The First Few Days...

...and the last few days always seem to be the hardest (okay, the ones in the middle are no picnic either). I feel like I'm being a HUGE baby, being bummed out about not seeing LB, but it's like this weird hollow feeling I can't seem to shake. I won't inundate you with mopey posts, but here's the update:

After some talking, I decided SUPER last minute to leave for Tana's baby shower a day early on Friday and "stop by" camp to spend a couple precious hours with LB before he had to go. (Now, realistically, you can't really call it "stopping by" when it was literally nearly a five hour drive, and at least two hours totally out of the way, but it is what it is.) Maybe I'm crazy to fight Friday traffic and drive for almost five hours to spend just two short hours with him, but honestly? It was totally worth every second. And if you know how much I DETEST driving, then you have an idea how much I care about this guy.

Basically I told him to tell me if he wanted me to come up and see him, and he said "that would be cool," but that he had a ton to do and we wouldn't really get to hang out much. I decided that was fine with me, and even if it were just a couple hours, it would be worth it to have a week's less time between seeing each other (just over 3 weeks instead of a whole month). But I never really confirmed with him that I was coming (on purpose), because I wanted it to be a little bit of a surprise.

I was hoping to get there around 5:30, but traffic meant I got there about 7:00 PM. I knocked on the door of his house, and even though I could hear the TV on, no one answered. Then I heard him behind me. He had come out of the office, thinking I was someone from the user group in camp last weekend. When he came around the corner and I turned around, you should have seen his face! Priceless. He gave me a huge hug and we got Allee out of the car and went inside.

His house is still empty (he's in the process of moving because of the new job...promise that post is coming), so he had literally propped his laptop on an old milk crate and was sitting on the floor, finishing up some work for his training and watching TV online. He put his arm around me and we snuggled up on the floor to watch a couple episodes of "Parks and Rec." After about an hour, I looked up and he had a sad look on his face. I asked him if everything was okay, and he told me he needed to shower and pack and get ready, but he didn't want to. I told him I'd stay and help him pack if he wanted me to, so after he showered, I hung out while he got his things together.

It was kind of a surreal experience. I told him it was the first time it was real to me that he is in the Army. I mean, of course I've known that all along in my head, but seeing all his uniforms and gear and watching him pack to leave, I really understood it for the first time. Watching him wrap his dog tags around the belt loop of his pants and tuck them into the pocket, then pack them into his huge Army duffel, it just all the sudden clicked for me. It was a weird feeling, and even though I was really sad and hated watching him get ready to leave, I also felt really proud of him. (I never thought I'd be the military girlfriend...this is a whole new world to me.)

He finished packing and Allee and I said our goodbyes (I will admit we definitely drug it out as long as we could and probably hugged about 37 times, but I toughed it out and held back the tears in front of him this time) and headed out so he could get some sleep. The poor guy had to report in Kent, WA, on Saturday morning at 7 AM, which meant he had to leave around 5 AM and hit the ground running once he got there.

I was doing REALLY well not crying until we were pulling out and Adele's version of that song "To Make You Feel My Love" (you know, the song from "Hope Floats") came on the radio. BAH! That's a sad song on a good day! So, yeah...even though I changed it as quickly as I could, I definitely had to take a minute to compose myself. *sigh* I hate being apart. You'd think since we're long distance most of the time anyway, this would be easier, but somehow, it's really not. At least we got those two blissful hours together before he had to go.

So, now he's off at the Yakima Training Center, working super hard and crazy long hours. He sneaks in a text to me whenever he can, which is maybe once or twice a day if I'm lucky, or if he gets a quick break in between things and has his phone on him. He took his Physical Training test on Saturday and ROCKED it!!!! He was super worried about it because he wanted to do really well (in his stoic way of saying things, "I'm hoping to do a little bit better than just pass"), and with all the transition and craziness of the past few weeks, he hasn't had much time to train. Despite all that worrying, he texted me that he got 297 out of a possible 300 points!!! :) (This entails doing a certain number of push-ups and sit-ups in like a minute or two minutes and running two miles in a certain amount of time, and I don't know what the actual numbers are, but I know it's A LOT of sit-ups and push-ups, and it's running FAST--like 6 minute miles, or something like that.) I'm SOOOOO proud of him!! He's amazing. Hopefully one of these days I'll actually get to talk to him for a few minutes. That would be nice.

Anyway, 3 days down, and I sure miss him. June's going to be a long month.