Day # 3

At 5:13pm today, I drove away from Mr. Bear's unit and left him standing in the parking lot. I kept glancing at him in the rearview mirror until I turned the corner. It was one of the hardest moments of my life thus far.

Mr. Bear...miss him already

We are horrible at goodbyes. I could have stayed with him for another hour or two, but we knew it would have just been dragged on and it was hurting the both of us to see each other so sad, so I left. We were just sitting there in the car holding each other with me crying. I know we've been preparing for this deployment for over a year, but that didn't make the goodbye any easier.

The last picture I took of Mr. Bear he didn't know I was going to take. I usually love candid shots, but not this one. His face was so heartbreakingly sad that whenever I uploaded the pictures onto my computer and found it, I immediately teared up.

Surprisingly, less than 2 minutes after I left the unit, I stopped crying, and I didn't cry again until I saw the picture of his sad face. It wasn't that I glad he left, obviously. But I absolutely hate waiting for him to leave and saying goodbye. Now that that's over, I can get on with my life. That was one of the worst parts. Not saying that this is going to be easy, but it's definitely going to be easier from here. Those of you who are reading this and are going to be experiencing a deployment for the first time, the goodbye is the hardest part. I can already tell it's getting better.  I need to keep this quote handy:

Source: weheartit.com via Lillawalla on Pinterest

Health Update: I didn't eat all day...which isn't necessarily good. But neither of us had an appetite. Later on, I had cheerios, fries (I cheated), and a cupcake. Mr. Bear bought me four cupcakes from my favorite cupcake place, Vanilla Pastry Studio. So, so, so delicious. I've had no time to do anything relatively work-outy. We were packing and running errands all day and then as soon as I got home from dropping him off, I went to hang out with my friend and her boyfriend so I wouldn't be lonely. We watched 'Boys Don't Cry' which was a fucked up movie. Very good, but messed up.

I'm vegging out for the most part right now...mostly because I'm putting off going to bed. I am dreading going to bed alone. That's definitely one of the things I'm going to miss the most. I know I'm going to get a sad again as soon as I get in bed. But what I am going to try to remember is not how sad I am, but moments like this:

Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Farewell Ceremony

I miss him.

Good night,

Ms. Bear


PS: It's technically Day # 4, but I haven't gone to bed yet so to me, it's still Day # 3 :)