D-Day Approaching: BEWARE!

Sigh.
Last night I secretly broke into tears.
I have no shame to admit it.
Sunday night John told me he needed me to help him with some work stuff Monday night.
Of course I'd help him, so once I got home from spin, had a full belly and a shower, I sat down in the living room to receive my task.

Task: Log the items in his tough box that he's packing for deployment.

Not the best assignment for my writing skills, in my opinion. :)

I must admit, at first I didn't mind it.
I'm a sucker for forms and neat lists!
As disorganized as the Army can seem at times, they certainly know how to do forms. The have a form for everything!
But as he listed items and their quantities for me to write down the more somber I became.

My husband is leaving me.
My best friend won't be there for me.
This is really happening.
Again!

At one point he had to stop for a couple minutes to find something and I stepped away telling him to let me know when he was ready again and I'd come back.
I snuck into our bath room, lent against the door as I closed it behind me and let it flow.
It felt REALLY good.

I got myself together, after a couple seconds of drowning in self pity, and puttered around the house picking up and cleaning things while I was on *pause* status.
It made me think of how I am when John is only gone for a class, generally a week or two sometimes a month-ish.
My life becomes a HUGE monotonous cycle where I do the same thing everyday/every week. For someone like me this is actually ideal because I am SUCH a habitual person and once I get in my zone I rarely step out of it.
For anything!!
But I have never done that for a YEAR.
I'm afraid I'll morph into a robot after a couple months.

Although I have done a deployment before, this one is different.

On the last deployment, we weren't married, we were engaged.
I was in OKC graduating college the same week he was here at Ft. Bragg walking the green ramp.
This time I have to go drop him off to the green ramp and watch him fly away.
Last time I was with his and my own family having an awesome time in the good ol' Colorado Springs hanging out with friends and planning my wedding.
This time I will be here alone (with our babies of course!).
Last time I worked for fun.
This time I will work to save my sanity and give myself a distraction.

Things I plan on doing while he's gone:
-Make more trips home for sure
-Finish my wedding photo album (I know it's been almost two years, I have perfectly good intentions!)
-Keep going to the gym
-Lose weight to get back to my wedding day weight (ultimate goal is 120-125 lbs.)
-Find a small group to get involved in at Manna
-Try to get involved with the 108th MP FRG (family readiness group)
-Go to DC with Kristen!!
-Go to London with Kristen to see Dana!
-Have my bro and/or cousins come out and see me or I go out to see them
-We have a savings plan set up to have almost all our debt paid off while he's gone
-Here's a random one, not only know how to shoot a gun, but to surprise my hubs by getting my concealed weapons permit while he's gone

I am sure that there will be more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's like my deployment bucket list.

Actually I think I am going to write one out so it will give me some things to work towards during this next long year.