On Deployment

So much for the best laid plans. Everything is off, or at least, up in the air. We found out yesterday that J will be deploying to Afghanistan in one month. It's "only" a six month deployment, but because the Air Force wants him in place by mid-July, J needs to start outprocessing and the training course by, oh, now. J's leave for this weekend has been approved, but the DO (Director of Operations) has essentially said that J won't be able to take any more leave afterward. It's possible that this weekend may be the last time I see J for a very, very long time.

Blurgh.

So yours truly turned into a bit of a hot mess when she heard the news. At work. Not sure why, since I've been preparing myself for this moment for a long time. I guess neither J nor I thought that it would happen so soon. Guess I also wasn't ready for the prospect that this weekend could be our last time together until January.

I'm still processing what this all means--I'm sure I'll have many more thoughts on the subject. For now, this means I have to figure out how/when/where to move my stuff at the end of June. Obviously, my spending a month with J in Germany is off. Sucks too, because we both were really excited about taking a weekend trip to Normandy and Mont Saint-Michel. But we were most looking forward to my cooking dinner for him, watching movies together, long walks in the forest, Saturday mornings at the farmers' market, and just being able to be together every night for an extended period of time. All of which are no longer happening. And let's not even talk about what this means with regard to J being in Afghanistan. Can't think about that just yet.

Before I say anything else, I should make clear the following: I am so proud of my J and the work that he does. He has played an important role in a lot of initiatives that have made recent headlines but which I can't mention here, he is amazing at what he does, he works his ass off for his guys, and he has made a lot of sacrifices. I know that this will work out for the best, but it doesn't make it any easier.