I am

You think you know me, but you haven’t the slightest clue. I am the brunette standing behind you in the grocery store eyeing the latest support our troops magnet while paging through the latest issue of cosmopolitan. The look on my face is complacent and my thoughts are thousands of miles away on some military base I've only been verbally described of over the phone. I am the young girl in the next car with the windows rolled up and tears in her eyes because the local country station is currently playing "Letters from Home" but you can’t hear it because you’re talking to a family member or a friend on your cell phone. You catch a glance at the Marines sticker on the bumper of my car but you don’t know that when that song reaches my dearest love that it’s almost dawn and I've been laying all night long wondering where he might be. My heart breaks a thousand times. I’m the young woman who is planning their entire future on my own with only the little input I can get from my husband on the other end of the phone. I’m the girl who visits the Marine Corp Wives website at odd hours of the night to find some kind of comfort for that lonesome feeling that has settled in the pit of her stomach. I am the woman who has fought an inner battle trying to accept the path the man I love has chosen. I am the woman who will willingly sacrifice her family and her home to follow her man clear across the country. I am the woman who never asked for this but deals with it without complaint. I am the young woman who swells with pride every time I see my Marine standing tall in his dress blues. I am the one who spots a Marine sticker, license plate, or flag and feels a connection with its owner, hoping that maybe I am not alone in this melancholy, sacrificial situation. I am the one who hates when he leaves for war but knows that it’s a necessary thing. I am the young woman who tries her hardest to go about her everyday life, trying to concentrate during her classes and do the job she gets paid to do. I am the one who hates sleeping alone, but closing my eyes pretending that the man I love is lying right here next to me, his arms wrapped around me. I spend my days trying not to focus on missing him, or not to cry whenever I hear his name or even the mention of our military. I am the woman who is terrified while the love of her life is sent off to war not knowing when I will talk to him again. I am many things... a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a niece, a co-worker, a friend, a mother, but most importantly I am the wife of a United States Marine.