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!