Everyday behind You, You are One Day Closer

Yep, I was having a very rough time with Justin being gone after only 3-4 days. All I could think about was how much I already missed him... how was I going to make it 9 months?!? My best friend, Ashley, called just to see how I was doing. As always, I have no resolve when it comes to hiding my feelings from her, the flood gates opened wide and the tears were in full force. I was whining, and crying, and complaining about how I missed him, how I didn't get to talk to him, how he wasn't on Facebook or Skype, he couldn't call often, how I was sooo miserable, how I felt completely empty, and just how.... how HARD this was. 

Ashley listened for quite a few minutes to let me get all this off my chest; I'll admit it, I like to vent. But then she proceeded to say, in her best 'not-to-bitchy' but 'just-bitchy-enough' best friend 'I-care-about-you-and-you-need-to-hear-this' voice, "I'm not saying this isn't hard...I guarantee it's going to be hard. But you love him, and he loves you. He's going to do his job and then come home to you."

At this point, I REALLY wanted to cut her off, how would she know? She got to see her boyfriend everyday! I just wanted to wallow on my couch in my own pity party a few more days. I replied "Uhuh..." in a pretty snarky attitude voice of my own.

She cut me off before I could even think to come up with anymore complaints: "Look, you've got to stop thinking about how much more time you have left before he comes home. You can't be sitting at home depressed all the time-he doesn't want that. You need to be more positive. We both know it's going to suck for you, but start thinking about how many days you've already got behind you...everyday behind you, you're one day closer!"

And this is why she is my best friend; that was EXACTLY what I needed to hear!

"Start thinking about how many days you've already got behind you...

Everyday behind you, you are one day closer!"

 So that night, I got on Pinterest and started looking for ideas to get through this deployment in a positive way...to countdown the days behind me. This is what I came up with: 

My sister made these vases for me with my initials on them.
The 'A' beads are days to go.  Every night, I write him a positive note & put in in the 'K' vase then move a bead to the 'P' vase representing the 'days behind me'.

This was pretty daunting at first. There's only four beads in the 'P' vase when I took this photo. I wanted to show Ashley I was really trying. I kept doing it though, every single night. I've got to say, it really helps. I make myself only write positive notes; my intention is to make him read every last note when he gets home! This is the last thing I do right before I turn out the light and attempt to sleep... it's actually been helping me fall asleep a little faster too!