The Reentry

 I am a summer girl.  Through and through.  Love everything about the heat and humidity wall that smacks you in the face on the 90 degree days.  

But this year I was ready, and I mean rrreeeeaaaaddddyyyy, for September 1st.  For the first time ever I changed out our summer decor for our fall decorations (not Halloween... I am that crazy) on September 1st.  

On any year August is a rough month.  As a mom, it is first days of school (and this year we have our first elementary / middle school split), open houses, new routines, and for almost a month of, mom I need this, and mom I am going to have to get this.  Then throw in that I am also an educator who is going through first days of school, a million fires each day, new schedules, and working way past my contracted hours. August is a hard month for all of us.  

And this year we threw in Jacob's reentry.  We were overjoyed when his final plans began to fall into place, and we literally were given his flight home less than 12 hours before he would land.  He was going to make it back to us before August 1st, which had been Ellee's prayer for the entire deployment.  In the moment it all goes so quickly.  All the emotions get jumbled up in a mix, there is little time to make sense of it all, and somehow you just ride through.  

But then the emotions settle, and a calmness not only settles within us, but physically around us.  The deep breath I first let out when we first hug, is a full release of so much stress I have carried for way too many months.  I instantly feel lighter after this embrace.  That inside feeling is something so hard to describe but honestly my favorite part of the homecoming.  

And then we are to make sense of the physical space.  Now there are 4 in the house.  And we are all going through a delicate dance of how do we do this?  Who can be in the kitchen when, and all of a sudden it is a bit harder to get a bathroom that is free.  Who cooks dinner when, who picks up the kids, who packs lunches, did anyone do the dishes or the laundry.  Oh, and the sleeping together.  After sleeping alone for so long, the first month or so of having someone else making noise, moving, and taking up space is something we both had trouble adjusting too.  So throw in not getting good sleep each night with us trying to do this all in August made for this reentry a bit more difficult.  

But now we are in September.  Jacob is back at work.  Kids and I have already fallen back into school routine.  We are both sleeping so much better.  We have figured out how to coexists.  How to be partners.  How to live in the same space.  How to dream and move forward together again.  

Reentry always takes time.  Reentry is emotionally hard too. But I am also so proud of the work we are both willing to put in to make it to the other side.  

Welcome September. Fall is proof that change is beautiful!  

And the Biggest Fear of All

 Well.  Since it has been a while since I last blogged, like 6 months, let's get the questions out of the way. 

Is Jacob still gone? - Yes

How much longer will he be gone? - This changes daily.  I am not kidding.  So much goes into reentry that when one thing doesn't happen it all falls apart, but then is put back together again, and sometimes that whole plan changes.  I do not even bat an eye at most of the messages/changes he send me.  This is for sure a coping skill I have long perfected. Will he be home next week, or in 3 months?!  Who knows.

How has it been going? - This answer could go astray if I went into too many details, but big picture we are still here, and putting one foot in front of the other.  The other thing I will say is Murphy really Murphy Lawed me these past few months. My car was held ransom by the auto body shop that was chosen by insurance to fix it after the accident.  Literally I had to create an escape plan for my car after this went on for a few weeks.  I was pretty sure the end of times was near when I had to battle a German Roach, grain moth, and ant invasion.  At one time these unwanted, fornicating guests were all visiting in and around our house at the same time, so needless to say the exterminator and I are on first name basis, we have each other's cell numbers, and heck I might even add him to the Christmas Card list, as we are still in "isolation phase" for the darn moths. So that battle isn't over.  I completely understand why most military spouses are stay at home parents, as the month of May, with a 5th grader and all of their calendar events, about put me over the edge.  All of his events intertwined with the end of the school year for me made for a trying month.  And we have a new kitchen faucet as ours just decided it was done working, I had to deal with no kitchen sink for 2 weeks while we worked everything out. Oh, and how can I forget I had a few days of food poisoning, and was bitten by a bug that created such an allergic reaction my eyes and throat started to swell, and it took an urgent care visit, 3 doctors, 1 specialist, and over 1 steroid filled month to get the rashes to go away. 

Then came summer. You all know how much I value our summers and man have I enjoyed every day of it so far.  

