Make This Day End

I have had, quite possibly, the worst day of the deployment yet. It started last night fighting with a friend (a fight that has pretty much ended the relationship). Then I woke up this morning with an ear-splitting migraine that still won't go away, so I haven't even really bothered to get out of bed.

I talked to DH this morning and HE'S not doing very well either and is lonely and depressed too. He isn't really chummy with any of the guys in his unit. And that's not surprising. He's shy like me, and has been with the unit for maybe 5 months total, and of that 5 months almost a month and a half was spent on holiday and pre-deployment leave. So the guys he deployed with may as well be strangers. Plus, we've been at this base since November and I've driven on base maybe 4 times total? It just feels so much more menacing and unfamiliar than our last base (Fort Leonard Wood, which is a small Army base in the middle of Missouri). I lived by myself at FLW as well because DH was in school and I was just renting off post, but there was something about the base that was more welcoming than Pendleton.

I don't know what it is, I just feel like I have nothing in common with the people who live on base. Sometimes I forget my husband is even in the military, that's how far removed we are from everything. But I look at the other wives, and they are involved with the FRG and they do things on base and I really wish I could do something like that as well, I really wish I could do stuff with our FRG, but I just feel so out of place when I'm on base. So I don't go there.

I have trouble getting out and doing things by myself and meeting up with strangers. It's just so intimidating and I never really know what to do or say, so half the time even when people invite me places I get so scared about the new situations and new people that I just stay home anyways. Sometimes I even break down in tears at the thought of going somewhere new. Needless to say I know maybe....4 or 5 people, tops. And I'm not really sure where to go from there either. There are days when I wake up totally psyched and excited for the day, promising myself I'm going to get things done, exercise, do everything right, but it seems like most days I wake up and try to psych myself up and I end up just moseying around the house trying to do things.

And I don't know whats wrong. Sometimes even something as simple as putting dishes in the dishwasher seems like a huge mountain of a chore and I can't muster the physical or emotional energy to even do it. And that scares me. It scares me that I sit there and break down because there are dishes in the sink and I can't figure out how to put them away. That seems like such an infantile thing to cry over.

I realize now that maybe I cry over those things because I can't bring myself to cry over the deployment. Even the day he left, I didn't shed a tear. I went by the whole first week perfectly fine and since he's left I've never really cried because he was gone. Instead I cry because I can't put away dishes. I cry because my cats are fighting. I cry because my TV show is a rerun, there are 7 newspapers on the front porch, my bathroom light is burned out, my plant died, etc. Then when I'm not crying about those pointless things, I'm crying because I'm lonely. Yet I'm lonely because I don't really leave the house. And I don't leave the house because I feel so overwhelmed with things to do, yet I can't do any of them. It's a vicious cycle.

Part of me has been smacking myself over my decision to stay in California. Why did I stay here? I knew I was shy and hard to make friends, I knew I was unemployed and would spend a vast amount of time at home. Why didn't I just move back to Utah? I guess I stayed here as proof that I could "hack it," and I didn't need to run home anymore. But what have I been doing the whole time I've been here? Crying.

So much for "hacking it."