Who Needs Sleep?
Under the best of circumstances, I am not a good sleeper. With the way things have been going lately, I'm starting to view sleep as the enemy.
I've gotten into a bad habit. You see, the man I love is seven time zones away. I've learned that the best time to catch him online or even receive a phone call is between midnight and one in the morning.
So I keep stretching out my nights. I keep checking my e-mail over and over and over just to see if he's sent word.
Yesterday he had e-mailed that he should be able to call me during the afternoon. I canceled my plans and hung around the house. Only to be disappointed. No call that day.
But then I got an e-mail. "I'll call you about midnight your time," it said. And so I stayed up. Again.
I've got to stop. I've got to turn the computer off and go to bed, even if it means I won't see an e-mail as soon as it comes in. I can't wait at home for his call. I can't stay up all night. I've got kids to raise and a life to live here.
I know other military spouses know how it is. You live for their calls because you never know when they might come. Connectivity isn't always good. You store up all the things you want to tell him and hope that he can call once or twice this week. You hope he'll call when the kids are awake so they can talk to him too. But you hope he calls when they're in bed because you want him all to yourself.
There is no picking up the phone and dialing his number because you need to hear his voice. You're at the mercy of unstable power grids and a mission that is much more important than your mundane life.
I suppose I'm moody because I'm so tired. A simple phone call is too much to ruminate on tonight.
One month down. Many more sleepless nights to go.
I've gotten into a bad habit. You see, the man I love is seven time zones away. I've learned that the best time to catch him online or even receive a phone call is between midnight and one in the morning.
So I keep stretching out my nights. I keep checking my e-mail over and over and over just to see if he's sent word.
Yesterday he had e-mailed that he should be able to call me during the afternoon. I canceled my plans and hung around the house. Only to be disappointed. No call that day.
But then I got an e-mail. "I'll call you about midnight your time," it said. And so I stayed up. Again.
I've got to stop. I've got to turn the computer off and go to bed, even if it means I won't see an e-mail as soon as it comes in. I can't wait at home for his call. I can't stay up all night. I've got kids to raise and a life to live here.
I know other military spouses know how it is. You live for their calls because you never know when they might come. Connectivity isn't always good. You store up all the things you want to tell him and hope that he can call once or twice this week. You hope he'll call when the kids are awake so they can talk to him too. But you hope he calls when they're in bed because you want him all to yourself.
There is no picking up the phone and dialing his number because you need to hear his voice. You're at the mercy of unstable power grids and a mission that is much more important than your mundane life.
I suppose I'm moody because I'm so tired. A simple phone call is too much to ruminate on tonight.
One month down. Many more sleepless nights to go.
Labels: challenges, deployment, husband, life at home, waiting
posted by Major Mom at 11:12 PM
Karen is a military wife and stay-at-home mother to a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son. A Boston native who’s lived in the Shreveport-Bossier area for eight years, she spends most of her time volunteering at her kids’ school, supporting her husband, playing with her friends and watching her hair turn gray. In between, she writes about her life here on her blog.
3 Comments:
I know it's hard. My husband just came back from Iraq in January. I did the same things. Because of the nine hour time zone difference (I think that's right), I would stay up and talk to him all hours of the night. I wanted to email him 24 hours a day. There were nights that I was up until 5 in the morning emailing him. I was lucky that his job involves computers. But, I was so sleep deprived that I could have gone to jail for driving under the influence! LOL! No matter what anyone says, you'll always be waiting for that phone call and those emails. Don't try to kid yourself and think you're going to stop waiting. Just remember that it's almost over. He'll be home soon. Until then, keep emailing. Your sanity is more important to your kids than missing a couple hours of sleep (in my opinion).
True! I've gone this many years without sleep. What's a few more months? ;-)
Trust me, don't waste your energy on worrying about it. Until the kids leave the house, there's really no point.
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