So I'm sure most of us in our dating careers have had that one person in our lives. You know that one person who you hit it off with instantly. Where you feel like it’s love at first sight, but you won’t say so because you want it to be perfect. You feel an unspoken mutual bond between the two of you that transcends time and reality. For a moment you feel like you’ve finally found it. That elusive four letter word that dances just outside of our reach, taunting, teasing, compelling us. Imagine you’ve found that feeling….
Now picture it being snatched away.
One percent. That is the percentage of American men and women who take the oath to protect and defend the United States and the American way of life. One percent. These brave men and women work day in and day out to ensure our rights are protected. The work is often long and grueling and the sacrifice even more so. Giving their lives is the ultimate price for our freedoms. No one, however, mentions the sacrifices a little closer to home — the sacrifice Mr. Diggs and I were now being forcibly shown.
The weeks after New Years seemed to fly by. Before long it was the week before the big departure. I had crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s. I had seen my family and friends back home and I was nearly content with leaving. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until that Wednesday before I was set to leave. I was at work getting ready to leave to head home to get some affairs in order when I got a text from Mr. Diggs.
||So I’m going to go ahead and say that I miss you and I know I prop won’t see you before you deploy but I’m hoping to be a support system for you while you’re there||
He finally voiced it. The big white elephant. I’m usually one to tackle any issues upfront, but I was content with pretending that we weren’t facing this mandatory separation. It caught me off guard although I knew it was coming. I wasn’t ready for it. Just when we were moving forward in our non-relationship/relationship it was time for us to say good-bye. My heart was devastated and, up until this reality text, I was holding that back from him. I could hold back no more.
|Don’t make any plans this weekend. I have to see you|
I arrived to Virginia on Friday afternoon. Everything looked different in the airport. I didn’t know what to feel. My heart beat faster than I think it ever had before. Would I be happy to see him? Would I be angry with him? Would I cry like I was doing all plane ride or would I laugh with relief? I didn’t know what to think or feel as I grabbed my bags and headed outside to wait for him.
My answer came soon enough. I saw the familiar plates of his BMW and any negative feeling was erased quicker than if the feelings were hit with a Reductor curse (props to J.K. Rowling). I exhaled. I smiled back my tears and walked over to him. Every single pore on my body wanted to make contact with his. Before I knew what I was doing I had dropped my bags and jogged the last few steps directly into him. The feeling of his warmth was immediate. The feeling of his love was instantaneous. I knew no matter what we’d just undergone he was here and that’s all that mattered.
He had picked up a part-time job since the last time I was there, so he was at work the entire weekend. In order to maximize our time together, I joined him at work all three days. The hours we didn’t spend at his job, we were home in bed doing absolutely nothing but just being with one another. I wanted to do nothing else. See no one else. Hell, I didn’t even want to eat anything else (you’re welcome to your free interpretations).
Saturday night had to be the highlight. It was a night of firsts for us. First time and first time letting our guards down with one another. As we were lying in bed (post late night cardio) I felt something I haven’t ever felt before. My body shook with emotion. I hugged him close to me and to me I was holding onto more than just his frame. I was clinging to his heart, his spirit. I was afraid, terrified of what this distance would mean for us.
He held me the entire night, which was probably the only way I was able to fall asleep.
The next day saw another day of us tag-teaming his office. Half of his workday had gone by and we were chatting about the weekend and how we both enjoyed it. I look out of the window for a moment to get lost in my thoughts and when I look back to him, I see he’s crying. This was yet another first. He let me know that he felt exactly the way I did. Scared, nervous, hurt, but just as willing to love me through this anyway.
“Can you imagine that in a few years from now when we look back on this…we’re going to be able to tell them that this is what we made it through,” Maurice said to me as I wiped tears from his eyes with my own trembling hand. I smiled.
As I boarded my flight that afternoon I chanced a look out of my window seat at the activities of the airport workers. I realized that everything had changed. We weren’t the “Honeymoon Avenue” couple we once were. We had moved on past the tulips and carnations. We smack dab in the middle of a serious courtship. We loved each other enough to chance this thing in the face of this uncertainty. It was in that moment, there next to whoever I sat next to, that my tears finally caught me.
In my mind I was letting Maurice go…and I cried. Not because it hurt, but because it felt so good to be in love that I knew I could leave.