Tempura Fried Laughter

So I'm sitting there laughing with Morgan last night, having a really fun girls evening in, watching Army Wives when it suddenly hits me how ridiculously emotional I was before Daniel left for this deployment. You want to know how I came to this conclusion, I'll tell you.

Okay, picture this, it's three days before he leaves, we are sitting at dinner with a group of our closest and bestest friends having all you can eat sushi. Morgan is ordering all the yummy tempura rolls and, knowing how good they are (and ignoring the fact that they are not going to make me feel like sushi was the healthy eat-out option tonight), I order a few myself, along with a few healther picks. After much anticipation and after my stomach had been angirly growling at me for quite some time, our rolls arrive. But do you want to know where my delicous but oh so unhealthy deep fried goodness end up? On the opposite side of the table, that's where! No big deal, at first. I delightedly eat my "healthier" options, waiting patiently for someone to pass me a few of the golden yummies on the other side of the table.

Time passes on and with hope fading fast that there would be any left for me, I politely ask Daniel if he could please pass the tempura rolls. He kind of ignores me (I think he has selective hearing) and so I ask again. But, his selective hearing must have tuned me out, so I reach over him, sort of in his eating space, across the the table, and stick my chopsticks into the tempura rolls directly in front of Morgan and Adam's faces. Then I get that look that no one wants to get, that look of shock and horror. I wasn't letting anything get in my way of eating those tempura rolls, not even Daniel's annoying obsession with healthy food and polite manners in public. Well, that was it. I got that look and that's all I needed to throw a little temper tantrum right there in the middle of dinner

"Oh, what, I can't eat tempura. What am I, Fat?"

"No, it's not that. But can't you eat what's in front of you instead of reaching across the ENTIRE table?"

"Oh, so now I can't eat anything you think is unhealthy cause then you'll call me fat?"

"Oh jeeze, Kaitlyn. Really? Okay, well if that's how you want to spend this night, fighting, then go ahead."

That was it. I was ready to call it a night, go home, and retreat to my icecream in the freezer. Now of course we made up and it didn't ruin the whole  night, but as I was recalling this incident with Morgan over wine, it dawned on me just how high emotions ran that last weekend. I didn't realize it when we were living those moments, but looking back, I had to laugh, like really hard, at that whole situation. Did I really get made at Daniel and imply that he thought I was fat cause of my undying need to eat the less healthy rolls clear across the table in which I had to be extremely rude to other table guests to retrieve? YES! And that thought made Morgan and I laugh histerically for like 5 minutes.

Wow, stress before deployments is unavoidable, as much as I thought I could defend myself against it, I was a fallen victim. My lesson has been learned. Prepare yourself for the inablity to act rationally when your loved one is preparing to leave for 6 months. Be ready to recognize the signs of emtional instability so you can stop yourself before you let it ruin too much of that precious time. I am thankful we made it past those four days without too many bumps, although there were enough of these little moments to cherish from now until he comes home. And last, but not least, be prepared to laugh about your tantrums with a good friend over a glass (or two) of good wine, it really does the soul some good to realize it's not your fault you were an emotional wreck, it's the deployment's fault. And that is who/what I choose to blame for all my emotional inadequacies over the next few months, end of story.