224 Days....

I swear the iPhone has an app for EVERYTHING. I recently downloaded an app called "Doing Time", it tells me exactly how many days Alex has been gone and how many days until he is supposed to come home. This application and I have a love/hate relationship, depending on my mood that day. Sometimes I look at it and it makes me sad to think my husband, the love of my life, the person I want to spend everyday with, has been gone for so many days. Other times I look at it, see how many days left until he is coming home, and I can't help but smile. The number keeps getting smaller and smaller.

The big number is what I can't stop thinking about tonight. Has he really been gone 224 days? Sometimes it feels likes just yesterday that I said goodbye to him and other times it feels like he has been gone for years. Those are the days that I can't remember what he smells like or what it feels like to touch him. The days that I feel like he is a million miles away instead of thousands. Today I am looking at the number as an accomplishment though. Even though he is thousands of miles away, the last 7 1/2 months have brought us closer together than we have ever been. We have been thrown a lot of curve balls but we have always managed to come out on top and in the process we have grown a lot as a couple, as a team. He is going through so much out there and yet he still manages to go out of his way to be there for me and help me with the things I am not able to do on my own out here. I love the way we communicate with each other, we don't yell nor do we fight, we just talk. We have an amazing relationship.

The last 224 days have been a personal accomplishment for me as well. I have grown so much and have finally figured out who I am. I have learned how to stand my ground and how to be strong, who my real friends are and how to be a real friend, but most of all I have learned what's important in life and what is not. There have been times where I have thought I couldn't make it any longer in this deployment, but I have. I looked up on Google the top 10 most stressful life events and in the last 7 1/2 months I have been through most of them: moving, loss of a loved one, wedding planning/getting married, and family problems. That's just naming a few of them. Although deployment wasn't included in that list, I feel that it should be. So to say the least, my life has not been easy but I have managed to survive with the help of some great friends, a wonderful family, and an amazing husband.

I look at the last 224 days of my life and I am proud of what I have accomplished and who I have become. So thank you. Thank you to those of you who have stood by me, supported me, been my shoulder to cry on, and helped me up when I couldn't get up on my own. You mean more to me than you could ever imagine. You know who you are :)