Tag: taylor swift

Friday Favorites

~ kristalauren ~ 8 Comments

Man, it’s hard keeping up with writing on here! Not because I don’t have the time or even the energy, but more so because everything I write I end up wanting to keep private or don’t have the heart to finish. Today I figured I’d go back to writing about a few of my favorite things. I was tempted to post five different dogs, but I thought this list would be a little more helpful.

Tony’s Chocolonely. I honestly haven’t had anything better, and they’re a really cool company because they focus on making chocolate humanely. Did you know that slavery is still a huge problem, particularly on cocoa farms? It’s crazy to me that one of my favorite foods is actually hurting others, and I love that Tony’s is committed to making all chocolate become slave-free. Go get a bar of the milk chocolate sea salt caramel today. It is a new necessity for me “that time of the month,” and I’m happy to add it to my survival kit.

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Jax is obviously my favorite chocolate thing on earth, though.

Billie Eilish — specifically “Bad Guy” featuring Justin Bieber. I didn’t know if I should put him as a favorite too because honestly his lines are so darn catchy and remind me why I liked the Biebs so many years ago. Billie is an interesting entertainer because she totally breaks the mold of anything we really see in the pop music world. I like that she seems to be unapologetically herself and hasn’t conformed to what Hollywood thinks sells albums.

 

Colorful flowers. I love having them to brighten up our home, and Robert got me some really bright and fun ones from a summer collection a few weeks ago. I used to always say Gerbera Daisies were my favorite kind of flower, but now I like pretty much everything under the sun.

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Crime Junkie. I am a huge fan of podcasts, and Crime Junkie happens to be one of my favorites. Granted, it’s made me a little wary every time I go to the basement to do laundry, but overall the mild paranoia is worth listening to Ashley and Brit tell us about famous — and not so famous — cases. It’s a great thing to listen to during a commute or while doing household chores; just don’t listen late at night when you’re by yourself unless you want to be up all night listening for intruders.

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Finally, Taylor Swift released her song “Lover” last night and I am OBSESSED. She’s back to writing her beautiful love songs and I couldn’t be more here for it!

My Resolution To Be Fearless

~ kristalauren ~ 15 Comments

We are over 4 months into the new year and I decided to reevaluate how I am doing on my resolution to fear less in my everyday life. I wouldn’t quite say I am failing, but I’d give myself a “C” on this front, and I am not okay with that.

Having a lifestyle blog for anyone in the world to read is a little nerve-wracking, but the fact that any of my friends, family, and acquaintances can read about some of my deepest feelings and thoughts is a whole lot scarier than strangers following along my journey. My best friends know what kind of beautiful, fearful, and thoughtful desires are in my heart, but putting it on paper for those who don’t know me very well makes everything feel a whole lot more intimidating. Ink is permanent and words are sometimes interpreted by readers differently than the writer intends.

I know people like to talk about what others are up to sometimes. I do think about 99% of my readers are kindhearted amazing people who genuinely want what’s best for me, so despite having a good number of readers on this little online space, I believe it’s safe to share my heart with you all. I also know how easy it is to make snap judgments about others on social media, though. This blog showcases a small piece of my life, despite my best efforts to share meaningful things with y’all, and it can be difficult when friends make an assumption based on one, three, or a dozen little posts from a couple days of life. Feelings can be long and drawn out or incredibly fleeting, and I write a lot about both. 

After thinking about it a lot, I’m not going to say I’m done with being afraid — because I’m totally not, and there will be times I won’t share a lot of what’s going on in my life — but I am going to use the next few months to put a lot out there and cross off some of my goals without worrying so much about what other people might think. I will continue to work to “fear less” every day so that one day I might be able to call myself “fearless” in pursuing my dreams.

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Love And Pain

~ kristalauren ~ 3 Comments

Pain and sickness are really difficult things to write about. Trying to describe things you’re feeling but  many people have never dealt with before is essentially attempting to put pen to paper about the way butterflies feel in the beginning of a relationship to someone who still has yet to experience it. You can use the right words, but they won’t really connect until they have something to relate it to.

