Hello Critics

I seriously wonder what’s wrong with you? I go weeks on end without a single word off C. I feel devastated. You know the love of your life is in a war zone, and you haven’t heard at all in a month time to make sure he is still alright. To make sure he will come back and to make sure he still loves me. I never asked for sympathy. I go through the day with a smile and desperately try and find comfort in my tears at night. But the bad feeling in my stomach won’t ever disappear. 

Then there are people who are getting the chance to speak to their men every single day. I always have an open ear for women in the same situation. But these people are coming around and tell me there is no way they can cope any longer with this tour? That it is too much stress to handle? Some might now think I’m mean, but when I answer absolutely harsh I am nothing else but honest. You haven’t got the worst! When I tell people to try and put themselves into my shoes, to try and just IMAGINE what it bloody feels like to go weeks and weeks and weeks on end without a SINGLE word from him, I get back “I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy what you go through now!” 

What? Wait. 

Your worst enemy wouldn’t even be able to imagine what it means not to speak to the love of your life for months when he is in a war zone. Your worst enemy wouldn’t even be able to do this a single day. And neither are you. 

No emails. No phone calls. Nothing!

No, I am not mean. No, I still don’t want any sympathy. But what I want is to bloody defend myself. I won’t let people telling me to get a grip who have absolutely NO CLUE about what pain feels like. About what being devastated means. About what facing the fears of my life means. 

But do you know what? I learned. I learned so much during the past six months (six months, wow!). And today I feel good. I hardly ever said I feel good recently. And now, in this moment, when I haven’t heard from C. in more than four weeks, I am able to say I feel good. And it makes me realize: I grow stronger. 

I spent the past days worrying. Screaming. Crying. Talking to my close friends about my deepest worries. Trying to understand what they want to tell me and to ease my mind. Letting them reassure me. Start to worry all over again. Worry about him. Worry about us. Worry about our precious relationship. Worry about that he won’t come back to me. I’m not worried about him to change, because I know he won’t. He didn’t change in five months so he won’t change during the last two. But I’m always, every day worried that he will change one thing. His opinion about him and me. 

 So yesterday, I was supposed to do brilliantly in my finals for my amazing apprenticeship. Well, I ask you, how would you ever be able to pass finals with best marks when your brain is in no single way able to concentrate on the stuff you are meant to have in your head in time? It is not possible. Not at all. In the end, I did it. I cried, I screamed and I worried all the time when I was supposed to revise. But I did it. 

Then, straight after, I had a car crash and the guy decided to hit and run. So I got the police involved and all that shit. Can you imagine that in every single second of whatever happens he is on my mind? Always. 

I don’t know what’s been going on yesterday, if it all was just a bit much for me in the end, but now I am able to say I feel good. I have issues. And I know about them. I think that is the first step into the right direction. I know I need to relax more. To tell my brain not to over think every single bit. To bloody not listen to my head but to my heart! And to accept things. 

So I say hello to you all again, and I ask you to criticize me once more now! Criticize me, because I will know how to deal with it! Criticize me, because do you know what? I am stronger now in every single way. I am stronger than each of you, and that’s what I know for sure. I am stronger than your words, because I learned it the hard way. Hello critics, I ask you again to try and handle what I go through! Come on, keep a smile on your face every day! When all you secretly want to do is hide and cry. When you know that you will never get what is able cheer you up. Hello critics, what I call you is weak! You say you can’t go through this deployment anymore? No I don’t want any sympathy at all, it won’t make me feel better anyways. Just open your eyes and see how bloody lucky you are. Every day.