that was all I did, so i couldn't help but get a little gitty writing it. Then it was a letter to my boyfriend or high school crush, and now its to my husband. Kind of cool. I drew some silly pictures on it, and pointed out that i got chocolate on the letter from the candy bar i was eating....i know he will love it. I have been showing Charlie the DVD I made of the videos of her and daddy. She just kind of stared at it trying to figure out how daddy got in the TV, she then blew him a kiss and came and laid her head on my lap. Its not just my greatest love that is gone, its hers as well.

This is one of many video's Pete made for Charlie. Sorry its sideways, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it.

The missing peice

Pete left today. Well really he is 3 blocks away at a hotel. Technically he flies out on Wednesday, but they like to keep tabs on the new recruits. He will spend tomorrow at the processing station. It wasn't until he handed me his cell phone that I broke down. Not being able to call him, text him, not getting his random phone calls in the day just to tell me what he is eating. I'm trying to focus on the good that is coming from this separation. A new appreciation for my love. The past several year have been so trying on our relationship. The lose and gain our family has felt takes its toll. However, we have made it through. He is my best friend. We share everything, and I wish I could be his shadow the next 10 weeks, to see first hand what he is going through. We spent the morning making videos to show Charlie. Videos of her and daddy, singing, playing, him whispering how much he loves her. Ill post one here once I get them uploaded.

I got into a car accident 3 days ago. I'm sore, but lucky. What hurt me the most was lying in a C-spine in the hospital room and seeing my husband come walking up to me with an absolute look of fear on his face. He didn't need that right before he leaves...neither did I. We were supposed to go to a fancy dinner the night of the accident. I took an alternate way home, to stop by Ross and pick up a nice dress. Sucks. Now i'm mending an aching heart and back. I just keep reminding myself of how lucky I am. There were 4 cars involved. 2 were totaled..1 rolled. I had my angels looking out after me on Friday. Thanks Jim and Sue.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite books from my childhood "The Missing Piece". Its about a circle who is missing a piece. He goes searching for it so he can roll smoothly. Peter is my missing piece. Even though we argue like couples do, get on each others nerves, complain about little bad habits each of us have, we work well together.

When Pete and I first started dating he called me his "Johnny Cokrin". He said I was his representation. It was cute. Last night when we were cuddling after Charlie went to bed, I brought that up. He said "Ya, you are my Johnny Cokrin, and I am your OJ". We both started laughing so hard we started crying. He said "Wait, that's not right..I take it back!" I love my man.

The beginning and the end

Ive created this blog as a way to keep Pete up to speed with me and Charlie's day to day adventures, to document the trials and tribulations that come with being and Army family, and also as a form of therapy I guess. I should say right off the bat that I am horrible at grammar and spelling, but i get my point across.

Pete and I met in November 2005. I was friends with the drummer of his old band Airport 81 and we hit it off right away.Our courtship included going to see live music, traveling around with Airport 81 taking pictures of them playing, and watching zombie movies while drinking tequila...it was awesome. Pete and I moved into our first house together in October of 06. A little house in Golden Hill. Pete proposed to me July of 07. I had been cleaning all day and he stopped me in the living room on my way to the bath and said "Do you want to rock and be my wife?" Of coarse i said yes. We got married October 12 2007. I planned the wedding in 2 months. Petes mother Sue had been battling lung cancer and it meant a lot to us to have her at the wedding. The wedding was perfect. We honeymooned in Maui. March of 08 we found out we were expecting our first in December 08. 2 months before Charlie was born Sue died after a long battle with lung cancer. 2 days later, after our baby shower, Pete found his older brother Jim dead . He was 33. Charlie was born December 2 2008.....she is brilliant. Pete decided to join the army this past summer and is leaving for Basic Training Monday. Our life in a nutshell. Of coarse there is a lot missing. I could write a book about the details of our life, but i wont. More shall be revealed in future blogs. This is the beginning of our new life....our Army life, consisting of who knows what, who knows where, and who knows when. Sounds exciting, right? This is also the end of and old life. A life where I have a husband who feels like he isnt doing what he should be, the end of just settling. So, the beginning and the end.