For example, think about the way some of your first crushes felt, versus how actually being in love feels. They both have the same warm and fuzzy feelings as a base, but feel drastically different. That’s how I would compare temporary short-term pain, such as an injury or a broken bone,  to chronic, long-lasting pain. I’ve experienced both, and before getting sick I wouldn’t have had anything to draw from to compare to the new exhaustion chronic pain brings. You don’t ever get a break from chronic pain. Even when you can kind of ignore some of your problems on your good days, the bad days are right around the corner. I do a great job of not thinking too much about that when I am well, and I’ve gotten really good at living in the present when I can. Then, the bright side is that on bad days I know a good one just has to be right around the corner. Chronic pain is a vicious cycle, though, and wears you out to your core. Not only does everything hurt, but you also are always so incredibly tired from not being able to sleep. Whether your body is annoyed from being tense and having your muscles screaming at you all day long or your brain keeps you up thinking about the pain you’re feeling, you don’t get good rest. I don’t remember the last time I got in bed and just fell right asleep. It’s been years.

I’m constantly sending articles and trying to pull up scientific findings about my conditions to people I love because I want them to understand how I feel. God, I want to be understood. I hate feeling cranky because of my pain or having days where I can’t stand it anymore and just break down and cry. Granted, the latter are few and far between, but sometimes my body just can’t take anything else and needs some sort of outlet. Talking isn’t my best one because I want to help other people feel happy and good, so I don’t like to complain — or maybe I don’t know how to complain properly; I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. I love to write, but I don’t always have the strength, and frankly I don’t want to leave behind troves of essays on how much my body hurts.

I just don’t feel like anyone I’m incredibly close to has been in a situation quite like mine, and it’s minorly heartbreaking knowing that yes, I always have a shoulder to cry on, but I don’t have anyone who really gets it and can tell me that they know how I feel. That’s why I am motivated to write about my struggles. 

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Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want anyone I love and care about to ever understand chronic pain or any other kind of difficulties in life. One thing I’ve always been thankful for is that I’m the one with this problem. I would gladly take every pain away from the people I care about if it meant they didn’t ever need to face it themselves. Not only do I feel like God gave me a strong heart and will to keep pushing forward, but I think He gave me a beautifully optimistic outlook on things, and I’m really grateful for that. I think I’m handling the hurdles I’ve been thrown the best I possibly can, and I actually think that despite being a painfully average twentysomething, I am exceptional in accepting the negative things in life as a reality and then figuring out how they can turn into a blessing — or at the very least, something that doesn’t consume me. I have always said that I may have POTS, but POTS doesn’t have me. The same goes for my chronic widespread pain; it’s a big part of my life, but there’s no way in hell that chronic pain is going to take my entire life from me. I will count my blessings until the day I die, and today those are my loved ones, dogs, chocolate, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, and each and every one of you. 

Taylor Swift Is My Spirit Animal

~ kristalauren ~ 13 Comments

I’ve never been able to relate to the whole spirit animal thing. I don’t think there’s really an animal that I can compare my personality to. I wish I could just make it simple and say a dog, but I don’t think anyone can really say that; dogs are just too good for us.

Taylor Swift is someone I can completely relate to in so many different ways, though, so I’ve adopted her as my spirit animal.

That’s such a funny sentence because if you look at her life compared to mine it couldn’t be more opposite. She is in the public eye and has 105 million followers on Instagram, compared to my account just scraping the surface of 1,000; far more people read the songs that journal her feelings than these blog posts. Taylor has all the money in the world to spend on whatever she wants, owns my dream apartment in Manhattan, and gets to utilize the best makeup artists in the world for anything from red carpet events to just going to the gym. She has celebrity BFFs and can meet whoever she wants, but her heart still beats like a normal human being’s. She still has the exact same feelings as us, and articulates them so darn well that you forget what her reality is. Love or hate her, you have to admit Taylor is the queen of feelings and can bring them out in our lives despite living in very different circumstances.

I listen to Taylor Swift to get inspiration for different blog posts and they help me bring back feelings when I need to describe how I felt at any given time in my life. If you asked me about any of my experiences, I could tell you which Taylor song I was obsessed with in any significant chapter of my life.

For my first breakup I listened to, “All Too Well” on repeat — mainly because I loved one of the last lines of the song. It reminded me that broken promises aren’t something that make for a lasting relationship, and even though the song didn’t sing the tune that I would fall in love again, I knew that there was something bigger and better to come. “Begin Again” was the song that offered hope that I would one day meet someone who loved me despite the hardships that life might throw our way, and that I might not actually know what true love is yet.

