These past three years have been, by far, some of the best experiences with my boyfriend. We have shared everything our food, our pets, and even our hearts. He knows every layer of me that there is, and he still manages to love every bit of me. Loving him is like a good dream you never wake up from.
Most called us inseparable, but that changed whenever he went to basic training.
Everyone tells you how it is a glorious thing, and how he will be more mature and better, and he is, but what they don't say is that you will go without half of your heart for months at a time. I must admit it never really hit me that he would be gone for so long.
When he first told me about the military all he said was "I decided to join the military," and in my head, I wasn't really thinking about what he was saying. It wasn't until it was time for him to leave that it really hit me that he was joining the military.
I remember feeling this overwhelming rush of emotions and thinking the military was taking my other half away from me. It felt as if he was about to die as much as I was crying the day he had to go. As the tears streamed down my face, he kept reassuring me that we would get through this together. At the time I heard him, but it was only until after he left, that I truly listened. I had faith that we would make it and I will always keep that faith.
As the months passed, I realized that this doesn't have to be a traumatic experience. This experience is very life changing. We both had to encounter obstacles "normal" couples didn't have to go through. There were days where we found ourselves practicing forgiveness. I had to get used to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to talk to him on a regular basis.
Being in a military relationship takes enormous amounts of patience, grace, and an understanding spirit.
This experience taught us to appreciate the little things like getting excited when we hear each other's voice on the phone or rushing to the mailbox to get letters he sent me, it's almost as if I could hear his voice through the pages. Whenever I felt sad and defeated, I remember praying to God asking him to give me strength and at least a five-minute phone call from my love.
Since communication is really all we had to go off of, we both had to open up and put all our heartfelt thoughts onto paper. It's not that easy going from face to face conversations to having to deal with snail mail. He made sure to always show that gratitude towards me, and I made sure to always give him words of encouragement.
But nothing beats the feeling of when we were reunited at his basic graduation.
His eyes got big, and he looked at me as if he had never seen a woman so beautiful before. He ran to me and gave me the biggest hug imaginable. As he gripped me so tight you could tell he didn't want to let me go and at that moment we gave each other that look as if we had made it.
Honestly, to this day we are still making it because we haven't conquered the military just yet. Having your significant other away can be a mind-boggling experience, but I would not trade our experience for anything because it honestly makes our love stronger in more ways than one.
