Empty Bed Syndrome

Confession time again.  Since my husband went back to Fort Hood after his most recent trip home, I haven’t exactly been sleeping alone.  Almost every night, his side of the bed has been occupied by one, sometimes two, very handsome younger men.  I fear, in fact, that The Hubs might have a hard time reclaiming his spot next time he’s home.  He’ll have to fight for it, that’s for sure.  And one of my cuddle buddies bites.  Hard.

Miss Sophie has slept in my bed since the day we got her, when she weighed less than a pound and I was sure I was going to roll over on her and squish her like a little bug in the night.  When her daddy’s home, her favorite sleeping spot is right smack dab between us.  As for the boys…..well…..I’m sorry to say that the only nights at least one of them isn’t in my bed are the nights when The Hubs is home.  While I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads in disapproval, thinking that my kids are waaaay too old to still be sleeping in my bed, it’s okay.  Because I know something you don’t.  Little boys lose years in their sleep.  They like to snuggle and cuddle, and they just look so darn cute, no matter how old they get.

Breaking my kids of the habit of sleeping in my bed has been a losing battle since 1999.  (Yes, I said 1999.)  Not because I haven’t tried, but because there always seems to be a completely legit reason to let them stay.  And no reason has ever seemed more valid than the one I was given last night, as another long, stressful, difficult day was coming to a close, and all I wanted was for them to go to bed in their own rooms so I could cry myself to sleep in privacy.  My youngest son, seeming to sense my impending meltdown, wrapped his sticky little hands around my neck (seriously, that kid is ALWAYS filthy!) and said, “We just want to be with you because we’re sad too, Mom.”

While my husband’s absence is never an easy thing to bear, I’ve noticed that it is, at least to some degree, getting a little easier for me to “bounce back” after he leaves.  But it’s getting harder on the boys each time, as they continue to become more and more attached to their step-dad.  And that breaks my heart.  Last week, the boys and I were doing a quick run through the grocery store when we stopped in the soda aisle.  It had been just a little over a week since the last time I was there, with my husband, the day before he left to go back to Texas. 

I was pouting slightly because they were out of the soda I usually buy.  I was trying to decide what to get instead when The Hubs stopped me.  “Hold it!” He exclaimed, as he bent down so low that I could see the very outer edge of the waistband to his boxers….which started me on a train of thought I did not need to be on in the grocery store.  “A-ha!” He yelled, interrupting my little fantasy as he dropped to his knees in the middle of the aisle.  I flushed, a little embarrassed.  “Ummm….what are you…..” I trailed off as he crawled into the very deep floor-level display shelf, then crawled back out, backwards, dragging two twelve packs of the soda I was looking for with him.  He stood up, completely satisfied with himself.  “See!  They weren’t gone! They were just hiding.”  I laughed, impressed that he would go to such lengths to get me my favorite cherry cola.  “We only need one,” I said as he started loading the boxes into the cart.  He sighed, as if I’d just broken his heart, and then put one of the twelve packs back on the shelf, all by its lonely self.  It was one of the sillier moments we had while he was home.

I chewed on my bottom lip as the boys and I approached the same soda display, feeling a knot forming in my throat at the memory of my shopping trip with The Hubs.  I didn’t even notice at first that they still hadn’t restocked the shelves since my last visit.  “Oooh!” The teenager gasped.  “Only one left!”  I watched in silence as he grabbed the soda from the shelf, knowing without question that it was the exact same box my husband had rescued from the shadows of the display shelf just a week earlier.  It hadn’t been touched.  I didn’t know why I was suddenly fighting back tears, and it totally caught me off guard.  There were still reminders of The Hubs all over the house.  Dirty socks in the hamper, pillows that still smelled like him, dishes packed away neatly in the complete wrong cupboards from the last time he’d done the dishes.  I’m not sure what it was about that box of soda on a store shelf that had me on the verge of a public breakdown simply because my husband had touched it.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” The Teenager asked as he loaded the soda into the cart.  I shook my head, smiling, trying to hide the tears from my voice as I told the boys the story about my last shopping trip with their step-dad.  They both laughed.  Once I was finished, The Teenager picked the red and white box up out of the cart and clutched it to his chest.  When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “I don’t know.  I just want to carry it.”  Oh.  So it wasn’t just me.

I thought about this as The Teenager and E-Man sat on the edge of my bed last night, waiting for me to tell them whether or not they could sleep in my bed.  E-Man was clutching his blankie and his favorite stuffed animal, looking up at me with his “Pleeeaaase, Mommy” eyes, while The Teenager was playing with his new iPhone, trying to appear disinterested.  But I saw the smile flash across his face as I sighed and said, “Fiiiiine.”

