Absense makes the heart grow fonder?

I am busy finishing up the the school year for the kids and filling in the calendar with all their summer events.  Things like basketball camps, softball camps and all the other leagues that seem to occupy so much of our time.  I am also trying to plan a visit to see my husband in August.  It will have been over a year since we have seen him.  It is an 11 hour drive and obviously requires a hotel stay or two so it is not an inexpensive trip by any means.  I am booking hotels early as I have the money, hoping that I do not get hit with the costs all at once.

But my bigger question for today is, what should we expect?  It has been almost a year and a half since he has been a part of our daily lives and over a year since we have even seem him.  I write everyday and talk to him three times a week for our allotted 15 minutes each call.  But I feel a distance between us.  Not because of anything either on of us has ever said or done, but just because of the physical distance between us.   I try to keep him up to date on everything that is going on with us.  I send a monthly calendar, update him in the letters of all the days activities and try to think of all the important things to tell him when we talk.  Yet when the phone rings I do not want to waste time on silly things and then can not think of anything else to talk about.  I do not want to always be whining and telling him I wish he was here.  I think that only makes things worse.  I am not saying that that does not happen, I just try not to let it happen too often.

He lives in a world that I can not begin to completely understand and may never want to.  I know what he tells me and sometimes even that is too much.  He seems to have friends, keeps busy with his job, and attends all the required classes that will allow him to eventually come home on time.  But our lives are separate, we exist at the same time but not in the same place or even with the same goals at this point in our lives.  I am busy trying to raise three children into adults while working to maintain a minimal standard of living.  He is trying to keep a low profile and do what he needs to get done to come home safely in three more years. 

Time is flying by but at the same time it is crawling.  I measure his time away in the way the kids have changed and it seems like a lifetime ago, but if I look forward at how much longer he has, we are not even halfway to the end yet.

Does all this separation have a greater impact on us all in the long run?  How will he incorporate himself back into our lives?  I miss him tremendously and yet I am anxious about seeing him in August.  We will spend two visiting days with him, what will everyone have to say? 

I am not sure if this is the right way to handle all of this mess, but it is the only way that I know how for right now.  I would love to see him more often but the cost and distance makes it impossible.  So for now this is what we have to do.  My crystal ball is broken so I have no way of knowing that things will work out in the end...I can only hope.