Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Kuwait/Alone

So, yes, if you ever read this, I'm angry. It's only a maybe-thought, but it comes when I'm sick and swollen and was already thinking how much I'd rather be around my home and family than 6000 miles away where YOU chose to be and you are the only major positive to my being here against not seeing my family for years and THEN you drop the bomb on me that you volunteered for this. I'm not angry that you volunteered, I understand that you had no real choice, but I'm very angry that you brought me up here when TDYs are going to be a fact of life and I'm angry that you always want to move strangers into my home to "help" me but drive away the few people I can tolerate being here, crazy though they may be.

You know what other wives here do when their spouses go TDY? They pack up and go the hell home to their families. Is that an option for me? No. We can't afford for me to lose my position even if we could afford the pay cut in the mean time. I've tried to find a better job up here and there isn't one I can get. Do you know I put out several applications every couple weeks? I don't think we can even afford the plane tickets right now. What the hell am I supposed to do? Why did you volunteer us for here? You point at a beautiful moment and I do understand why that's worth it to you, but you will never be here alone, you married someone you didn't particularly like last time so you wouldn't be here alone--please understand, please think for ten minutes about what it would be like if I went away for four months and you had to manage all the things I do. Is it hard to go? Sure. Will I support you 110% while you are gone? Of course. But is it harder to stay behind than to go off to the desert, even risking getting shot at? To me it is. Given a role to choose in this situation, I would go rather than stay. And there is beauty everywhere. If you hadn't asked for here, I would have more options.

I know this is why many military spouses don't work. If I didn't, this would be easier, because I would be able to take care of the kid and the house and not feel like I would be overwhelmed and fall apart.

By the time you find this I will likely have calmed down, but you think I'm overemotional about these things--and it's just as ridiculous that you think it's psycho for someone to have feelings, or at least to emote at all. Sometimes I need to rage, and I can rage at all little the things in the world that irritate me because that's amusing, but if things really bother me I feel that you will think me irrational. What's rational about being alone with (1) a seven year old and (2) four friends, all newlywed couples with other family plans, one of whom will be very pregnant with [add'l info. deleted, I dare you to ask me whether this is still bothering me when we're alone sometime, but you won't because you don't want to deal with confrontation so I bottle everything up and let it pour out on paper or here in the blog], one of whom is trying very hard to become pregnant, and all of whom will be hormonal and uncomfortable and who do not come to game with me, after all, with my crazy schedule and all.