Meeting Robert and falling in love with him confirmed that to me, and “Enchanted” soon became my new favorite song. He doesn’t know it (Until now, that is), but sometimes when I feel like my heart is going to overflow with love I’ll dance around my room and sing it at the top of my lungs. I think about the countless times he picked me up before he went overseas and drove me to and from his little apartment in the city just to have a little bit of time together. I remember how I felt when he wondered aloud how he met someone so compatible to his own heart, and I remember thinking about how he didn’t know quite how strongly I felt about him because I had my guard up. I blushed when he told me how he felt, and I tried my best to bottle up the words, “I love you” that were just dying to spill out. I remember the day I couldn’t contain myself anymore and decided to tell him how I felt. There hasn’t been a day we haven’t said those three little words since.

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When we started doing long distance for his deployment, the song “Ours” really touched my heart. I remember driving to my favorite local coffee shop one day and pulling to the side of the road to cry when that song came on the radio, as it brought up so many of the delicate feelings I had been having since he left several months before. I still can’t watch the music video without tearing up a little.

The really difficult feelings from my past have disappeared, but I can still remember them all so well. My heart remembers feelings the same way minds keep track of numbers, dates, or formulas. I don’t try to; I’m just programmed to rely on my heart more than anything. This is why I want so badly to reach out and let other people know that the hard emotions that you want to forget will disappear one day and be a distant memory. I want to share my experiences about falling in love and caring deeply about people because that’s what makes life so worthwhile, and we can all have those kind of feelings in our lives if we’re willing to put ourselves out there and risk getting hurt. Love is the one thing in the world I think is worth risking everything for, and when you find the person who’s heart beats to the same rhythm as yours, all the pain and heartache from your past begins to disappear. 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

~ kristalauren ~ Leave a comment

I hate rainy days. They make my head hurt, body ache, and they are only soothing if it’s warm outside.

I love this blog, though. It’s so good for my heart and I’m always happy to share my feelings with everyone because I know I’m a super-average twentysomething who can relate to Taylor Swift just as much as the next girl. Today is a Call it What You Want kind of day — partly because it’s her newest song, and partly because I have been feeling particularly brave about writing lately. It will take a little bit of time to share some of the things I’ve been working on lately because the gnarly pain in my arms seems to have come back for a sudden vengeance, however I am trying my hardest to use the dictation software that frustrates me to no end.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Hemmingway,

“There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

As an ENFP this is a really easy task for me. I don’t have the best memory when it comes to numbers, dates, or names, but if you ask me how I felt at any given event I can recall it in such vivid detail. If I think about the day Robert left to go overseas enough, my heart will hurt and remember the empty ache that took resudence in my body while he was gone. I remember small details from birthdays and how I felt on each of them, how much joy I felt running around New York City with my mom while I lived there and she visited me, and I can clearly recall the warmth that filled my heart when I realized I loved Robert. I can easily remember how I’ve felt in every stage of our relationship, even if I can’t recall how many dates we went on our first couple of months together.

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Having strong feelings can be a nuisance sometimes, however I think they help me connect to others so much more beautifully than if I didn’t feel deeply. Even if I haven’t been in the exact same situation as another human, my heart can connect to theirs and sing the same melody until they feel less alone. And that, my friends, is the reason I want to keep being so open in this space and why I have to keep writing.

You Aren’t Responsible for Your Ex’s Happiness

~ kristalauren ~ 15 Comments

One of the questions I get asked the most is, “How do I stay friends with my ex?” My answer is simple enough to make one word: Don’t. 

Y’all know I’m all about spreading kindness in the world. I strongly believe you should leave every person better than you found them, and one of my favorite quotes from Taylor Swift is,

“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”

This is such a beautiful sentiment and I think making people’s hearts feel warm and fuzzy is such an amazing superpower we all have. One person you absolutely shouldn’t worry about making happy, though, is your ex. Whether you guys dated for 6 months or 6 years, there are very few circumstances where I think it’s healthy to remain friends with an ex once you’ve broken up.

Sometimes people argue that they think remaining friends is the “mature” thing to do, however, I think many often just an excuse to keep tabs on someone you once dated. As an adult it is so important to look out for your own mental health and wellbeing, and it’s rare that people end a relationship and one or both parties isn’t hurt by the breakup.

