I feel like I should start this off with a disclaimer, because first of all I don’t want people getting in a tizzy worried about his safety. Secondly, I don’t really have time to be questioned by the FBI this week. This is a HUMOR piece. I love my husband… deeply, passionately and with every single fiber of my being. He is not on my short list of people I might actually consider spending time in prison for the satisfaction of destroying.
What?! You don’t have a list like that?
Oh.
Moving right along…
My husband and I are very good at being apart, just like so many military couples we know. Even if they are not actually deployed, we all know that rarely means they are HOME. They go to schools, training and conferences. They go to the field, they serve duty or they work hours that are so ridiculous the only time you see them is when they accidentally kick you awake at 3 a.m. When frequently separated, the service member is used to doing things in a structured, very different environment. The person who is holding down the home front is accustomed to being in charge, doing things according to their own schedule…also a very different environment.
And then, they come home.
We have all heard how reintegration can be a no-joke, pull-your-hair-out-by-the-fist-full experience. For some, it is an easy transition…falling back into “old” roles and picking up the fairy tale right where it left off when they said goodbye. For others it is a constant struggle to negotiate that marriage contract day after day after day, and try to re-build the relationship without giving into those fantasies of using a lady shaver to remove their eyebrows while they slumber.
Oh, wait. I think that might just be me again.
My husband has been home from his last deployment for well over a year. To be completely honest, we didn’t have the luxury of any type of reintegration. Two weeks after he returned home I had major surgery, five weeks after we PCS’d from North Carolina to Arizona, and shortly after our household goods were delivered we got the glorious news that our 10-year-old daughter would finally be a big sister.
Frankly, I am shocked that neither one of us filed papers during that time. He had to drive every single mile of the PCS move, towing our other car, with a medicated (translation: sleeping) pregnant wife, kid and two dogs in the truck. By the time we moved and got our stuff, I was so tired and sick from the pregnancy, I was useless for months. We are still unpacking boxes.
Good thing neither of us had the time or energy to hire an attorney.
And now, here we are a year later with our new bundle of joy, a daughter starting middle school (every time I see the commercial for my old IUD I laugh), and I am now working full-time from home. My husband is out of the fleet, which means he cannot be deployed for at least two more years. He has gone to a conference here and there, and will go to a school this fall. But for the most part he will be home for three years. I am very grateful that he is home, he is safe and he is experiencing all the firsts with our second daughter that he missed with our oldest. I really do enjoy his company, I love waking up to him every morning, and even after all these years he still makes me laugh at least once a day…which I love.