Homecoming

Sometimes when I sit on the couch, it feels like it's still eight months ago, and my husband is still deployed, and I'm still pregnant. When I sit there, I remember the day I got the news about Jason. I sat there for most of the day, on the phone with anyone and everyone. I was still in my purple scrubs from working the night before. I remember looking around and wondering what would happen to all of our stuff. I remember thinking, maybe these would be the last couple of days I'd have in this house. I remember when CPT F told me the recovery time is usually anywhere between 8 and 16 months, I was looking at our engagement picture hanging over the fireplace and thinking, "Holy Shit, 8 months?! I'm going to have to quit my job! Where will Sadie go? Who will move our stuff?" Even being a nurse, for some reason I briefly thought he'd fly to the US, and then come home to Colorado after about a week in the hospital. Ha, I'm an idiot. So, when he told me that timeline, that's when I remember realizing that this would be a really long road to recovery. 

And long it was, but look, we're already back home. And now I'm turning back, looking at all our time in Bethesda, and at home, and it all seemed to have gone so fast, although I know it didn't. As a matter of fact, we got back 2 days before he would've flown home from Afghanistan. The group he left with, came home 2 days after we got back. It was a weird feeling, knowing he should've been on that flight. I am 100% grateful he is home with me, but I am also 100% jealous he was not on that flight home.

I have really been feeling the selfishness of wanting to experience a welcome home ceremony lately. Everyone is getting their 'official calls' as to when their soldier will be flying in, and the only official call I got, was the one no one ever wants to get. 

We will still go to one of the ceremonies. They all come home in small groups, so he's basically just picking one to walk out with. I will go and take pictures, and I wonder if I'll get emotional, but I doubt I'll feel the giddy excitement all the other wives and family members will be feeling. 

Our conversation tonight:

"Why couldn't you have been just a few inches to your left or right? Why was it the third person? Why not the second, fourth, or nobody?"

"Do you think we'll ever stop wondering why?"

"I should be SRPing right now, and enjoying you and Cooper, and having a normal life, and going back to my normal job. Your mom would probably be here. The nursery would already have been done. We wouldn't have moved for a second time. I still can't believe it. I still can't believe this is my life now." 

"Why can't I just be normal? Why do I have to go through all of this?" 

"The Army has been such a big part of my life, I'm not ready to give it up yet. I don't know what I'll do if they tell me I can't stay in." 

He's alive. And home. Be grateful, Stephanie. 

I am.

But I'm grieving the loss of our normalcy. The fact that I never got to experience this Welcome Home ceremony is really hitting me hard for some reason. It marks the end of the deployment. Everyone is so excited because their soldier is home safe, and they can return to a normal life because the deployment is over. We can't. Maybe that's why, because I know this means everyone he was with, will come home and return to life just as they left it, while we are here still trying to figure out our new life. 

We will have to live with that deployment for the rest of our lives, while many others will just move on with it only a distant memory. 

I often wonder what life will be like 5, 10, 15 years from now. How will this affect his overall health, or his motivation. He is currently inprocessing to the WTU, and hates every minute of it. We wonder if we're still included and invited to all the Company and Battalion events even though now he's technically in the WTU. He has finally started to realize that his time in the Army will probably never be the same. 

These blogs seem to be cyclic - its like I have to have these same emotions, thoughts, and feelings over and over again so that maybe one day I will finally be able to process and accept it all. 

We will celebrate our 2nd anniversary on the 22nd. It's only been 2 years! I can only hope the next 100 years are much less eventful than this year has been. We've had more strain on our marriage in the last year than most people endure in ten years. I don't wish it on anyone. We will be dealing with the effects of this for a long time, most likely. Hopefully, we will learn to deal with the effects together. 

We've still got to get him back to doing his high kick for another picture to hang...(and subsequently another hole to put in the wall!)