One More Day

A year ago today I woke up with butterflies in my stomach and thoughts of anticipation…my husband was coming home from Afghanistan!!! Everything was clean and set up for his arrival…all I had to do was wait. We had spent close to a year apart (and I hadn’t seen him for 9 months), and I was filled with excitement and a little anxiety not knowing how we would adjust to being back together again.

Looking back now, I’m amazed at how well we have adjusted. We’ve definitely settled into that “new normal” that military books talk about. We know our roles, we have our favorite little jokes, we are comfortable with each other, and love our marriage. We’ve learned how to deal with post-deployment emotional problems the best that we can, and have learned a lot through this year…about ourselves and each other.

It’s amazing how fast the time has gone though…I don’t know why the year we spent apart didn’t go this fast!!! And here we are staring down another deployment in the future. I guess hitting this one-year mark makes the next deployment feel all the more real. It’s not just some far-off thing that we know is there…it’s coming.

Our time together (since we became a couple)…now adds up to somewhere around 1 year, 5 months, and 13 days. We still haven’t reached the point where our time together equals our time apart, and we probably won’t for a few more years yet. It seems like it will never be “enough” time together.

I guess the thing I have learned the most is to take advantage of the time we have together now. I spend a LOT of time with Russ. I’m constantly joining him for lunch up at his office, going to his appointments with him, and spending evenings with him cuddled on the couch watching TV shows. Sometimes, my trips on base aren’t always convenient to me or my schedule, and cuddle time sometimes mean that housework gets left undone. But almost every time I find myself irritated with a change in plans or a dirty house, I remember what it was like during the deployment and how I would have given ANYTHING to rearrange my day just to spend 20 minutes with my husband. And then I am thankful….Thankful because each day that I have with my husband is a gift, something that I am not guaranteed will always be there.

One more day
One more time
One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied
But then again
I know what it would do
Leave me wishing still, for one more day with you

First thing I’d do is pray for time to crawl
Then I’d unplug the telephone
And keep the TV off
I’d hold you every second
Say a million I love you’s
That’s what I’d do, with one more day with you

One more day
One more time
One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied
But then again
I know what it would do
Leave me wishing still, for one more day with you

One More Day (Diamond Rio)