I'm getting ready to think about planning for our next honeymoon. This is a more common thing among military marriages; the multiple honeymoon and newlywed experience. It comes from all those long separations. We learn the value of our spouses when they're not available, when they're thousands of miles away for months on end with little to no contact. I find that I get irritated with the Boy fairly quickly when he's always 'underfoot', especially when he's on leave for a week and doesn't move off the computer chair more than once a day. Once he's gone, though, I quickly remember all the positive points about him. I may not be putting him up on a pedestal, but I sure do see all the small ways in which he contributes to the household when he's not around to do them.

When he is here I tend to forget that he takes out the trash without a reminder. I forget that he wipes down the counters every morning before going to work and that he makes me cups of tea when I feel blue. Now the trash piles up, I have to clean my own kitchen, and make my own tea in the morning. Certainly I can do all these things myself, and I really don't bitch about them on an ongoing basis. It's the principle of the thing. Life is just that much nicer when he's home. Next month we're going to start getting combat pay and the family separation allowance. Once he enters the 'hazardous duty zone' his pay will no longer be taxed. This is supposed to make it easier on us, and make us feel better about putting him in harm's way, however unlikely it is that his desk is going to explode under the weight of all those duty chits. It doesn't make me tea or give me a hug when it rains. It doesn't curl up next to me and let me burrow into it's shoulder when CSI is on, and it doesn't give me a surprise hug when I'm washing dishes.

Late this summer he'll be home again. We won't see that extra money every month, and life will go into a far more hectic pace. The ship has to be gone over and fixed from stem to stern of everything that broke. My boy will be putting in 12-14 hour days, possibly even working 6 days a week for a while. He'll come home at night stiff and sore and fall into bed without eating dinner, and that's going to be our lives for another half a year. In the brief couple of weeks surrounding that return, though, he gets to take two whole weeks of leave. He's going to be All Mine for about half of that, and we're planning a honeymoon-type vacation because that's what it is. Reunion. Re-bonding. Decompressing from all the pain of the separation and learning about each other once again.

Normally I hate planning travel. This time I don't mind.