I’ve never stayed friends with anyone I dated. The way I see it, I already have enough friends, and there isn’t a place in my life for someone who was once romantically involved in my life. Furthermore, it saves the drama that could possibly come up when you find someone new. You don’t have to worry about your ex’s heart hurting, and you don’t have to make the special person in your life feel at all uncomfortable about a past.

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If I saw any of my exes now I wouldn’t have any sort of feelings — negative or positive — about them. Time heals the heart well, and I couldn’t imagine being with anyone in the world other than Robert. Still, though, I don’t have a need for any of my past relationships. I learned the lessons I needed to from each of them, and hopefully anyone who’s gone out with me can say the same with the confidence that I wasn’t the right person for them.

My advice to you if you’re wondering when to reach out to someone you broke up with is to choose to never text them. Choose to move forward in your life, cut ties completely, and to realize that there are bigger and better things ahead of you. Unless this person is absolutely the exception to the rule and you feel like you want to try one last time to make things work, realize that there is someone out there who you won’t have the same problems in the relationship as your ex with. You likely didn’t work for a reason, and there are so many other people in the world that you can now have room to find a person who will work beautifully with you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to tell you this will all be so easy. The first few days of a breakup are the hardest because you go from having someone in your every single day life to never talking again. Don’t use the excuse that you need to “be there for” your ex to talk them through your breakup, though. Block their number, delete them on all forms of social media, and cut ties in any way that you need to so that your heart can heal and you can have a new, healthy relationship one day. In the meantime, rely on friends and family to get you through your breakup and realize that your forever person is still out there — it just wasn’t your last boyfriend.

Putting Pen To Paper

~ kristalauren ~ 3 Comments

One reason I think my writing sometimes speaks to people is that I feel so deeply. I sometimes joke that my feelings are as strong as Taylor Swift’s, but I think creative people are often just wired like this.

When I posted my story about forgiveness the other day, my friend Kristie said something that resonated with me. She said that I know how to put words to feelings. This has actually been something that has scared me in the past because I do think I know how to put pen to paper and explain the way I feel about things. I’m not extraordinary at a lot of things, but I definitely know all about feelings. On top of that, I’m not so scared about what people think anymore that I have trouble posting my intimate thoughts.

So, why is this a scary combination? Because I’m afraid of what God has in store for me. Writing and openness is a gift, but it’s terrifying because I don’t want to go through the hardships it takes to relate to others. Now that I’ve been through some of the scary stuff — like depression and chronic illness — I love that I can share my stories to help others, but I want it to end there. I enjoy writing about love and exciting twentysomething things and want to do that instead of writing about the things that hurt. I don’t want to ever have to write about how heartbreaking a deployment is again. I don’t want to deal with illness or loss anymore, and I don’t want to ever hurt deep down to my core ever again.

I know life isn’t perfect and that we’re meant to hurt sometimes in this world. Some people have it harder than others, and often times life is absolutely not fair. There are ups and downs, and nobody in the world has a completely easy and constantly fulfilling life. We all struggle, whether it’s with something catastrophic or minor stresses. As long as you’re alive pain is inevitable, but the way we deal with it and use it to lift others up is what really matters. The message I really want to get across in this is that life and love is worth the pain we have to deal with. You always have someone who loves you (And if you don’t feel that way, please message me and I will absolutely be there for each and every one of you!), and you matter in this world.

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Today’s lesson: Your pain and heartache can be used for good. Sometimes you’ll never know why something bad happens to you, but other times you can look back and realize the purpose was to help you grow. Having a chronic illness has made me more empathetic, kind, and compassionate than I ever was before. Dealing with depression has given me new insight to how others might be hurting and makes me want to write about my past and my feelings to help others feel less alone — and to show that even the most heartbreaking of things can be overcome. I still don’t have everything all figured out, but I am trying to use my pain and heartache to connect with others and wrap my readers in a gentle, virtual hug. You may not know why you are struggling today, but please always keep fighting. You never know who you might be impacting with your life and what kind of incredible plans God has for your future.

Dear John,

~ kristalauren ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever heard Taylor Swift’s song, Dear John?

It’s exhausting.

“Long were the nights when
My days once revolved around you.
Counting my footsteps,
Praying the floor won’t fall through — again.”