But the last couple of days it has been hitting me.  He will be coming home. When I planned our Michigan trip this year, time was not a factor.  I figured why stay in Georgia. What was keeping us here?  Jacob wasn't here and wouldn't be.  So we ended up staying  in the mitten for 2 weeks.  As the 2 weeks wound down though, I didn't want to go back south.  Even though in all honesty 2 weeks was too long for my sister and I to be together, I knew at home Jacob wouldn't be there.  I feared the loneliness that I would feel.  

On the long drive back home to Georgia Jacob and I got to really chat, and the reentry plan is narrowing in on being finalized, and dates are being thrown out.  So starts my new uneasiness. Do we know how to be together again?  As I unpacked from our trip I really took inventory on how easily I had taken over his spaces within the house.  The bathroom counter, now all mine.  Only one towel hangs, and I have found other things to take up his towel space.  The closet, oh man.  I am going to have to do some real shifting to make room for another person to find items or even place items in there.  I have used his desk in the basement as a "holding" ground.  If I didn't know what to do with something, it has found a spot on his desk. 

It isn't just the physical space that has to be prepared.  I worry if I have done a good job.  Will Jacob be happy with how the lawn looks?  The garage?  The tool bench? The new organization of the kitchen, mostly due to those insects fornicating without permission. Will he be happy with the parenting I have done for Cade and Ellee?  So much has changed with both of them over the past year, and I have struggled at times.  Did I pick the right battles, and enact the right boundaries?

And the biggest fear of all.  Will we be able to reconnect?  A person who has been absent, don't take that the wrong way, it is just the truth, for a better part of a year will be coming back in to our lives.  Will I be able to remember how to communicate? Will he be able to pick up where he left off?  Will Cade and Ellee be able to adjust to having both of us around again?  Do we remember how to be emotionally available to each other, as that is one of the first things we both turn off when it comes to these long periods of distance. We know we have done this before.  Many times in fact.  But honestly I think the reentry is much harder than the deployment. 

So, our journey is getting ready to shift again.  In the meantime I will probably worry way too much.  Oh, and I should make some room in the closet.

The long, cold days of January

 A few nights ago Jacob messaged "I am starting to feel ready to come home, which is not great as we still have a long way to go."  

Man.  I felt that.  My thoughts exactly.  We have a long way to go.  

December and the start of the new year were great for us - I'll speak for the "us" who are stateside.  Holiday break, with time off of school always puts everyone in a great mood.  We traveled to warmer weather, which helped too.  We were with family for Christmas, then traveled home, and had more family visit back to back.  I had adults to chat with for almost three straight weeks.  It was exactly the boost I needed. 

Then I had to go back to work.  Then the kids went back to school.  Then my mom and step-dad headed home. And then the cold, cold weather blew in.  

I am in no way saying I wouldn't have complained as much as I did about this cold spell if Jacob were here, but man oh man, was it all the more harder to go through it while feeling alone.  January is rough.  Short days.  It is normally the coldest month, and this year we have averaged 20 degrees below average almost every day of January.  We do see the sun more than I would if I were back in Michigan, but the cold cuts right through me.  Keeps me inside.  Keeps me from going out and doing things.  The more I write this out I think I may have been using it as excuse to stay home and not even be out in public spaces where there are at least other people.  

Instead the past couple of days I have been dwelling on how alone it feels.  How I am left with my thoughts in my head. And how the dates that are being tossed around for possible homecomings seem 

so

so

very

far

away.

It feels like the end will never come when our youngest is throwing it back in my face that she wishes daddy could be here, instead of me sending him a video of a school performance.  The end feels so far away when under his breath, our almost middle schooler, reminds me daddy could do it if he were here.  It feels at times I just wont make it this time when my plate is ever so full with daily tasks and then a kids gets sick, or I have to exchange the rental car, again (we are now on rental car #3, another story for another day).

I remind myself these are fleeting thoughts. I will make it.  Daddy will be in person to attend school functions, assist with appointments, and fix all the many things going wrong in the house.  Eventually.  The coincidence that the month of January and us being at the 4 month mark of deployment is not making this any easier.

We have been busy making plans for February.  February. When the days will be longer, we hope this arctic chill is long gone, and we get another school break.  And we will be another month closer.  

Closer sounds better.