Ashley's wisdom of the day: True Love

Love - true love - is the unbreakable connection between two individual, unique people. It is the morphing of those two individual, unique souls into one. It is the willingness to give up everything you have and everything you could have, no questions asked, for that other person. True love is being able to give of yourself so completely that you would give your life, your whole life, so that your other half might live. It is the prayer to God in the moment of grave peril when you ask, earnestly, for God to spare him and take you instead. It is the desire to help one another through thick and thin, to stand by each other no matter what. It is the promise that you will never give up on each other, that you will never call it quits. It is the belief that when this world is over, you will be reunited in the kingdom of Heaven. True love is when you can accept each other's faults as nothing more than that which makes the other perfect. True love is the only love worth having.

I love you, Bear.

Gone For a While

Andrew left early this morning for Kuwait. I'm not quite sure when's the next time I will get to talk to him. I pray that is soon. I miss him so much and each second is miserable and aching without him. This is the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life. He is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me and I am so blessed that he is here. Without him my life would not be worth living. He is my everything and my world. I cannot wait for him to come home so that we can spend the rest of our lives showing each other how much we love one another. I can't wait for us to start a family together. Life is so dim without him. I am lost without him. I need him so much and he knows it and he has promised that he will come home to me. I just pray that this time goes by as quickly as possible. I just have to keep reminding myself that I waited a few months to see him on this pass and it went by fast - though at times it seemed like it wasn't. In another few months I'll be able to see him on his leave and a few months after that he'll be coming home. It's all going to be okay but I wish that he was home now. I don't want to cry and be sad anymore. I just want him here with me.

Married

While in Savannah, Andrew and I made the decision to get married. We had planned on it beforehand but we weren't sure if it was all going to work out. It almost didn't. The first day that we had planned to try, Friday, Andrew was released to late and we did not have enough time to get to the courthouse. I was really depressed about it because I figured this meant we probably weren't going to be able to do it at all because the courthouse is closed on weekends. I held out some hope for Monday, though, even though we knew Andrew was going to have to report for duty at 8 am that morning and probably wouldn't be back until the evening. 8 AM rolled around and Andrew was at the fort. While he was there I talked to him using his laptop to send him text messages on his phone. They were really working fast and might have been able to get out in time for us to dash to the courthouse to get our marriage license. However, they got held up because the civilians they needed to turn their trucks into were at lunch. For two hours. Needless to say, four o'clock rolled around and Andrew still wasn't able to come back. It really hurt that we weren't able to get married because I was looking forward to it so much. We spent the night laying in bed close to each other watching movies and sharing our love until I finally fell asleep. I would have given anything to not have fallen asleep so that I could have spent every moment awake in his arms. I woke up to Andrew sliding out of bed to get ready to say goodbye to me for the last time. It was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my life and I still cry when I think about how hard it was. After we finally said goodbye, I laid in my hotel room devastated that I was going to have to return home alone. I fell asleep watching TV and woke up to a phone call from Andrew saying that we might still have a chance to get married today. My heart leaped and I was so happy that I was going to get to see him again. He had called the court ahead to make sure we could go in to get our marriage license, but every judge in the county was already booked and none would be able to see us. I ran down to the hotel computer to search for phone numbers for every marriage officiant in Chatham county, Georgia. Andrew tried calling all of them to no avail. They were either booked or didn't answer their phones. Again I was crushed because we came so close and still couldn't get married. Andrew told me it would be okay and that maybe we could get married on his next leave. I asked him to see if he could come visit me at the hotel anyway, even though we weren't going to the court. He said he would see if he could and to call him back in five or ten minutes. So I waited for an excruciatingly long ten minutes before calling him up and asking him what was going to happen. He said he had decided to try our first choice reverend one more time and he had picked up and said that he would be available at any time to marry us. Andrew was coming straight to the hotel now and we would rush over to the courthouse. We were able to sign our names on the marriage license and drive over to a pretty little park where Reverend Steven Schulte met us to join us in matrimony. We still plan on having a big ceremony to share with all our friends and family, and even though we didn't have a ceremony with Reverend Steven, it was still the most special day of my life. Finally, I am married to the man who I want to spend the rest of my life with. Finally I can say 'my husband', rather than 'my fiance' or 'my boyfriend'. I love him so much. More than anything.

This Basically Describes It All:

Dido - Here With Me

An Old Diary Entry

March 20th, 2009

We are in the process of moving everything out of our Portland apartment. It is a hard endeavor for me. Everything that I see, I want to keep. Anything that belong to Andy, I feel the compulsion to take it home with me; boxers, longsleeved shirts, undershirts, jeans. All of this, which I don't really have a use for. I guess it is simply my desire to feel like Andy will be home any moment, that he won't be gone for a whole year or more, or perhaps I want to feel like he just hasn't left. I need these items close to me. It's a powerful feeling. The touch of his shirts, the feel of each fiber against my face, the smell of his cologne. All of it is the essence of him, and I know how much I need these things in order to keep myself from sinking into depression.

Excursion

Okay. I am freaking excited beyond belief because from the 2nd until the 7th of July I will not be in New York. Where will I be, you ask? I will be in Savannah, Georgia (one of the most haunted cities in the US)! I will be having a blast in the Historic District while staying at the hotel Avia. For those of you who have not heard of the Avia, see here: Avia Savannah. Not only that, Savannah is awfully close to the coast! Any of you who know me, know how much I love the ocean. I am hoping-hoping-hoping I get to play in it. If not, no big loss. I'll be with the love of my life. This will quite literally be the trip of a lifetime. I cannot wait.

