Girl Power

I was kind of nervous about this week. You might remember that Mike has been at survival school (SERE) for about a week and a half now. Last Monday thru Friday, he was doing the academics portion of the course, so I was able to talk to him pretty regularly because he was in a classroom all day and in a hotel at night. On Saturday, he went "out into the field," which at SERE basically means that Mike is on a huge camping trip, but it's not very fun. They are not given much food, and are harassed by the instructors. Funny as it seems, the camping/harassing/interrogating/beating was not the part that made me nervous.

As a result of Mike running around somewhere in the woods of Washington, I have not been able to talk to him since Saturday. For some reason, this freaked me out. Not since our early dating days have we gone more than a few hours without connecting with each other. Whether it is talk, text, or e-mail, we have always been able to contact each other. I was soooo nervous that this would be really hard for me. Seriously, I thought I would be pining for him daily. (And of course, I miss him, but it is not in the desperate way I thought I would feel.)

But you know what? It has actually not been bad. In fact, (no offense to my cute hubby) it has been awesome! Obviously, if we had the chance to talk, I would. But honestly, talking with Mike at every.single.free.opportunity can get boring. Truthfully, my day doesn't change that much from morning til night. A typical nighttime conversation might go something like this:

Sarah: So, I gave Crockett a bath today.
Mike: I know, you told me that earlier.
Sarah: Oh yeah, sorry. I finished my book this afternoon. I just got in a reading mood and read for like, two hours.
Mike: Cool. Was it good?
Sarah: Yes. Should I tell you about it?
Mike: No, that's ok.
DEAD AIR-DEAD AIR-DEAD AIR
Sarah: Soo.....how was your day?
Mike: Boring. Death by Powerpoint.
Sarah: Ouch. What did you learn?
Mike: Well....(Rattling off survival techniques that I don't and will never understand, but am asking about anyway...during which my mind starts to wander to my to-do list for the following day)

See what I mean? Not a very earth-shattering conversation. (Again, this conversation was one I just made up...but is still pretty typical. Am I really that boring? Or naggy? Gosh. I should have made my fake-conversation self totally awesome. However, reader, that would not have been accurate. I regret to inform you that yes, I probably am just as boring as I made myself seem in the above pretend phone conversation. Which is pretty sad. Thanks for being my friend anyway.) If we made a pact to talk while apart, say, every three days, wouldn't our conversations be so much more interesting? And I would look forward to them so much more than I already do!

For example, I don't talk to my mom, or my dad, or my friends daily. I "save up" the best stuff from the week and tell them when I talk to them. I give them the best snippets of my life! Why shouldn't I do that with my awesome hubby? Have I really demoted Mike to the person I tell about dog-washing, toilet cleaning, laundry, etc? This is not exciting. Nor does it make me very appealing. (Bless your heart, Mike for loving me enough to talk to your boring wife anyway! I love you!)

Also this week, for some reason, I feel...empowered. I think its because I am realizing that if a crisis arose, I would have to deal with it on my own, which is not something I've really had to do in the past. And knowing that I WOULD have to deal with a problem on my own, makes me feel like I COULD deal with the same situation by myself on a normal, Mike-filled day. Does that even make sense?

So what have we learned?
1. Apparently, I am quite boring.
2. Despite this, I still have friends, which must mean that they are boring too. (Just kidding!)
3. I am feeling like I don't need to bore Mike with every little detail about my day,
4. which makes me feel very independent,
5. and like I can survive on my own.
6. Independence = awesome.