We all find our own way to deal with stress; this is mine...

Don't laugh, I'm serious. Since I first picked up book 1 in my sophomore year of college, I've noticed a trend: every stressful event I've been through in life since, I've gotten through by re-reading these. (And obviously by dealing with whatever issue was at hand, eventually.)

There's just something about diving into Harry's magical world that I can completely escape to and forget what reality is facing me...

I started re-reading them about 3 days before we took off to Virginia. Finished the first one on the plane and started the second. Finished that one while in VA and since we've been home I've made it through books 3 and 4 and now I'm half way through book 5. At first I was only reading them at night so that I could fall asleep thinking about what I knew came next for Harry rather than what I knew was coming in the next couple weeks for me. Now that I'm so close to having to just deal with what's coming for me, I'm reading them more and more during the day, as well as night, when D's at work...so I don't have to walk around the house seeing his bags slowly getting more packed and realizing how quiet the house is going to be without him rough-housing with Boo every night, or laughing with me over something silly on TV or listening to his crazy music and videos on YouTube.

It's not as though I haven't known this moment of seperation was coming for a very long time now. I thought I was prepared. No, I knew I was prepared. Then I became pregnant. NOTHING could have prepared me for dealing with a long seperation AND him not being there for the birth of our first child...NOTHING. Will I get through it? Of course. Will I be all alone? Of course not. But it doesn't matter whether I'll get through it or not, whether I know that deep down I do have the emotional strength to get over the disappointment of him missing that moment, and that I can get passed the fear I know I'll have that only D can squelch out of me with some retarded joke or simple touch. He still won't be there, and nothing can change that fact.

I suppose it's for these reasons that I've been removing myself from reality and into the world of Harry Potter. If I face that this deployment is here and now, then I have to face that he won't be here then...