The End - Deployment Daze 331

IT'S OVER......That's right. Deployment has ended and hubby is home.

Redeployment ceremony was at 4:00 AM last Friday morning...whoa was that early.  It was very difficult to get any sleep that night.  Just a few moments here and there of dozing off.  Nevertheless, kids and I were awake (barely) and ready to end this journey. The ceremony was thankfully very short and we were reunited and headed home within an hour or so.

Since then it has been a whirlwind of activity.  We have been out to eat, on the lake, overnight trip to KC, and shopping like crazy.  I love that my hubby likes to shop and has great taste in clothing.  He is my personal stylist.  It has been great having him home.  At times it feels like it never happened.

There have been a few adjustments.  Finding clothes all over the floor has been an annoying yet comforting addition.  I now have to get back into the routine of cooking dinners again and fighting for my place in the bed.  Oh and the age old struggle of too hot or too cold.  I like it warm, he likes it cold so out come the blankets and sweaters.  It's all good though.

Everyone gives advice on the best way to cope with deployment.  All I can say is you get through it the best way you can.  As in life, everyone is on their own journey.  The advice and stories from others are great information, yet didn't always help or apply to me.

"Stay busy and the year will fly by," was probably the number one recommendation.  Well I was plenty busy with two teenagers, a part-time job, and graduate school. It didn't make the time go by any faster.  It was still approximately one year and it felt like it.  In fact, I believe that being busy made it worse.  There were times when I was so overwhelmed that it made the loneliness of deployment that much more obvious.  So balance is the key.  Busy enough not to be bored and lonely, yet not so overwhelmed that you feel like your drowning and no one is there to save you.

I did many things that supposedly you shouldn't do during deployment.  I watched the news.  Something we were repeatedly told is not a good idea.  Well, I'm a fairly intelligent person and I watch the news because I am interested in what is happening in the world. It kept me informed about what was going on.  However, I was also not naive enough to think that everything I heard or read was all there was to the story.  I pulled information from a variety of sources and discussed with my hubby.  I educated myself on the region he was in so that when a story was reported I was able to make a intelligent assessment. For me not knowing is worse so I stayed informed as best I could.

My hubby and I discussed many things.  If something was wrong or there were problems, I talked to him about it just like I would have if he was home.  I involved him as much as possible so he still felt connected and a part of the family.  He would talk to me about things that bothered him.  That is how we are and it works for us.  I think it helped make the transition home easier.  There weren't any surprises. We both knew what we had gone through.

Although I didn't always follow the advice of seasoned spouses or military personnel, I got through it. At times it was very difficult.  At times easy. I am thankful that he was stationed on a base where we had constant communication.  Thank God for the technology today that allowed us to talk and see each other daily.  That, I know, made all the difference in the world.

As for the rest, it's all about knowing you, your soldier, and your family and what fits best within that dynamic. Listen to the advice of others, take what you need and leave the rest. So I end with this to sum up my deployment experience:

Yes there were times I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out, I faced it all
And I stood tall and did it my way


To my honey,  Welcome home!