My soldier came home on Christmas Eve. It was a logistical nightmare and the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received.
I wore a Santa hat. I didn’t need help figuring out that would be the best thing to wear. But there’s a lot of other stuff that would have been helpful to know. Such as ….
1) You’re probably going to get sick just before it happens. The last few weeks of a deployment are particularly stressful. Less contact – even less contact – as they travel and go through out-processing. Nerves. You may not feel excited, but everyone will expect you to. You’ll be stressed arranging logistics. If you finally figured out how to sleep more efficiently (I never did), insomnia will probably flare up again. Your immune system will take a hit and before you know it you’ll get a 101 degree fever just a few days before you see him again and have to pack an inhaler with you to pick him up in an attempt to keep your newly diagnosed severe case of bronchitis under control.
2) If you’re picking up your soldier and traveling somewhere, ask him how many bags he’ll have. I wish I had asked this. I was trying to figure out how to leave enough room in my car and that was a crucial piece of information I was missing. If they’re not going home first or they have to be in the car awhile, pack some civilian clothes for them and toiletries so they can change and get more comfortable ASAP. You’ll be flustered as it is, keeping logistical hardships to a minimum will help.
3) You may be forced into a room and have to wait there FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR knowing your soldier is down the hall. There will be cookies and coffee but they will not let you leave for bathroom breaks. (Side note: Avoid the coffee. You’re about to kiss!) I stopped in the bathroom before I went into the room – but only to check my hair. GO TO THE BATHROOM IF YOU HAVE THE CHANCE. Try not to let your mind wander about how you’re trapped in a small room by people with guns while they effectively hold your loved one hostage. Or are you the hostage?
4) If you ever wondered why homecomings look kind of lame on TV, it’s because there are more rules than you realize. They kind of suck the fun out of it. (See point 3.) Also, they insist you walk and don’t run, and that you don’t yell. Okay then.
5) You may not be excited. That’s okay. You may feel nervous, apprehensive, angry, afraid, totally numb. I felt all those things. The last few weeks I felt really angry at him. I don’t know why. I just did. I was not excited until the moment I saw his face. Don’t listen to people who tell you it’s not normal. Maybe it’s not. But it’s your reality. What’s normal about a deployment anyway? It’s fine to feel how you feel.
6) Bring more tissues than you think you need. I did not cry, but I was sick and then trapped in a room for an hour. I was out of tissues before I saw him. Our first kisses tasted … well, gross. I distinctly remember him saying “I want to kiss you more but there’s so much snot.” Then I distinctly remember wiping my nose on his shoulder. I suggest you do not this.
7) It may not be as romantic as you think. Especially if you wipe your snot on his shoulder. But it will be great.
We didn’t take a picture. I wish we had. But that was such a flurry of nerves and snot and adrenaline. I feel like our true reunion has come in small moments over the past month.
It’s a process.
I’m glad he’s home.
Dear Army,
This deployment is winding down for my guy. He’s been gone for almost a year. He is scheduled to be home in early 2013, which means, even though I don’t have a specific date, I could start counting down by weeks instead of months. Days, even.
I don’t.
I HATE COUNTDOWNS.
I know some people make paper chains and take a link off each day, countdown to Christmas style. I know some people survive deployments because of countdowns. To me, they make everything harder.
Time moves sooooo slowly for me. It has never changed pace. Some of that may be because this deployment has come with a huge side of insomnia for me, some of it may be because I have only ever been impatiently waiting. I love this man more than I’ve ever loved anyone – more than I ever even wanted to love someone, to be honest – and I want this reunion more than I can articulate.
So seeing the time that still stretches before me just makes me feel like I’ll never make it to the finish line.
And, honestly, Army, I can’t let myself believe he’s coming home. I can’t. First of all, they changed his departure time so many times. I said goodbye to him THREE TIMES IN TWO DAYS. So there’s that. I know the same thing could – and probably will – happen with his arrival. I don’t trust you, Army, with accuracy. And, there’s the bigger, more irrational fear that he won’t make it back. He has had an excruciatingly safe deployment. I know this. But I’ve long since feared that I’ll never see him again and to get excited feels foolish. I feel a sense of insecurity that I haven’t felt since the beginning. That horrible story about the veterans killed during a parade in their honor about sent me off the deep end.
I’m a Christian who spent the last year realizing that I don’t understand that God loves me – even though I’ve also spent it recognizing what a wonderful gift my soldier is, as he is a constant reminder that God must love me, to give me someone so wonderful. I’ve learned to rely on God in order to be gracious – being an Army girlfriend requires an amount of understanding that is beyond my capacity – but I’ve struggled to understand that God applies that grace to me every day. In fact, I’ve just gotten angrier and more bitter as time has gone on.
I’m waiting for God to punish me by taking away the gift I never deserved to begin with.
This relationship is too perfect. Flawed, of course. But perfect for me. I feel like I don’t deserve it under normal circumstances. I get it now, because it’s doused in misery but fear I’ll lose it if we have happier circumstances because I struggle to feel like God wants me to be happy. After all, the Bible doesn’t say we’ll be happy.
