When reintegration training was announced for the spouses, I picked a date and a time, and knew I would be there. My phone went on vibrate, I took a notebook, I listened, I juggled Layla and a pacifier while listening to a well-informed, and well-intentioned speaker talk about anticipating what a soldier goes through during re-integration. Jittery nerves, sleeplessness, mood swings, anything and everything that may happen.
I did not hear anything through it about the nerves, mood swings, and sleepless nights that I am having. The jittery anticipation I have that veers into a bad mood, and has me snarling at anyone who crosses my path. Things that would normally just barely irritate me now infuriate me, and the things that would normally infuriate me have me contemplating homicide.
When I sit and count the days, time crawls, rubbing salt into the open wound that deployment has become. When I try to pack my day full of activities to keep myself busy, I spend it irritated at the world.
During the night, when I should sleep, I lay awake, stare out the window, and my mind races at what seems like light speed. The list of things I need to do, the changes that at are coming.
It is change that bothers me the most. I crave security and stability, and the routines to my day, the patterns around which my life rotates, offered me that when so much of my life is up in the air. I have come through the biggest change in my life, going from that of just me, to mother. It was a huge transition, one that finds me still wobbly. Adjusting to life as a mother is not one I made overnight, and I am still not fully used to the role.
On top of that, now I go from on my own, to part of a couple. For a year now, I have straddled the line between single and married, on my own for many decisions, doing so much by myself, while at the same point in time, trying to keep us both involved in what was going on. How I do things, how I sort laundry, how I cook dinner, where I sleep on the bed, all that changes as well.
It is a mix of that anticipation, the fear of the unknown and what it is to come, and exhaustion from this long marathon that deployment become, that drives sleep from me, chases away my appetite, and has me pacing the floors like a caged animal.
These last few weeks are just as hard, in their own way, as the first few were.
~Jennifer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
They need to consider adding the spouse into their reintegration training sessions. Not just as an attendee, but as a part of it. Support all the troops you want, but the troops will need to be able to support the wives, as well.. Otherwise it just won't work, because one party will be getting an even shorter end of the stick than they are already getting just by the deployment.
ReplyDelete