What The End Of Deployment Feels Like Part One

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I have mentioned this before but I am totally and completely taken by surprise at the emotions I am feeling here in the very last weeks of our year-long deployment. I honestly thought it would be all celebration and excitement, a huge sense of accomplishment, the thrill of being reunited with the love of my life, a huge wave of energy and excitement to go forward with our lives now that this year of separation is over. And yet, I am feeling more affected by surprisingly negative feelings instead. So the purpose of this post is to share a few of  the feelings that have taken me by surprise and how I hope to overcome them. I'll follow this up with a post about all the great things about ending deployment. Here goes.

I certainly don't want you to think that I am consumed by these negative feelings. They are more thoughts that sneak into my head every now and again that make me think and try to find a way to turn them around, change for the better and see the good in things.

1) Guilty -- Although I feel I have done my very best and given it my all to support my family, marriage and military husband this year, I had goals for myself that got put to the side. I am very sad about that right now. I can't go back and change that. I blame myself in part because I had control over my time and I didn't put my most important personal goals at the forefront. But I know I did a good job keeping our family thriving which was the most important thing. I suspect if I talked with any family & friends about this they would absolutely tell me not to feel that way, but I do. In part I think it also is because my husband knows my goals and knowing he will realize that I failed at those couple of goals hurts.

2) Exhausted -- I didn't realize until these past couple of weeks how the exhaustion would mount over this year. I am incredibly tired. Not sleeping well most of the year certainly had a lot to do with that as well as having an incredibly busy schedule keeping hearth and home going every day. I am very tired and need to bump up my energy for the adventure of reintegration.

3) Lonely -- I thought reuniting with my husband would be easy once he got back. We have always had a good connection and seeing him during R and R was easy and fun. But I now I can feel that we've been apart for a full year. The past few weeks we have had very little contact and I am recognizing that we will need to find our way back to each other in some ways when he returns. I know this is totally normal, but again it's one of those things you can't really imagine happening to you until you standing in the middle of it.

4) Mad -- I feel a little mad that we went through all the stress of pre-deployment, then the actual deployment, it looks like we've survived it and now I hear that reintegration might be really horrible too and that experiences that he's had while deployed and the separation we've experienced will change our lives forever. That is a little frustrating when you just want to say, "Okay America, we gave you a year in the war zone, now we'd like our life back, thanks!" To realize that it's not over just because he's coming home soon is frustrating. And I am saying this as a soon to be veteran of only one war zone deployment, although my husband is gone a lot in general. I can't imagine how so many wives feel who have been through three, four, five or more war zone deployments. God bless you families who have given up a year or years of your life!

5) Ungrateful -- I'm balancing two sides here. One side it telling me it's okay to sense that I have these feelings and to explore them to the extent that I find my way out of them. There's another side of me that is screaming, "Are you crazy, Woman!!!!!" You kicked this deployment's arse, you learned, you grew, your family grew. Of course it wasn't going to be perfect, but you gave it your all. Your man is coming home in days and he is still in one piece and ALIVE. Do you realize how many other military families only wish they could've just gotten their loved home home alive and healthy?! What in the hell do you have to complain about. You should be celebrating day and night!"

So my job now is to look at these emotions, make sense of them, realize what is real and what is total hogwash and remember that my life and my goals and my progress don't end just because deployment is ending. I can still work on my goals, I can still take the class I wanted to take, I can still travel, I can continue to thrive!

There will be great moments with my husband when he gets back. He still wants me. He wants our family. He loves us and even though he says it quietly and in rare moments I know the support we've given his this past year has been life-changing for him. We did good! I know he has grown and changed in new ways too and I look forward to exploring those. I know there is good to look forward to. I guess that is the part I knew all along. I'm making a very conscious effort this week to turn my head from these emotions to the celebratory emotions I should be totally focused on. See my next post for all that good, cheerful, exciting stuff.