The depression I’ve sunk into feels all-consuming. It has changed me physically, and emotionally. What if it doesn’t fade? What if I’m always this sadder, angrier version of myself? What if I don’t love God enough? If a deployment could shake my faith, what type of Christian was I to begin with?
As I try to wrap my head around the fact that I feel permanently altered, the nearing homecoming just calls attention to the fact that I am not who he deserves me to be. Did I waste this year? Shouldn’t I be a more faithful Christian – why have my doubts increased so much? Why can’t I forgive you, Army, and all of those who hurt me along the way? How come I feel more and more like I made huge sacrifices? In the beginning, it didn’t feel like sacrificing. Now, it just feels like … “Please. I can’t handle this any more. Take care of me now.”
Perhaps my selflessness has been a misperception all along. I hate realizing how selfish I am; I truly felt like I was a better person than I am.
This reminder of my failings often comes from other people – the same people who dropped into silence when he needed them most. The fact that he’s nearing the end of this deployment means suddenly, everyone is interested again. They want to know when he’s coming home and when I say probably within the next two months or so, the response is “That’s so soon!” or “You must be so excited!” or “That’s gone by fast!”
No. It isn’t soon. No, I’m not so excited. NO IT HASN’T GONE BY FAST. I try to explain why I feel this way but honestly, it’s not worth the effort. It’s a fairytale now, a romantic reunion that everyone wants to be a part of. And I’m still working on forgiving all the people who promised they’d be there for him but weren’t, who hurt me by not helping, who hurt me by making it worse, who hurt me by forgetting him, who hurt me by forgetting that I was struggling too. I watched them fail him. He may rationalize the silence away, but as he reintegrates into his social circle with me by his side, I fear I’ll be seething. The silence he received may be repairable because he didn’t watch it happen. Knowing I advocated for him and I wasn’t enough … it just hurts.
Above all, Army, I think I feel confused.
I feel confused about who I am, about who I will be without the confines of this deployment, about what my relationship will look like without this deployment, and about my faith.
And I feel confused about why countdowns are supposed to make me excited.
Am I doing this all wrong?
(Not) love,
Jess
Dear Army,
I saw this picture on Twitter today:
And it made me feel like crap.
I am an Army girlfriend because I love my boyfriend. That’s it. It’s as simple as that. It has nothing to do with patriotism for me, although admitting that does make me feel lousy.
Look, I love this country – but not enough to die for it. I don’t love it even enough to do what I just did – which is eat a spoonful of peanut butter. I’m annoyed at you, Army, because I had to do that.
I had to eat a spoonful of peanut butter because this deployment causes me so much stress that I often don’t feel like eating. I’m not unhappy with the subsequent weight loss – it’s not like I didn’t have some pounds to spare – but I knew I wasn’t getting all the necessary nutrients that I need. Besides, I promised my love I would take care of myself, so now I use myfitnesspal.com to track my caloric intake. And today it said “you didn’t eat enough,” so I ate a spoonful of peanut butter to make sure I ate enough calories.
That’s not for my country. Did you see what I typed? “I promised my love.” My love is a person, not a country.
I’m not doing anything special here. I didn’t offer him up; I didn’t have a choice. I wouldn’t have chosen this path.
My boyfriend made a choice. He made a sacrifice.
I just love him through it.
Yes, I all of him – including the part that called him to war. Yes, I love how patriotic he is. But, if anything, this process has made me a little less patriotic. I am not proud of how my country is treating him; I am only proud of how he chooses to handle it. I don’t want credit or praise or positive qualities like unwavering patriotism attributed to me for reasons I don’t deserve.
I do, however, want a hug like that woman is getting in that picture. He looks like he’s never going to let her go.
Soon. Ish.
Emphasis on ish, for now.
(Not) love,
Jess
Dear Army,
It’s currently 100 degrees in Kuwait. No big deal, right? It’s been a hot summer. Most of the U.S. has been in a drought, and I’ve seen the temperature hover around 100 degrees several times myself.
The difference? It’s 100 degrees here as the high. It’s 2 a.m. in Kuwait right now – 100 degrees is their low. The dew point is also 43 right now; after it hits 60 – which it easily will during the day – humidity becomes more noticeable. Once it hits 75, which it will, the humidity feels stifling. (Shout out to weather.com, because I definitely don’t know this stuff on my own.)
August is the hottest month in Kuwait; the high averages in the 120s but often feels hotter since the country borders the Persian Gulf.
It’s easy to feel bad for them, but it’s not easy to really understand. That’s one of the hardest parts of this experience for me – I understand my soldier so well; intrinsically, we’re very similar. I’ve never met someone who views and understands the world the way I do. I can understand him, but I cannot understand what he goes through. I will always only be a civilian.
That doesn’t stop me from trying though. I became obsessed with the idea of understanding what 120 degree weather feels like.
