A.k.a. How shit only gets easier from here on out
Disclaimer: this is not going to be a happy, funny post. It is going to be a grim and painfully honest one. But – spoiler alert – it ends on a positive note: it only gets easier from here on out.
It’s a Sunday, early in 2018, and I am at the airport with my parents and my favorite person – seeing him off. Tomorrow is the first official day of this great new adventure called Officer Training School (part 1 of his year of Air Force training). Subsequently it is the first day of a 1 year separation for us. A physical separation that is, not an actual one (as I am pretty damn sure Man is the one and only, my soulmate, my better half – I will stop now as I just threw up in my mouth a little bit).
It is both lucky and unlucky that my parents are visiting us from the Netherlands at this point in time. Lucky as they will be able to provide me with some emotional support after Man leaves. Unlucky because it presents me with not one, but two difficult emotional goodbyes in a short time span. Plus, my mum is amazing at a million things, but goodbyes are not one of them…
I decided to not cry today (mum is crying enough for the both of us anyway), to be strong and see Man off in a positive manner. After all, things are hard enough already. For someone who cries at anything that is even remotely cute or sad – such as a commercial with a puppy in it, or old people or, the worst, a commercial with puppies ànd old people – that was quite the challenge I set myself. But by some miracle I kept it dry. I managed to put on a smile, wave like a manic idiot until my arm nearly fell off, and even produced a silly wiggle jiggle to cheer up Man whilst he was waiting in the boarding line. It was like a scene from Love Actually when he turned around to shoot me a last look through the glass walls of the air bridge. I felt a weird mix of fear, sadness and happiness. The latter because Man is starting his dream career after all and true love comes with unconditional support (damn you, true love).
My parents and I got on a plane to Tasmania for a mini holiday very shortly thereafter. A week long adventure on four wheels, seeing Tasmanian devils, hiking through old growth forest and cruising over world heritage listed rivers. An unforgettable week, but a week that was still coloured by the absence of Man. I missed him more than I could have possibly imagined; it was truly like a physical sensation – a constant knot in my stomach, a heaviness on my shoulders. With every wonderful sight I wished I could share it with him. A particularly difficult moment was a night hike we did to spot glow worms under a waterfall. We crept under the fall, killed our torches and… the night lit up with thousands of little lights – a breathtaking experience! And a wonderfully romantic one I might add. As much as I love my parents and value their company, at that point in time I wanted nothing more than for Man to be there…
I still cringe a little looking back on those first couple of weeks. I won’t sugarcoat it: it was incredibly hard, unbearable almost. And I feel the need to share that openly with you. Not because this blog is a drama – I am aiming more for a romantic comedy with some dramatic twists here and there – but because I missed reading similar experiences when I was in the midst of those first weeks. I wanted to hear from others how hard the start is, and how it really does get better. Because it does. The very start of this experience was like a reversed honeymoon: no lovey dovey happy shit, b
I am merely using, and flipping and reversing (I’m assuming the hip hop lovers among you are appreciating the references in this post) the honeymoon metaphor to illustrate that experiences like this just start out a lot less fun than they eventually turn out to be. And that’s a good thing.
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