its thursday now. its been 3 weeks and 1 day. its also been 8 days since i last heard from michael. its tougher than i thought. sometimes, its like he's just gone away, and i have to live without him and he'll be home as soon as he can, and i have to plan for that day, and its ok. and then there are days, like today, when it feels almost like he's dead and he's never coming back. its this suffocating sadness. and it doesnt help when his mom sends me snippy emails. maybe she doesnt mean to sound that way, but its a bit frustrating!! i feel like anytime i ask her anything, its this huge inconvenience to her. and then if i dont contact her for a few days i get an equally snotty sounding email wanting to know "whats wrong". i mean, i dont expect his family to fill his shoes, by any means, but shouldn't it count for something that i am carrying their grandchild? that their son loves me enough to want to marry me? shouldnt that make me important in their eyes? dont get me wrong, they are always polite. but it is a "distant" and reserved politeness. maybe its just not the southern hospitality i'm accustomed to?!?! maybe i'm being overly sensitive. like i said, i've been through this before, and i remember how often my ex-husband's family called, and sent letters and cards just to check on me. and i wasnt even pregnant with their son's child! i guess everyone is different. its kinda sad though. they are my only link to him, and i feel like it is an imaginary one. it could be that i'm just "overly" aware of his absence today. i mean, in one sense, i think of how fast the last year has gone by, and think, it wont be that bad. and then i think about how the last 3 weeks seem to have just dragged on and on forever. i guess time always goes faster when you're happy. oh well, i'm tired of talking about it. more news later! :-)

day 19. monday morning. i've made it through the 3rd weekend. i realized something yesterday. i have to let all the drama go. this is the 3rd time i've had a loved one leave bc of the military. when i was very young (just out of high school) i dated someone. the military re-stationed him 2000 miles away! we stayed together for over a year not seeing each other for the first 12 mos. no one can keep up that charade. we fought, we broke up. i can remember how hard it was when he left. how heartbroken i felt. then there was my husband. who was sent to korea for a year. and that was hard. both times i felt like i was dying as i put them on the plane. but this was very different. when michael left i felt that same tragic sense of loss. what i still feel, even after almost 3 weeks is this gnawing emptiness. like a part of me went with him. its not the sudden intense loss that you learn to deal with after a few days, and eventually get over. its this disheartening, deflating sense that you cant breathe without this person. i should be excited about the birth of my child, my upcoming wedding, and a million other things. but i'm overwhelmingly sad that he wont be here to share it. i finally realized that i truly have found the person that i'm going to spend the rest of my life with. and all that other stupid stuff really doesnt matter. what matters is that we can both move on...........together. i find myself daily dreading the next year, and praying that things go well over there so as to shorten his time. i'm unable to plan for the birth, i dont want to pick out quilts for the baby or anything, bc i want his input. i dont want to choose dress colors, or flowers, or a reception menu without him. so i just dont do it. any of it. i stay engrossed in the news, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, or hear where his unit is traveling, or make sure there are no more names added to the list of POW or MIA or KIA. i'm in constant fear for his safety. it's a debilitating sense of uselessness. i still dont sleep, and when i do, i have dreams about war. sometimes good (he comes home early) and sometimes bad. like last night when i dreamed i was watching the news and saw him taken prisoner by iraqi's. i've forgotten what he smells like. its weird isnt it? that something so small can be so upsetting. i finally washed the shirt of his that i've been sleeping with for the last 3 weeks. of course, now it no longer smells like "his" laundry detergent, or "his" soap, or "his" cologne. it just smells like my house. so i cried. what a dope huh? it wouldnt have held that smell for the whole year anyway. and lets face it, it had to be dirty. but it was like losing the last part of him. giving up the one thing i had left. but, even though that happened, i'm now at peace with our relationship. because i now remember why we are together. i remember looking into his eyes and seeing forever. i remember looking at a picture of the two of us, only the day after we met, and knowing this was the person i would spend the rest of my life with. i remember how excited and happy he was when i told him i was pregnant, even though i was crying and hysterical. i remember how he told me everything would be ok, and that this was a good thing, and it wasn't ruining our future just because things got a little out of order. and i remember the look on his face when he stuttered through some long complicated speech of beating ALL around the bush that ended in "lets get married". he was so scared, so nervous, so afraid that i might tell him no. and i remember the phone conversation when he told me that i was his life. that he'd never felt that way about anyone, and that he couldnt imagine a future without me. i remembered the night he played a song for me...the catch line was "thats when you'll know what infinity is". and that's when i remembered why i said yes. because in his eyes is my future. my whole life. and infinity doesnt seem like long enough. seeing his face and hearing his voice everyday for the rest of my life just seems like not nearly enough time. i adore him. and he adores me. and thats how i know that through all of this BS, we'll make it. and we'll be ok. and we'll be happy. because that is what was meant to happen. and i know now why i went through all those things in my past. every step that i took, every heartache that i faced, was a direct path to michael.