So Full

This blog entry has been started and abandoned over a dozen times.  Some things are just too close to your heart I guess, even for me.

"Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you overdramatize it or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important onces. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to… No matter how it comes out, I have to write it."

- Sylvia Plath

As the year comes to a close and the holidays are upon us I think it's the perfect time to reflect on the last year.  So much has happened, but at the end of every year I feel like that I guess lol.  The year started off with Jason coming home, long awaited through many other homecomings, it was finally ours.  Things have gone better than well this time around, none of my fears have been realized, I don't think I've ever been happier.  My life is so full, my family is whole, we are back in the US, the girls are thriving and I'm going back to school.  It feels like a dream some days.  

I am a reactive person, I have to let things happen before I can deal with them, usually in the middle of everything I am numb and on auto pilot, only to have a flood of emotion days, weeks, or months later, pending how big the reaction is.  So many great things have happened this year and not to be repetitive but the greatest is having Jason home.  It's like I forgot how loud his absence was until now when he's here.  The simplest things, like pulling out the Christmas decorations are so strikingly different with him here, and I realize it's because he wasn't here last time and his presence just fills up all the empty space that was there before.  He connects all of the strings between us, completing our home and our family.  I can't even really properly describe it.

Yet as full as my life feels there are these dark empty places in my heart.  I left not one but two families behind this year. I had to say good bye twice to people I love enough to do anything for.  The first being my first generation Army family.  As I am getting to know my second generation Army family I ache for the ones I left behind.  Germany was such a transformation for me.  I didn't come back the same person.  I also left part of my heart there.  The spouses I worked with, the soldiers that they loved, and the people in the community have left me forever changed.  I just can't express what those relationships and experiences have meant to me.  

We left Germany and went 'home' for six weeks and I got to be part of my natural family again for the first time in years and oh how I missed them.  The people who know me as "Messy Jessi" and remember the girl who loved books more than anything in the world.  I could feel my absence from the previous years, and suddenly I didn't know what made sense anymore.  One foot in one world and one foot in another.  I thought nothing would feel stranger than living on American soil in a foreign country but I was wrong.  I thought about how much would change between then and the next visit and realized the reality of not being there.  I love our Army life but it comes at a price.

I feel conflicted sometimes being incredibly happy and having a sadness deep down......but I think the sadness makes the happiness possible.  I wouldn't appreciate so many little things if I hadn't felt their absence. Culture shock goes far beyond forgetting there's 24hr Wal Marts and entertaining commercials.   Now the most beautiful sight in the world is my husband asleep on the couch, it sat empty for so long I can't help but smile when he takes up half of it even if I can't wake him up to come to bed.  I see it in the girls too.  Daddy leaving means a lot more now, when will Daddy come back?  Daddy I love you and having you home, Daddy I'll miss you while you're in the field.  They have learned to appreciate.  They ask when we will go back to Maryland, when is Grammy/Gran-Gran/Uncle Russell/Uncle Steve coming to visit?  When will Miss Amanda and Layla move to the states?  Can we visit Chloe in Colorado?  The best things in life don't come easily.  I'm so proud of those girls I could cry.  They give meaning to every tear I've shed and every smile I've forced.  I couldn't be happier.  I am so full.

Welcome, Welcome

It only took 2 weeks into 2012 before it began to shine as a wonderful year.  My husband returned from Afghanistan.  This being our 2nd deployment, we had gone through reintegration once before.  It was tough, much tougher than I had anticipated.  So naturally this time I held my breath a little.....prepared for the worst, but hoping for the best.  Hope won out.  While we're still in the reintegration phase, this time is going so smooth.  Last time I knew things weren't going so great from the very beginning.  I'm not sure if we've grown since last time, or if it's just experience helping us out.  I like to think it's a little of both.

There will be a lot of welcoming in store for us this year.....and also good byes.  Just after we finish sailing through the reintegration phase, we'll be preparing to leave Germany, our first duty station.  I am excited to go back to America, back to my home.  But there is much I leave behind in Germany too, I am grateful for all I have experienced here, the memories and friends made will not soon be forgotten (some never will be).

It's the before transition that reminds me why this life is so well suited for us.  We are excited to move on, excited for a new place and new experiences, all of us, even the girls.  We have all enjoyed living in Germany, I sit and admire the strength and adaptability of our little family.  Living overseas and going through 2 deployments and really living the Army life here has gelled us together like a team.

Every ending is also anew beginning welcome new adventures, welcome to a new chapter in life.

On The Cusp

There is something about the end of a deployment that is a paradox. The end can feel so much longer than the rest of the deployment. You would think it would be easier since you are so much closer to being done. And as you start getting closer it is, because you can think I've done 285 days.........what's 65 more? Or whatever the numbers are.

But right at the end, right as you are on top of that homecoming, suddenly emotions flood you. Little things become big deals, you're nervous, excited, sad, and irritable all at the same time. It's a surge of emotion that mirrors after the deployment first begins. I think at that point, when you're so close the waiting becomes unbearable and so a person might drum up things to distract them, things to be mad about, sad about, nervous about. Impossible deadlines for preparations (that the soldier rarely really cares about anyway). It's just so much pressure, and often fear of the unknown.

I was talking about it today with my husband and I told him I think it's that you put so much emotion away so you can cope during the whole of the deployment that when you get close to the end, it all starts hitting you at once. I know last time he came home I wasn't school girl giddy the days leading up, I actually found something trivial to be overly angry about. My feelings weren't so harsh when it was time to get him but when I did get him, I didn't feel that 'honeymoon' feeling. I wasn't floating in the way I thought I would be. I suddenly just felt hugely relieved, like a huge weight was taken off of me.

Then comes the work. Yes a deployment is work, but it's work you can settle into and move with. Post deployment is a different kind of work. You have to reconcile with what was, what happened and what is. You have to merge 2 worlds again, 2 worlds that are forever altered in some way. It's usually not very easy, and often quite a bumpy ride. Time, patience and honesty are your best friends in that process. There is little else that will truly help.

For more on the emotional cycle of deployments check this out:

http://www.military.com/spouse/content/military-deployment/dealing-with-deployment/emotional-cycle-of-deployment-military-family.html

Though filled with it's own challenges, being on the cusp is a set of challenges I think almost any military spouse of a deployed service member would gladly welcome. The only way out is through.