I hardly slept at all last night.  I woke up with bags under my eyes and in a horrendous mood.  And not because my bed was too crowded, but because, somehow, even with four of us in one queen sized bed, it still felt entirely too empty.

~I Am Not Taelor Vega~ Photo Contest!

After over a year of posts about being the wife of a deployed/recently redeployed soldier, OAWT went viral this week.  Why?  Two words: TAELOR. VEGA.  It's funny what people find interesting these days, isn't it?

That said, I think it's only fitting that we dedicate our latest photo contest to the non-existent Ms. Vega.  Real or not, the facebook booty call read 'round the world has made us all look bad....so let's show 'em what a REAL Army Wife looks like, shall we?

Photo entries will be accepted between now and Sunday, June 24 at 7PM EST.  Email your favorite pic of you and your soldier to info@onearmywifestale.com, or post it to the facebook page, www.facebook.com/onearmywifestale.  Voting will begin Monday, and whoever has the most "likes" by Sunday, July 1 at 7PM EST will win some fun Army Wife swag and a feature on the OAWT page.  (For votes to count, voters must first "like" the OAWT facebook page.)

I am NOT Taelor Vega!

TAELOR VEGA IS REAL.

If you haven’t seen this photo yet, you’ll soon be seeing it everywhere, as it went viral in the social media community over the weekend.  And along with the picture comes the controversy.  The great debate.  Is the photo real, or manufactured?  Is Taelor Vega a real person, or was a fake facebook profile created by Johnny Heward as a marketing ploy to draw attention to his music?  (A quick google search will reveal that the “hero” in this tale is an up-and-coming musician.)

Public opinion seems split, almost 50/50.  There are those praising Mr. Heward for his noble (and hilarious) reaction to Ms. Vega’s proposition, and there are those calling him a liar and an attention-seeking narcissist looking for publicity.  The naysayers are steadfast in their accusations, as the thought of an Army wife seeking attention from other men while her husband is away is absolutely repulsive to them.  (As it should be.)  As an Army wife, I can tell you with 100% certainty something that my fellow wives and I have always known….Taelor Vega is real.

She’s real in the sense that she’s a very valid representation of a serious problem in the military community, kind of the way Santa Claus is real in the sense that he represents the “Christmas Spirit”.  Whether there is or is not an actual girl named Taelor Vega, and whether or not that message was genuine or fabricated is not for me to decide.  You know what they say, “when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.”  So let’s explore some of the “facts”, shall we? 

In this sordid controversy, one thing that has been determined as fact is that “Taelor’s” profile picture is actually a photo of a Brazilian model.  Does this mean Taelor herself doesn’t exist?  Or is she just too homely to use her own photo to try to pick up guys on-line, which is apparently her goal?  It wouldn’t be the first time someone used a fake profile picture to make themselves look more attractive to the opposite sex.  The non-believers state that Taelor’s profile was created right around the time that the first message was sent to Mr. Heward, which “proves” it’s fake.  There are a couple different possible explanations for that.  For one thing, a quick facebook search for “Taelor Vega” now pulls up multiple hits, many of them using the same fake profile picture in the message seen ‘round the world.  Most of these are fake, and have been created since the story went viral.  I’m not going to take the time to go through every single one of them to try to figure out which one is “real”….that would just be silly.  Even if the “real” Taelor Vega profile was just created yesterday, is it outside the realm of possibility that an Army wife decided to proposition Mr. Heward, but wanted to do so with a bit of anonymity?  It seems reasonable, then, that she would create a fake facebook profile, using a fake profile picture, to send her message, does it not?

There are other arguments, of course (girls don’t talk like that, look how quickly the messages are sent back and forth, it’s clear that all of the messages are written in Mr. Heward’s “voice”, etc.), but those two seem to be the most valid.  Now that I’ve debunked them, let me say this: I don’t know this Johnny Heward guy from Adam.  He could be legit, or he could be the world’s biggest douchebag.  I don’t know, and I don’t really care.  Without all-out cyber-stalking him, what I have read is that he’s an up-and-coming musician looking for publicity.  So is it possible that he made this whole thing up, created the fake profile, sent the messages back and forth to himself, then made the “proof” public, simply to forever become a part of cyberspace legend?  Absolutely.  And if that’s the case, I have two things to say to Mr. Heward: A.) You, sir, are an ass.  And 2.) Nicely done.  If this is all some elaborate marketing ploy, he definitely gets an ‘A’ for effort.  This is much more creative than those “Like And Share This Photo If You Believe In God” posts that clutter up our newsfeeds on a daily basis.  The people that post the quotes and the pictures and the threatening “If you don’t share my page you’ll get hit by a bus when you leave the house today” ridiculousness are social media superstars.  They have hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers.  So if that was this Johnny’s goal, at least he accomplished it with some originality.