So yesterday, I wore a sweater and dress pants to work. I wanted to be fully covered, like the soldiers are in their uniforms. When I got to work, I didn’t leave my car windows open. I let my car bake in the sun for nine hours. When I got into my car at the end of the day, the air was hot and stuffy. I started the engine.
And turned the heat on high.
I only made it 10 minutes.
It took less than a minute for my contacts to start sticking to my eyes – the moisture was already being sucked out of my body as fresh hot air mingled with the stale hot air in my car.
After two minutes, I began to get a headache.
At three minutes, I cursed – because it had only been three minutes.
I kept adjusting my hands on the steering wheel; the wheel was too hot to hold for more than a second or two at a time. The air blowing in through the vents felt like pinpricks on my skin; I felt a need to keep moving. The breeze was not comfortable – it only made things worse. It was like windburn and a sunburn all at once. It was like a hair dryer turned on high was just pointing at my face.
At six minutes, I felt a burning pain on my chest and around my neck. I looked down – my metal necklace was starting to burn onto my skin.
At 10 minutes, I felt mildly short of breath, rather dizzy and frustrated. I don’t sweat much normally, but pools of moisture had already started to form under my arms, on the backs of my knees and on the small of my back. My skin had the beginnings of a film of sweat everywhere. I felt nauseous – from the heat, and from the wave of fresh, more accurate empathy.
I only made it 10 minutes.
Army, you’re making them deal with this for months – months.
I don’t know how they do it.
Army, I don’t know why you do this to them.
(Not) love,
Jess
Dear Army,
Many people think deployments are romantic. These people are idiots. No, wait, I’m just in a bad mood today. In fact, the reason I’m in a bad mood is you, Army, and my bad mood is the very reason why I chose this topic to write about. Let’s try that again …
Many people think deployments are romantic. These people are … just people who haven’t experienced one for themselves or who watch too many romantic movies, or both.
There are elements to a deployment that are romantic. Yes, I get hand-written letters from my boyfriend. Yes, he sent me flowers AND chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Yes, we had a movie-like reunion at the airport when he came back from mobilization training. I turned, saw him across the room, and walked quickly through a sea of soldiers to get to him. When I reached him, I practically threw myself at him and he absorbed my weight with glee.
Yes, he gets silly foam hearts covered in glitter glue, books filled with post-it notes so he finds a random “I love you!” when he stumbles upon those pages, and letters smelling of my perfume.
These gestures make the deployment survivable. They do not make it romantic.
I can’t speak for him … but I rarely write any of those things when I’m feeling romantic.
I mostly write him love letters when I’m angry. And not just angry – pissed off. At you, the Army, at this deployment, at people who don’t understand that Army girlfriends and Army wives do not go through the same thing, at people who tell me that it’s “easier” now that he’s been in the desert for three months, and at him.
Yes, sometimes I’m angry at him. Why do I get angry – furious – at him? I get angry at him for being so loveable that I have to suffer this much, and I get angry that I understand why he loves you, Army, but don’t understand why he can’t give up on you – even though you don’t love him back.
And when I’m that angry, like today, I write him a love letter.
This seems counter intuitive. Well, everything about you, Army, is counter intuitive. You’ve forced me to learn that it’s a mistake to trust my emotions. I trust the facts. And the fact is – I love my boyfriend. I really do. Even though I’m seething with fury as I type this, I love him fiercely.
So when I get like this, I often choose to write him a love letter while fuming. And by the time I’m half-way through, I’m not mad anymore. Something clicks in my brain as I remember that I love him and that my anger is not anger at all, but just me missing him.
The anger courses through my veins some days because it’s just easier to be angry than devastated.
I write love letters for Jonathan. But I also write them for me.
I never write them for you, Army.
(Not) love,
Jess
Dear Army,
My soldier didn’t want to go to Kuwait. If he was going to give up a year of his life and return home to unemployment, he wanted it to be for a purpose.
Neither one of us sees much point in him serving in Kuwait. (Which is not to say that I know much of anything about his mission, since that’s classified. But I’m well aware that they are a garrison force, a just-in-case placement, and I don’t agree with that on a number of levels. This is not classified. It was just in the news again last week.)
I feel badly for him, that he gave up his freedom without gaining a purpose. It’s a trait I will never fully understand because it is not one I possess – the willingness to sacrifice all that you have for your country. But I saw the struggle on his face (when I got to see his face); I see it in his letters, and in every piece of military literature that talks about such things that I read.
He is grateful he is not in danger. His life will not be sacrificed … or, as happens far too often, wasted. His time, maybe (probably), but not his life.
I thank God for that every day. I pray that if he cannot come home yet, and it seems that he cannot, that he stays in Kuwait – miserable, if necessary, but always safe.
I saw this video almost two months ago, and think about it almost daily. The video is about civilians but it’s a scenario war can and does cause. It is a scenario I often thought about in the middle of the night, as I tried to decide if I was strong enough to date a soldier. It is painfully beautiful.
I’m grateful that this deployment will not create that path for us.
I’m convicted by Larissa’s strength.
And I’m totally buying that John Piper book.
(Not) love,
Jess
Dear Army 