Talking to the moon.

Tonight, I miss my husband.

Plain and simple, I miss Derek.

It's been almost a month and I did a mental count in my mind tonight... With a huge sigh, I figured out that we've still got 7 and a half more months of this. We've got hundreds more Skype dates and phone calls, more lonely nights in a bed too big for one person, and more days being spent a whole world apart. I start my days when he ends his and he begins his nights when I end mine. We live in this wonky, cyclical, tiring, time barrier where our hours never match up, and if by chance they do, we've got mere minutes before one of us has to say "goodbye". So, I wait for his calls and yearn for those precious Skype dates where I can not only hear his smile, I can see it too.

I feel like time has stopped. I feel like minutes have stretched into hours and hours into days - no matter how many things I do to fill the time, there's nothing that will fill the hole of his absence.

Yet, the days keep coming without fail. They pass at an unconvincingly slow pace. In fact, they almost seem to mock me. Every night, I go to bed at night and fall into a fitful sleep... Then, I wake up in the morning and automatically calculate what time it is in Afghanistan - I wonder if he's thinking of me, I wonder what he's up to, I wonder if time ever speeds up for those who are away from their loved ones. I begin to doubt it; then I look at the date and I realize it's almost October already.

It seems like just yesterday that he left.

And some days, I can forget for a little while that we're thousands of miles apart, and go on with my daily routine without a pause. But then there are other days that make it so hard not to cry. It seems like time and I have a love-hate relationship... I love that every passing day is one day closer to seeing him again, but I hate that I have so many more days to get through before then. I guess this is the ultimate lesson in patience, right?

So on nights like this one, where I'm curled up in my bed and listening to our songs, I send up little messages to the Big Guy in the sky. Whenever I do it, I hope that Derek can hear me when I have my little "talk with the moon". Admittedly, it's cheesy and it's straight out of a Bruno Mars song, but I always feel closer to him knowing that we're still under the same sky, looking at the same moon. Moments like this one remind me that nothing is greater than love. There is no force on this earth that can overwhelm our hearts... "Love is an ocean wide."

Our love spans continents and oceans and conquers the time that separates us. On nights like this I have to keep reminding myself that these lonely nights (in this too-big bed) are only temporary. "Maybe tomorrow will be a good day. I've got a ton to do, so I should be alright," I think to myself, "Remember, you need to go get a pumpkin tomorrow and then run to the store for some hairspray". It's the littlest and most mundane things that get me through these tormenting days.

But tonight, I'm going to have to content myself with sleeping in his shirt, pretending like it's his arms around me instead of the fabric, talking to the moon, and sending my love across the ocean.