Whether Taelor’s real or not, whether Johnny’s telling the truth or not, depends on how you choose to look at the situation and what you choose to believe.  The real issue is this:  Even if Taelor’s not real, there are hundreds of girls out there like her who are.  Girls who see a man in uniform, get stars in their eyes, and get married without giving much thought to what it REALLY takes to be a Soldier’s wife.  Even worse, there are girls who specifically seek out soldiers with the intent of getting one to marry them and support them so that they can sit at home with no job, no kids, not much of anything going on aside from…well…looking for guys online to keep the other side of the bed warm while their husband is away.  We call those vile beings tag-chasers.  Likewise, there are soldiers who jump into marriages with girls they have no business marrying, simply because they want someone to come back to after a deployment, someone at home “waiting for them”.  Unfortunately, a lot of those girls aren’t the waiting type.  And to be fair, a lot of the soldiers aren’t either.

The reality of many military marriages is this:  A lot of these couples are just kids, getting married way too young, way too fast, and for all the wrong reasons.  Even if their intentions are good in the beginning, the stress of deployments and long separations take their toll, and in many cases, it simply becomes too much to bear, resulting in a whole lot of “Taelor Vegas”, and a whole lot of divorces.

If I’m really going to play devil’s advocate, let’s consider this: Let’s say Taelor is real.  Fake name, fake profile pic, but a very real, very desperate girl, propositioning men on-line in an attempt to fill the void left by her Army husband’s absence.  It’s entirely possible that she was seeking revenge.  Soldiers aren’t exactly known for their fidelity.  Even when they’re deployed overseas, a lot of them take to the internet, seeking attention from other women, in part because they’re bored, and in part because they’re paranoid that their wives are cheating on them back at home.  So who’s to say that she didn’t find out about an on-line relationship (or relationships) her husband was having, and decide to give him a little taste of his own medicine?  It doesn’t make it right, but does it make it a little less wrong?  Or at least a little more understandable?  And who are we to judge unless we’ve been in her shoes?

So here’s what we’re left with:  Taelor Vega may or may not be a real person.  Johnny Heward might be a stand-up guy, or he might be a lying, manipulative, marketing genius.  Either way, the problem that has had a giant spotlight cast on it by all of this is very, very real.  Infidelity is an epidemic in the military community, and it needs to stop.  In the words of Mr. Heward himself, “Guys and girls both cheat.  The sole purpose of this was to show you that YOU WILL GET CAUGHT.  If you’re not happy with your spouse, get a divorce or work it out.  Marriage means nothing to anyone anymore and we as individuals need to change that.”  Amen, sir.  And high five.

Already Gone

Life is about give and take, push and pull, ups and downs, hellos and goodbyes.  So it’s inevitable that when The Hubs comes home to visit, he’s going to have to leave again.  I know that.  It’s always the dark cloud hanging over our grand parade the entire time he’s here.  It’s our Voldemort, if you will, our “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”  (Yes, that was a Harry Potter reference.  Don’t judge me.)  I know, before he even steps foot on Michigan soil, the exact day that he’ll be leaving again.  So why, when he purchases his plane tickets to go back to Texas, do I always feel like I’ve just been kicked in the gut?

I knew when I woke up this morning that The Hubs is leaving in three days.  It was the first thing I thought about as I climbed out of bed.  (Well, besides how badly I had to pee.)  Still, when he sent me a text at work this afternoon containing the details of his flight, I felt my heart drop to my stomach.  I had to blink back tears as I talked logistics with him; when we would leave for the airport, what things we still have to absolutely get done before he goes.

I can’t figure out why I get so upset about something I know is coming, something I’ve been through countless times over the past two years.  The only thing I can think is that there’s a part of me that’s always waiting for a Hail Mary, a last minute save, a reprieve at the midnight hour.  As irrational as it is, I spend the entire time my husband’s home praying that he won’t have to go back.  That something will happen, some miracle will occur, and his C.O. will call him and say, “Carpenter, we’re releasing you from your contract early.  We’ll have your personal effects sent to you.  Have a nice life.”  My head knows that will never happen.  Even as I type this, my snarky alter-ego is laughing at me for thinking such ludicrous thoughts.  But my heart….

My heart has had just about as many painful goodbyes as it can handle.  My heart protects itself while The Hubs is home by going into denial, by hoping and dreaming and wishing for things that just can’t be.  And when reality hits, this time in the form of a text message saying “I’m flying out of Detroit at 8:50 Sunday morning,” it’s absolutely devastating to me. 

