Saying Good-bye.

I guess this is the safest place (minus my paperback journal) I can write my feelings about how I'm feeling about Aaron leaving in two days. Wow. What a rolar-coaster of emotions. I have always been the type of person to not get over emotional around good-byes.  I can't explain it. I have no clue why I don't cry very often when I know I won't see someone I love for a long time. Most of the time I am far too excited for the adventure I'm going to have or the adventure they are going to have. I remember this one time when I was leaving to go to college for my sophomore year, and my bestie Cami was there to see me off. She started crying when I started to get in the car. I can't even begin to tell you how much that touched me. I felt somehow that because I wasn't crying, I wasn't letting her know that I felt exactly the same way. That experience has stayed with me and I think about it every time I have to say good bye to someone--especially someone I care about.

Aaron leaves on Monday for SERE (survive, evade, resist and escape). He'll be gone for 3 weeks. He has been moping all week long. He's been so depressed and while I can totally understand why he is NOT excited to go to this particular training, I hate that I can't quite grasp the same kind of feelings. It seems I put up a very large wall when Aaron needs to go away. I put all those feelings of loneliness and hurt and sadness and put them behind a wall so I can't access them until later. Then those feelings come and I sob for hours.

I'm not sure what is the best way of dealing with things, I just know that I don't remember ever feeling any different. When my boyfriend at the time left on his mission, I was so happy for him that I don't think I shed a tear when he left. However I bawled the night after I got off the phone with him when he was at the airport. I didn't cry (for homesickness) the whole time I was on MY mission, or when I left for college or even the first time the Aaron had to leave me for 3 weeks. In fact, I've only cried a few times that I can remember, in a good-bye setting. When I moved to Alabama and I realized I was leaving Utah and my family for good. I was moving on into a new era. And when I had to leave my dog at the Kennel while Aaron and I went to Disney World. That was so hard for me because I can't communicate with my dog. I can't assure him we'll be back in a week. But even still, I didn't cry until we got in the car. And when Aaron left last summer,  I don't even think that I felt any of those depth of despair feelings until at least a week after he left.

So here I am again, watching him pack, while I type. He keeps saying how much he's going to miss me and how much he doesn't want to go and I keep thinking about how much this experience is going to bless him and how much a better person he is going to be. I will miss him terribly, but somehow my body doesn't react in the same way as most people do, in expressing it.

I ignore it. I don't want to feel it.

And so I don't.

Not until some time later. I'm guessing I'll really feel it the first night I sleep alone in bed or going to church without him (somehow THAT one is the worst).  It's funny how I can be reduced to tears in less than a sec. when I see a something about a lost or fallen soldier, but when my own soldier leaves for training I'm like "sweet, well see ya later. Love ya!"

I am positive that Aaron knows that I love him and that I'll miss him terribly. Even writing this post has gotten me teary eyed a few times, but sometimes I wish that I could express myself in the more traditional way. Make it obvious that my life is just not as complete without him in it. Instead I am left to writing my feelings into a machine and broadcasting it for all to read.

At least everyone can be assured that I don't do emotional goodbyes. I just can't.