Georgia.

Tomorrow Andrew leaves for Georgia. Even though he'll be technically closer, it still feels like he's getting farther away. With all these reports in the news about airplanes going down, I really feel nervous about his upcoming flights. Hopefully his guardian angel will be with him at all times.

I've been keeping myself busy, in hopes that I won't be constantly worrying. It has been helping, but whenever I find the time to just sit and think, my mind drifts to all the sad possibilities. But I keep reminding myself that we're getting married and we're spending the rest of our lives with eachother. For that prospect alone, I couldn't be happier.

Guardian Angel?

I was looking through some pictures the other day when I came upon one that I've seen about a hundred times. It is one of Andrew and myself at his military ball this year. We are all dressed up and standing outside at a railing. I am not a fan of this picture, because I think that I look absolutely terrible, so my eyes focus on him - studying everything about him. And then I notice a strange flaw in the picture. A dim outline coming up from behind Andrew's shoulder and gently curving and then sloping downward. It might be a trick of the light or a defect in the camera. All I know is that it looks like the outline of a wing. A relaxed wing. The kind of wing you see attached to the back of an angel. How peculiar. I browse through some more pictures and find one of us in front of a statue. It is nighttime and there is wind and rain and a big, odd orange glow just above our heads. Strangely enough in the shape of a wing. Admittedly, there is a light fixture on a building somewhere in the background that contributed to this strange apparition, but it still does not stop me from wondering about the coincidental position of wing-like things in two separate photographs taken with two separate cameras in two separate locations. To top it all off, I am remembering a story Andrew told me about an encounter he had with an angel in his bedroom when he was very young. Could this be the same angel? Could this angel be following Andrew? Protecting him? Keeping him safe? My heart wants desperately to believe this. I hope it is so. It gives me happiness just thinking about it.

Waiting For Your Voice

I'm afraid to be too far from the phone. I don't want to miss a call from you. I'm afraid to be too far from the computer, in case you come on to talk to me. I know I have to be stronger and go out and do things but I'm not ready yet. Not when you're still so close. It will be even harder when you are gone. Those rare occasions when you are able to call - what if I'm not there? What if I can't answer because I am at work or school? Your voice is the sweetest thing I have ever heard. I took it for granted before, and now it has become a delicacy. I want to be able to hear your voice every moment of every day. Do I sound obsessive? I think I sound obsessive. I just love you so much. More than anything else in the entire world. More than pwnies. More than candies.
Remember that little drawing you sent to me? I loved it then and now I love it even more. I can't wait until I can see you again. What I mean is, I -will- wait. I will wait for you. But I am so excited for the day that I can hold you in my arms after being apart for so long.

I love you too, sweetheart.

I'm Proud of You, Honey

As much as I beg Andrew to come home, to not go to Iraq... I am proud of my soldier. I am proud to say, "Look there. That man is going to be my husband. Look how brave he is, serving for his country." I hope he knows how proud I am of him. He is strong and true. Loyal. He says he has a job to do and he is damn well going to do it. I respect that in him, so very much. I wish I was half as strong as he is. I wish I had even half the courage, half the motivation, half the balls that he has. Maybe I do, but I haven't yet discovered it within myself.

If asked to go to Iraq to help with the war, I would do it in a heart beat. But I think that perhaps I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. I would go to Iraq, where people are dying every single day, not necessarily to assist the nurses and doctors or anything of the sort - but because he is there. Because it would mean being closer to him. I am not saying that I wouldn't help the doctors and the nurses; I most certainly would. But I wouldn't do it for the joy of helping wounded humanity but for the joy of being in the same vicinity as Andrew, and that is probably a disastrous flaw in who I am. I think it is called selfishness.

The way I see it, life is not worth living by myself. Life is not worth living without Andrew. And the risks that he takes, I want to take, too. If he dies fighting for his country, I want to die fighting beside him. Fighting for his life. Fighting for our love. Is that not the most important thing to fight for? Love?

Who thinks I'm crazy?

Now It Hits Me

Andy is finally going to Iraq. I knew this day would come, but I'd hoped it wouldn't. Time has a way of speeding up when you want it to stand still, and slowing down when all you need is for it to go fast. I can't keep myself from crying. Everything that I see and do and hear reminds me of him and then I get to thinking about how long it will be until I see him again. I knew this would hurt, but I didn't know that it would be this bad. He is not even out of the country yet and I already miss him so much. All I can do is be supportive and keep telling myself that he will be home. We will have our wedding and we will spend the rest of our lives together. If I had nothing except for Andy, I would be happy. He is all I need. Everthing I experience, I want to experience with him.

I realized just now how grateful I am that God brought us together. I keep asking him to bring Andy home to me. I hope he hears. Andrew is a part of me. He is my other half. Without him, I don't know what I would do. My life would be empty and cold. He needs to come home. I have not been able to look into his eyes as much as I'd like. Or kiss his lips as often as I should. I haven't been able to touch his skin or feel his breath or hear his heartbeat often enough. God, please bring him home to me. I promise I will be a better person. I swear that I will work hard to be all that you wish of me. God, I would do anything for you if you allow him to return to me. I want to spend the next eighty years, or more, in his company.

I love him so very much.