To be or not to be….

Angry that is.
With so much time gone, and so little time left, I had spent much of it avoiding confrontation. I’m not a particularly confrontational personal by nature anyways; I will mouth argue and jest in good fun, but out and out argue is not something I do very often. But I had been voicing my discontent, irritation, even anger, less and less frequently; on the grounds that I do not want to spoil what time we have left arguing with the Sergeant.

And I have decided, that I was looking at the entire thing wrong.

While he has never provoked me into a screaming fit; his personal quirks, those weird peccadilloes that define him as a person, and can sometimes be a bit much, and right now are just that, a bit much. I have, until now, been decent in the role of best wife ever.

I use that term a lot, typically when doing something I do not like, will not enjoy, or just feel like using it. There is a part of me that believes however, that the best wife ever is something resembling a doormat, and not a real person. I am a deeply flawed, oftentimes irrational, moody creature, and I cannot play a doormat for the life of me.

So I have changed my mind, biting my tongue gets me nothing but headaches, leaves me not sleeping through the night, and reduces me to a ball of nerves, waiting to snap on the poor soul who crosses my path last. Here frequently, that has been the dogs, and to my shame, they have been on the receiving end of a tirade over a chewed shoe, an accident on the floor, or barking at the neighbors.

I guess I’m writing my declaration of independence. Love me, love me as I am, with my faults, flaws, temper. Love me, love my dog too.

I have been told, over and over again, that this first deployment will be the toughest. And that it will also be a learning experience. While I can not say if it is the toughest or not, I can say I am learning.

Today’s lesson is simple. Be upset if you want to. Be irritated if you want to. For to deny your emotions out of fear of ruining the last days is to deny yourself, and that ruins the last days more than an argument over a videogame.

~Jennifer