Guess I better get used to this ...

K and I have gotten to where we always talk on our morning drives to work. (Just so you know, we both have a bluetooth, so we're not those crazy drivers who almost hit you this morning because they were too busy blocking half their faces with their phones, so they couldn't see you.) I mentioned to K that I think I've already found my bridesmaids' dresses, and I already know what I want my flowers to look like (yellow roses with blue hydrangea).

K asked me, "If we have to have a justice of the peace wedding because I get deployed, would you tell anyone about it?"

"Of course I would! Why wouldn't I?"

K explained that one of his friends said he and his wife had a justice of the peace wedding before he got deployed, but they didn't tell anyone because they were worried no one would want to come to the wedding if they were already married.

This sounded all too familiar. I had a friend in college who was engaged to a Marine, her high school sweetheart. He was sent to Iraq, and when he was home for his two-week R&R, they went to the justice of the peace and got married. They didn't tell anyone. Well, he was killed in Iraq in his last two weeks there. The story was in the news in our area, and it was being reported that my friend was his wife. I thought the news people were seriously confused. And then I found out they were right. The news had outed them.

When we found out the story about the quick, quiet ceremony, we asked my friend why she had kept it quiet. She told us the same thing K's friend told him: They were afraid no one would want to come to the wedding of two people who were already married. We couldn't believe they'd actually thought we might not want to come.

I told K since I'd been the person who thought, "Why wouldn't I still go?" I think most people would react that way.

Everyone knows someone who's been affected by the war or who's been deployed. Anyone with the tiniest bit of sympathy or the smallest sliver of a heart could see that the day would almost become bigger: It would be a celebration of K's homecoming and safety, and it would be a testament to the strength of our relationship to make it through that. Who wouldn't want to celebrate that?

I told K that if that's what we wind up having to do and he wanted me to keep it quiet, I would, but it would be really hard. I'd be excited to be married to him, but I'd be sad that it came early for that reason. There would be some people it would be harder to keep from, but if he wanted me to, I'd do it.

I told him, though, that if we did have to have a justice of the peace wedding because he gets deployed, if anyone I knew didn't want to come to the actual ceremony once he was home because we were already married, I wouldn't want them there anyway.

K told me we wouldn't need to keep it a secret. He told me that if he does get deployed, it'll happen in mid to late November, which is the time he got home from Afghanistan last year. He said they should know for sure whether they'll be deployed by the end of August, after they get out of training. It seemed funny that that's when they'll find out: August is when he was deployed to Afghanistan last year.

I realized K had said he'd be training in August. That means we'll miss each other's birthdays again. At least this time he'll just be training in Louisiana instead of flying to Afghanistan.

K told me that if he does wind up getting deployed, he wants us to have a justice of the peace wedding on Labor Day weekend. That way, it'll give us two months to get everything done to get me in the system, on his medical plan and able to get on post if I need to.

We actually have a date for a quick wedding in case if he gets deployed.

I can't help but wonder when we have discussions like this (especially when it's our first conversation of the day) what it would be like if we could have a normal relationship -- one where when we get married, we could go wherever we wanted to start our lives; one where we could just plan a wedding without having to think of a possible alternate date in case he gets deployed or having to postpone all our plans for the same reason; one where missing holidays or birthdays never even enters our minds; one where we don't have to take every moment together that we can because we know there will be months at a time that we spend half a world apart.

I wish we didn't have to worry about the things we do, but at the same time, I fully support K in what he does. He did some great things in Afghanistan, and K is just the kind of person the Army needs more of. I see the things he does for his guys, and his soldiers respect him. I knew K was in the Army the night I met him, and in the near future, I'll be a part of it too. I don't know if it's really possible to get used to all the things I've mentioned above and more, but I'm certainly going to try.