counting mixed blessings

odd post title i know. it’s been an odd weekend. friday was good, we had our retreat and came back to the office to mill around till i came home. i’m doing crisis coverage right now and thus far nothing major has happened even though i do look at the phone with a bit of foreboding. saturday started off well. i woke up early after going to bed massively early for me. then i got a well meaning phone call but it just threw my brain into a proverbial tizzy. i actively avoid the news about iraq when i can help it. that’s the safest thing for me on most days because either i get worried or i get pissed and neither is a productive state of mind for me. i have to find things to settle myself or else i just get quiet. i tried to calm my nerves and it worked to a degree. i wasn’t crying once i went and clicked on the article for myself. in case you have no idea what i’m talking about yesterday morning a patrol unit was ambushed. four soldiers were killed along with an interpreter and three others were captured and/or are missing. i do understand that there are tens of thousands of troops in iraq fighting right now but when even one of them belongs to you on some level you do not rest well until you know for certain that the report isn’t discussing your soldier. so while i haven’t heard from His family or my girlfriend that He is among the missing or dead it’s hard to keep blocking that from my brain and keep moving like this is a normal day. there was nothing normal about yesterday.

i left home briefly, thinking about taking a long drive but that was nixed by the ridiculous cost of gas right now. instead i went on the errand i was supposed to go onto in the first place. i ran to hobby lobby and got some scrapbook glue so i could work on a project for one of my sorority sisters. first i thought we have too many pictures and paper and not enough pages. but of course i managed to work that out. then i was thinking okay i over conserved because i had leftover pages. well i was wrong on that too. it came out nice i think. we’ll see what the recipient thinks. so i was feeling good about that and was nicely distracted for about two hours. i didn’t touch the other things i grabbed in hobby lobby. i didn’t touch the big book of supplies for making a love/wedding scrapbook or the similarly large book for making some for kids. i bought both of them with my brain in firm denial that anything other than what we had been planning would take place. Roaming Soldier is coming home, He is going to spank and fuck me into a stupor repeatedly, He is going to make me a good Catholic wife, and knock me up until we get the number of kids we want. yep that’s what is going to happen. and i held onto that thought as long as possible. then it got later my brain started doing weird things. nervous subbie is not a happy state of mind to be in. i started tossing around all the different ways i needed Him and why i needed Him and what on earth was i supposed to do without Him or even the possibility of Him. all bad things to ponder before bed so of course i wanted to talk to Him to make sure that He was okay. that didn’t happen of course so i went to bed late and slept fitfully.

i woke up and was happy because at least no one called with bad news. i fixed my mother a huge breakfast and gave her an absolutely adorable card if i do say so myself. and i talked to my younger brother–the father to be–and that made me smile. he’s going out to find a lovely gift for his wife that will end up being a good gift for their kid as well. embarrassing once they get older but good gift. it made me smile and start thinking about Roaming Soldier’s and mine imaginary passel of children. thinking about where we would put that many similar gifts for our kids. thinking about how many painkillers it will take to get that many kids out of my body and stop me from taking out Roaming Soldier. it gave me a lift that nothing else could have or did over the last twenty-four hours. i’m likely to literally be in tears when i hear from Him again but my brain has switched back into the necessary mode to handle this again.

one day if you stop by and the site looks dark, send me an email. it means He’s home and all the daydreaming is finally a reality. but somehow i think He’ll want me to entertain you all with something from time to time so it will likely just be a brief hiatus. okay i’m going to go flip through the scrapbooks now and write the letter i didn’t start last night.