What makes people so blinded when it comes to love? I give myself an excuse for my first love, but I don’t have any other free passes I want to use. One thing I do firmly believe in is living life without regrets hanging over your head. There isn’t anything I can do about my past, but there sure is a lot I can do to make my future the way I want it to be.

I’ve made so many mistakes, but I’ve learned from them. This blog was created not only to share funny stories in hopes of connecting with my readers and making people laugh, but I was also inspired by my past experiences to share all of the knowledge I have collected about relationships along the way.

A major lesson I learned was that actions speak so much louder than words. You realize how crazy this is for an English student to say, right? Like, my entire job in graduate school is simply using a bunch of words.

It’s so true, though. I had a point in my life where I was so easily comforted by just a little bit of sweet talking. Empty promises rolled off his lips like sweet honey, and I was happy with anything I could get. It was these minuscule moments that mattered to me — I just wanted reassurance in the present that we would be okay. Even if it was just for the day.

Saying one thing and never having the actions to match is a wonderful way to be a master manipulator. Whether this is intentional behavior or one’s nature I’m not really certain, but I am sure that people like this do not make comfortable lovers. Your security is very short-lived and you’ll never be able to get off the roller coaster of emotions that come along with this kind of love. One second you feel high and on top of the world, the next you’re ready to throw up from the shooting adrenaline that is anxiety.

Imagine being on an enormous roller coaster for months. The first few times are fun, new, and exciting. You close your eyes and feel the wind brush against your skin for the first time; your heart is racing faster than it ever had before. You’re thrilled at this new experience and feel like you want to just keep spinning around and around — until you realize that the ride is making you sick. Suddenly you are so twisted about that you don’t know which way is up, and you want to get off… You’re so addicted to the high that is causing your pain, though, that you don’t want to get off. The thought of leaving this thing you once held so dear is terrifying — it’s even scarier knowing you can never get back on this ride again if you give it up. So you stay on and continue to get sicker every second you’re on the wild ride. You completely forget that there are other ones that may not be as much of a thrill, but would never in a million years make you so ill. Whether or not you ever choose to get off is up to you, but I ended up deciding that instead of so many fast ups and downs, I wanted to choose something that would gently hold me, make me feel comfortable, and rock me to sleep when I was tired, rather than constantly jerking me around.

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Today’s lesson: If someone truly cares, they will not only tell you, but show you with actions. If an English student is telling you that she believes actions speak louder than words, it’s probably true. There’s a reason sayings like this are cliche — it’s because they really are tried and true.

A Friendly Reminder

~ kristalauren ~ 6 Comments

It’s always funny meeting up with people I haven’t seen in awhile or don’t know very well and having them tell me how great my life has seemed lately. I also love hearing people who I haven’t kept in great touch with have kept up with my writing. Reading is the best gift you could ever give to someone who loves to write.

I just wanted to write a little reminder that Single in The Suburbs is only a little peek into my life, and far from the entirety of it. Yes, I write about some of the more intimate parts — namely my love life and dealing with a chronic illness — but I have so many other stories worth telling that I don’t share on here. I have others’ privacy to respect and I often have little things that happen in the day that aren’t really worth writing about, but that I would tell a friend.

Another thing I wanted to touch on today is the feeling of loneliness. I think life often happens in seasons, and you can’t expect every season to be as amazing as the last one. Sometimes we need to be bored or challenged to grow. In theory it sounds like it would be amazing to be happy all the time, but when I really think about it that wouldn’t make me a very dynamic person. Some of my most relatable writing has come from my deepest pain and greatest struggles. People aren’t meant to be perfect, nor is life.

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Lately I’ve had a season of loneliness. I think part of it is the change in weather and possibly a sudden drop in Vitamin D and outdoors time, but the other half is what has been going on in my life. It can be really hard making new, close friends at this age, and many of my close friendships have been kind of put to the side because of new jobs, moves, and significant others. Somehow I thought as we went into our mid twenties that friendships would be easy, but in reality it feels like college was the simplest time. If a good friend got a new boyfriend who occupied most of her time there were so many other people around to keep me company, whereas now there aren’t so many people who are super close by.

I think a lot of readers think I have things all figured out since I am in a new, comfortable relationship, but a boyfriend has never been my entire source of entertainment or support. Mine is overseas right now, and I don’t get to talk to him a ton or have date nights on the weekend. I am so happy that I met a really great guy, but that doesn’t make my life magically easy or complete. It’s really been hard on me having a long distance relationship like this, especially without having a lot of my girl friends around.

