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.
