An ironic relationship for a girl who doesn't do math

K is gone again. I can't believe how quick his R&R went -- and we even managed to get two more days together than we were supposed to. We had an awesome time, and we did quite a few cool things. We even managed to relax a little.

I'll blog about everything we did over the next few days. I've got pictures to load first, and frankly, I'm too exhausted to do it right now.

I had wondered how today would go with K leaving again. The day he left to begin the deployment was really tough. I didn't know if today would be the same.

The day K got here for his R&R, he told me, "I don't have to be back until noon on the 24th. And that's the last I want to hear of that date until it gets here." It was fine with me, so aside from mentioning the date when other people asked when K had to go back, we didn't talk about it.

Not that it snuck up on us. I started counting down in my head on Sunday night. I didn't ever say anything about it, but I know K was doing the same. Considering our relationship has been pretty much a constant string of countdowns (Five days until we get to see each other, Three hours until he has to start his drive home, Three more weeks until he's out of the field ...), we're both very used to and very aware of the little internal calendars.

Neither of us wanted to get out of bed this morning. I hit the snooze button every 10 minutes for at least an hour and a half this morning before we reluctantly got out of bed. Every once in a while during the snooze time, K or I would sit up, rub our eyes and prepare to get out of bed, only to decide the idea thoroughly sucked and plop back down onto the pillow. I think we knew it was our last morning together for a while, and neither of us was eager for it to end.

We had gotten used to sharing my little one-bedroom apartment over the last 20 days, so we went about each of our little routines to get ready for the day. When we were both ready to go, it was time to head to the airport. It was when we were walking out to my car that I felt myself tearing up for the first time. I put on my sunglasses and moved my bangs to the other side of my face to shield the tears from K. It wasn't very long before he figured it out. He started talking about something to take my mind off of it, and I was tear-free just a few minutes into the drive.

We got to the airport about 15 minutes before K had to be there. We headed to the gate K had been instructed to report to, and I was given a paper that would allow me to go through security with him. We ate lunch together and hung out with another friend who'd had the same R&R schedule as K. We were able to spend another three hours together at the airport.

A little after 3, the soldiers started boarding their flight. K and I hugged and said goodbye. I managed to surprise myself by not crying. As I watched K walk onto the plane, I was thankful I didn't have anyone around to talk to. I had a pretty large lump in my throat, but as long as I could stay quiet, I knew it would stay put and my eyes would stay mostly dry.

The day K had arrived, the volunteers at the US.O told me that on the day he leaves, I should stick around until the plane takes off just in case it was delayed. So I stayed and watched more soldiers load the plane. After a couple minutes of that, I turned to see how many were left to board. It was clear they were all boarding, so I decided to just rip off the Band-Aid and head out.

As I walked through the terminal to head back to my car, I could feel my eyes tearing up again. I picked up my pace, skirted through a baggage claim area, threw on my sunglasses and stepped outside right as my eyes spilled over. I only cried for a minute or two, and I was fine after that.

It was much easier today than it was 10 months ago this Saturday. At least this time, I know I have less than five months to go before K is back for real. That's a countdown that's much easier to handle -- especially when you consider we've got twice that under our belts already.

And the cool thing about this new five-month countdown is that it's almost a countdown to end the countdowns. When this countdown ends, we'll have three months to go before our Dallas wedding. After that exciting event, K and I will be sent to his next base.

The base where we'll get to make our first home together.

And we only have three more countdowns to go!