Just Like Saying, "Ok, smack me in the teeth with that brick"

How exactly do you prepare to send someone you love away for a year? Especially someone that you sometimes miss when they're at work. How do you come face to face with reality and learn to be okay with it?
John and I have always had a wonderful relationship. It's had it's ups and downs, like any relationship, but overall the good times prevailed. When I found out that he'd signed up to join the marines, I was totally okay with it, I thought it would be the best thing in the world for him (sighs and kicks self in ass). I realized just how stupid and ignorant I was on January 23, 2006 around 9:00 p.m. when I dropped John off to go to Parris Island, SC. The second I drove off I started to cry and I realized how much he meant to me. All I wanted to do was take back all the times I'd been an ass, the times I didn't tell him thank you or that I was sorry, the times I didn't tell him how much I loved him. Those 3 months were quite possibly the worst 3 months of my life. It started out giving myself little pep talks saying stuff like, "It's ONLY 90 days, you can do that!" (sighs and kicks self in the ass for being so insanely demented). The strangest thing about it all though was that when it got down to like 60 days, looking at 60 days felt like longer than 90. Then when it got to 40, it felt like an even longer time to wait. There were so many times that people would try to be helpful and be all like, "Well, you've made it through 30, you can make it another 60" and all I could think of was what was the nearest object that I could chunck at their face becuase Oh.My.God 60 days! Did they not have ANY idea how long that was?!
Then I'd start thinking about John and how bad he had it and no telling what in sam fucking hell he was going through. Then, I'd start to cry because I knew he was lonely too and cold and tired and hungry and just as miserable. There are just no words to fully describe any of this.