I’m someone who will always need really close friends, even when I am married with kids. I so cherish the time I get to spend with my them — I love girly things like makeup, crafts, baking, rom-coms, and, of course, talking about dating and cute guys. I’m lucky enough to have a few great girls to call my best friends, but relationships have changed and I’m still adjusting to the new dynamic of not necessarily having someone right around here when I need them.

I’m not really afraid to admit that I’ve felt like this because I think we’ve all been here at one point or another. I don’t want to hide the hard parts of my life on here, because I want to be genuine and really connect to the people who have taken the time to read and return to my site. Loneliness isn’t something that is in my life very often, but when it comes about I try my best to be good company for myself and learn new things that I might not otherwise have time for. Lately I have been doing a lot of writing and practicing some magic tricks — a hobby very few people know I really enjoy.


Today’s lesson: I have talked to a lot of people the past few years who have felt like this, so just know that when you do feel a twinge of loneliness that we’re all in the same boat together. Taylor Swift’s song “22” says it best that twentysomethings can be, “Happy, free, confused, and lonely in the best way.” I wouldn’t change being in my twenties for anything right now, even if it can sometimes be a challenge. The people I do have in my life are amazing, and I’m looking forward to making new friends and growing in those relationships, too. Life is sometimes just what you make it, and you can always make time to grow as an individual, even when you do feel a little unsure of your footing.

Military Love

~ kristalauren ~ Leave a comment

Since I started dating someone in the Army I’ve been hyper-aware of military in the media and as a source of entertainment.

One thing I’ve found particularly interesting is the way deployment love is portrayed in music. I absolutely love writers and musicians because I think they can connect so deeply with my heart and soul. I love to write, but sometimes the way others put pen to paper explains even better the way I see the world — especially when that someone is Taylor Swift. 😉

Something music videos have made me notice, though, is how they happily skip through the way a deployment really feels. Sometimes the songs have a message in them about how difficult this kind of love is, but the overall vibe of the video is still,

  1. Military boyfriend gets orders to go overseas
  2. Girl (and sometimes guy) cries
  3. They write letters back and forth
  4. Then have a really heartwarming hello

This is beautiful, but I used to watch these videos and mainly just think about how sweet they were. I wanted a guy like that who would write me sweet love notes and stay with me, even when times were hard. I still want all of that, but this isn’t the way I want to have it. I want someone who is home with me and someone who will be in my everyday life. I don’t want to worry so much about a loved one’s safety, and those sweet “romantic moments” are great, but they really are moments instead of constants. The reality of a deployment is that you are doing 9 months of extremely difficult long distance. You don’t always know how your significant other is doing throughout the day and sometimes go days without speaking (Thank goodness for the Internet! I can’t even imagine what it must have been like even ten years ago). You pray your hardest that God will protect your loved one, but you also can’t help but be nervous anytime a strange number calls your phone or something terrible happens in the news.

People get divorced or decide they don’t want to stick around during a deployment. Infidelity happens a lot more often than you’d think on both ends, and sometimes either one or both parties think it is just easier to end the relationship than it is to go through something like this together.

Deployments are hard. I am so lucky I am doing one with my boyfriend while I am young and still live at home with family. Most of my friends are unmarried, so I have people to hang out with and offer comfort and support, and I don’t have a family that I have to raise on my own. I can’t even imagine what the next stage of a deployment would look like. My heart goes out to those who have to endure even harder circumstances than I do.

The first 30 seconds of this video made me so nauseous. I literally just stopped watching.

So although I do think these videos are beautiful (And guarantee a few tears), I don’t think they even scrape the surface of what a deployment looks like — in all fairness, how could you in three and a half minutes?

I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world, after all, if I wasn’t going through it right now I may have never met Robert and I love that we’ve been strong enough to go through this together towards the beginning of our relationship. I wouldn’t wish this experience on my worst enemy*, though. Deployments aren’t beautifully romantic every day; they are worrisome, lonely, and an enormous sacrifice.

God Bless America.

 

*You know who you are, worst enemy!!! Just kidding. I can’t think of anyone I know personally who I consider an “enemy,” but you get the idea.