So tell me, what exactly is love? Is it the fluttery feelings I used to get when I crushed on someone, or is it the small stillness I have come to expect whenever I think of my Boy and how proud he gets of me. You know that stillness. It's the soft glow of the candle flame burning where my soul lives, deep inside. It's the place that says to me "yes, this is hard. Nobody said it was ever going to be easy to partner a man, especially a man who's worthy of you." These days we can open that up a bit and include all types of partners- gay or straight. But I'll just speak to what I know...

I'm keeping his house while he's away, and trying to include him in all the little minute things of the day. I have to remember that he's the head of the house, even if I'm the Queen Regant for the month. Or year. Or whenever he comes back to take his place again at my board and in my bed. It takes a certain amount of inner strength, and a good deal of that comes directly from the way one perceives themselves. So I'm carefully choosing how I will perceive myself during this deployment. Today I'm one of those crusader queens. I've sent my man off into the world to do good works, to find our fortunes and to secure a place for us in the afterlife. I don't know just when he'll be back, or if he'll ever be back. I have to live as though he were still a part of our lives. Raise our children so that they love their father and remember him.

This is so much easier in the age of internet and digital photography. I may be nuts, but this is how we learn to get through times like this.