Dear John ....

Side Note Re: Wordless Wednesdays: My new laptop won't talk to my card reader, and I have lost the battery charger for my camera. I am also trying to not be so OCPD about "rules". Wordless Wednesday will resume when I find my battery charger, or when I feel like it. :-)

I just watched the trailer for "Dear John" over at Married to the Military. It is the latest Nicholas Sparks novel to be turned into a movie. Don't think I will be seeing it in the theatre, since the trailer caused tears; but we'll see.

(aside: I think I have only seen one movie in the theatres in the last 2-3 years, so this isn't really a stretch)

There is a scene in the trailer when the male and female leads, a soldier and his girl, are taking shelter from the rain in a partially built house.

She: The way people act around you? Its like they're scared of you.
He: Maybe scared of who I used to be.
She: You don't scare me, John
He: Well, you scare me.

This reminds me of the first time the Wolf and I got together after his Gulf tour. When we dated in high school it was fairly "innocent", if you will; then we spent 24 years as friends before re-conecting. Round two of dating at this point had been dinners and coffee houses, and a lot of time on the phone and MSN.

I had gone to where he was training ( a re-occurring theme) and picked him up; we went for dinner and then to a hotel. We went to our room, and put our bags down, and then stood there rather awkwardly. The Wolf came over to me, wrapped his arms around me, put his forehead down on top of my head and said


"I've faced mine fields and been less scared than I am right now"

I think my heart melted right there on the spot.

I have been thinking the last few days that the Wolf's pull back is more about this than anything else. He is used to the things he loves hurting him, failing him, or being hurt or killed and he is unable to protect them.

There was another incident that had been on my mind the last couple of days, for no real reason. This summer past, while the Wolf was on work up, he called me while I was out ont he trial running. I hadn't heard from him in a week, but I was in an area with really bad reception, and we only got about 1/2 a sentence in before the call dropped. When I got back to my truck I had about 5 more messages from him, but none of them had made it through. I was sad that I had missed him, and there were a few tears.

I was headed over to a friends for dinner that night, and over divver prep I told her about it. Her hubs, a 2nd Lt, was also in the same location at the time.

About 2:30 in the morning my phone rang. It was the Wolf. Calling in the middle of the night is not unusuall for him, so I really didn;t think anything of it. After we had talked for a minute he said "Babe, is everything OK? Is something wrong?" I replied that I was just tired, but no, nothing was wrong. Then he told me that he had received a note from a 2nd Lt to call home right away .... **sigh**. I told him what had happened, appologized profusely, and told him I would do my best to make sure it never happens again.

(Side note: really note sure of the 2nd Lt's long term career potential, if he would actually listen to his wife when she tells him to do something like this. This is the same guy (only in OT for a year to date) who pulled off a trip because his wife was upset and was going to miss him)

It has occurred to me that the problem we are having isn't that the Wolf doesn't think I am strong enough to survive this kind of life style; it is that he doesn't think he is strong enough to let someone that far into his heart.


He is scared of what he feels for me. Because people he loves get hurt or killed, and he can't fix it.