Austin and I just endured a year apart and greeted each other with the same enthusiasm, anticipation, love and excitement at the airport. But we just came from two different worlds, and I’m realizing that the post-deployment period is very different for each of us.
I’m not sure if I can speak for all spouses here, so I’ll just speak for myself when I say that I believe I mentally blocked out the deployment about 20 minutes after his plane landed. He got home January 5, 2012 and it may as well have been January 5, 2005 because I feel like it was light years ago. I can remember it if you ask me to, but I do not feel like we are readjusting. I do not feel like he just got home. I feel like this is how life has always been.
However, I think for the soldiers deployed the mental toughness only begins as their boots hit the ground. He spent a year at war which my mind may never fully comprehend. I don’t think his mind had much time to comprehend it while he was there, but now that he’s back he has to begin the process of mentally processing what he just went through. I’ll never know what he did or saw. I’ll never know the times he thought he’d never see us again. I’ll never know the mental toughness that was required or the emotional breakdowns that happened after a stressful day. And I don’t think soldiers process those things until they are safe at home. On top of that, he has to adjust back into a life that he had left behind. He has had to get to know his son who is a completely different person than he was one year ago. He has had to learn where some things are kept now. I don’t even remember that I may have moved things around in my never ending attempt at complete organization, but for him things must seem like they are in the most illogical places. He has done a wonderful job at throwing himself into the pool rather than just getting his feet wet and I think that has contributed to my ability to just forget he was ever gone. But when we got back from Texas I realized that it must just be grueling for him.
I don’t know if you know this about me, but my mind goes about a mile a minute and I see and think of about 100 things at once. I have plans for every room of our house and for our finances and our vehicles and our moving and our vacations. I have plans for tomorrow and plans for 10 years from now. And on top of that, I’m trying desperately to be flexible to the idea that those plans heavily depend on my employment. I don’t have to have all of these things written out or explained to me; I just see them in my head. The downside is that I expect that people are up to speed with that and on the same page. Why wouldn’t they be? Why wouldn’t he know that I thought Sunday night we should do X, Y, and Z and that it should be done before bedtime and take very little effort or discussion? I can be a bit demanding I think, although I’m trying my hardest to be as relaxed and understanding and flexible as possible. Not my area of strength, but I’m trying hard.
We are in two different worlds. He is trying to readjust to home and I am trying to let go of home. He is trying to learn where everything is and I am trying to pack everything up. He is trying to settle in and I’m trying to gear up to move on. I don’t think we could be in further mental places. Thankfully, as a couple we are doing very well – but I can only imagine how some couples really struggle through this reintegration process. Luckily we aren’t fighting and have fairly open lines of communication and I am trying my best to be aware of how demanding I can get…and even with all of that openness and awareness we are still adjusting and learning and not yet where we were one year ago. I just feel for the couples who run into more struggles.
I think people – non military people – put very little thought into life after the boots have hit the ground. In general I believe people feel strongly for the servicemen and women serving overseas, and a good amount of people have compassion for the families left behind. But I think once they are reunited people move on and just think the nightmare is over and life is back as it should be.
Life IS back as it should be: we are together. But life is not back as it once was, and that’s where the growing and learning and trying comes into play.
- manda
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