Homecoming is just an event...

In the year of waiting, counting down the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and even seconds… I made a huge mistake.

I focused on the event, homecoming. I put everything I had, and even what I did not, into that one moment. That sparkling moment, when he would be home, and all my cares would just magically drift away into the aether, never to be seen again. I did not, like I should have, focus on what comes after that glorious moment, when you put the life you have now, back into the life that is. I did not even think about how I would go about putting us back together, about communicating face to face, instead of over the phone and through emails, I gave no thought to how to fold us back into each other.

I knew this was a mistake, just a few days later, when I crashed back into reality. The reality being… I have to share the bed, do more laundry, cook more, I have to think of someone outside of me, and what I want. I have to learn how to fold the independent life I made for myself, back into the married life I am supposed to have.

The entire time I was gone, during the long haul of deployment, I said, over and over, how I was tired of wearing "the pants". The Head of the House, I Am the Boss, I Run This Show, pants. When it came time to take the pants off, and to share in all that having them means, I realized it was harder to do so than I thought. Those are MY pants, my butt is firmly imprinted in them, I've worn them when I did not want to, when I hated doing so, when everything in me wanted to take them off. I should want to take them off, I should want to toss them back at my husband and never wear them again. A huge part of me want nothing more than to do that, but the part of me that emerged during deployment, the girl that was forced to grow up, is not quite ready to give them up. And truth be told… I'm rather annoyed than I have to.

The greatest struggle I have… I forged a life for myself. I did not want to contemplate life without Carl. I did not want to wear the pants, make the decisions, be the tough one. I did it, and in the end, doing so made me a stronger person. But now.. when I just got used to being on my own, when I got comfortable being the decision maker, being the everything, now it feels like I have to give it up. And to be honest.. I don't want to give up the person I have become. I like her.

And what if… after all this time… and all these changes, I am not the same wife that was left behind. The pain, the anger, the year of deployment, a pregnancy, a baby, all that has changed the person that looks back in the mirror at me. What if… I am not the same woman he fell in love with? And what is that great change means he won't love me like he used to?

~Jennifer