My husband is leaving in less than 72 hours, and once again, I have no clue when I’ll see him again.  If I were able to look at the bright side, I would remind myself that at least he’s just going back to Texas, and not overseas.  I would point out that we still have three more nights in the same bed, three more mornings to wake up together, and two and a half days left to enjoy each other and our family as much as possible.  But I’ve flipped this story upside down, inside out, left, right, and back again.  I still can’t find any “bright side”.  And I know it’s because even though my husband isn’t technically leaving for another few days, in my heart, he’s already gone. 

In The Heat Of The Night

Whenever my husband comes home to visit, I tend to spend the days leading up to his arrival daydreaming and fantasizing about what it’s going to be like with him here.  The things we’ll do, the memories we’ll make, the places we’ll go.  In reality, I know from experience that the days will fly by all too quickly, and that pretty much nothing will go as planned while he’s home.  But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would spend two nights in a row sleeping on the couch while my husband was sound asleep in our bed.  That’s exactly what’s happened, though.

I won’t say we haven’t fought in the week that he’s been here, we have.  Occasional disagreements, arguments here and there, but certainly nothing severe enough to send either of us to the doghouse (a.k.a couch).  There is only one thing powerful enough to drive me away from a night wrapped up in my husband’s arms, sleeping with my head on his chest.  THE HEAT.  And I’m not talking about the kind of heat you’d expect to be coming from our bedroom right now…although….I could write volumes on that.  (There’s an idea….maybe I’ll give that charlatan “author” of Fifty Shades of Grey a run for her money.)

Our new old home, as charming and perfect as it is, lacks something that I’ve always considered a necessity.  The fact that I was able to overlook its absence because the house was so otherwise perfect for us should tell you just how much I love our new abode.  For the first time since I was a child, I am living in a home without central air conditioning.  And I can NOT sleep when I’m hot.

Thus far, to combat the summer swelter, I’ve been able to sleep blanket free, scantily clad, with a fan blowing directly in my face.  It’s not ideal, but it works.  Or, it did, at least, before I had 98.6 degrees of husband sleeping next to me.  Heat and humidity aside, I always have a hard time sleeping when my husband is home.  As much as I hate sleeping alone in our bed, I’ve gotten used to it.  Too used to it.  And although I love cuddling up on my husband’s chest and falling asleep, I never stay asleep.  I always wake up at some point during the night, and then I stay up, just watching him sleep, fighting the urge not to wake him up to “talk”, and tossing and turning because I can’t get comfortable in a sleeping space that’s much smaller than what I’m accustomed to.

But with the temps around 90 degrees the past few days, the heat and humidity in addition to all the other reasons I can’t sleep when my husband’s home proved too be just too much for me.  And twice now, I’ve found myself snatching my pillow from my side of the bed with a dramatic sigh, then stomping out to the couch like a five-year-old who’s just been denied ice cream for dinner.  Usually by the time this happens, I’m too tired to think about the fact that my husband is just in the next room, all alone, his arms wide open and waiting for me.  I don’t think about the way he kisses me on my forehead and tells me he loves me throughout the night, even when he’s 100% asleep.  And I certainly don’t think about what happens on the nights that I just can’t resist waking him up to “talk”, when our door is locked and the kids are fast asleep upstairs.  No, by the time I make my pilgrimage to the couch, all I can think about is how good it feels to have cool air on my skin and as much space as I want to stretch out and get comfy.

Readjusting to sleeping in the same bed is just one of the many, many things my husband and I always have to work on when he’s home.  When you spend ten months out of the year living apart, the day-to-day comfort most couples take for granted kind of falls to the wayside.  This time it’s been especially challenging, since we moved into our new house just a few weeks before my husband came home.  I’ve had to show him and re-show him where everything is, explain and re-explain all the little quirks our “charming” old house has, remind him which cleaners are for which floors, what goes where, how to do this, when to do that.  Sometimes I feel like a bossy know-it-all, telling him what to do constantly.  And I know he gets frustrated, and must feel like he can’t do anything right in my eyes.  But that’s not the case.  Not at all.

While the distance is hard to endure when he’s gone, sometimes the readjusting when he comes home is just as hard.  The dogs are timid, the kids are shy, and everything’s unfamiliar and awkward at first.  It just reiterates how very damaging his being gone so much is to our family.  And that’s not an easy pill to swallow.

But, as with all of the other challenges we face, we face it together, and we take it in stride.  It’s a process, and it will be until he’s home for good.  I don’t know how we’ve done it this long, or where we’ll find the strength to keep doing it, but what I do know is this: tonight, I’m sleeping in my own bed, dang it!