Dear Husband

I miss you. I try not to, and I pretend that it's not as bad as it is, but I do. I miss you like someone underwater misses breathing. That's me, underwater, looking at the surface where your face is waiting for me. Holding my breath and feeling the ache in my lungs for that cold air I will breathe when you are home.

It doesn't make sense. Logically I should be fine, there are many more worse off than me. Single mothers who never have someone to wait for. Women who sit by starving, just to give their child something to eat. I am more fortunate than they are.

Yet still I miss you.

I tell people that not much has changed since you left, my days are the same, and if I change enough details in my memory, nothing has changed. I just have to hold on to those few nights when you weren't home for dinner or bedtime. I just have to pretend that this is the norm. But I know it's not. I know that while you're gone I'm missing out on all the little things you bring to our family. I'm missing out on you playing with the kids so I can clean up dinner. We are missing out on so much.

I tell others I'm fine.

I tell them that I don't worry about you and that we have so much to do that the days fly by. But in the back of my head there is a box waiting to be checked. Like when a loved one leaves on a plane and you wait for them to text you when they arrive. Once they do you can check off that box.

Last time I cried a lot. I cried at night over silly things, things that had only to do with the fact that you were there and I'm here. I'm sure you're safe this time just like last time. It doesn't make sense that you wouldn't be. But that box is still waiting to be checked. Until it is, I will be here, holding my breath, looking at your image rippled by the water keeping us apart.