Post Deployment: Who Am I Now?

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Now that we've finished our one-year war-zone deployment, I've been thinking about who I am now. I'm not saying I have been completely defined by the fact that my husband was preparing for deployment and then deployed for the past year but it definitely was the most impactful thing happening to us in our life up to this point. It has very much defined the daily events of my life, my greatest fears, most supportive efforts and my thoughts, health and well-being every day.

Being the family of a deployed service member is it's own special planet in many ways. After living on such a high-anxiety planet for so long now I feel like I'm taking off an entire suit of armor, putting down a huge shield I've been carrying and now putting on a tee shirt and sporty skirt and being jettisoned elsewhere. It's a big change of thought process and perspective and there is a very strange period of mourning. letting go and readjustment you have to make. Part of me wants to cover my ears and never hear another news story about Afghanistan and the other half of me feels it would be grossly disloyal to stop caring about the welfare of every one of our military members there just because my husband came home alive.

Now that we've left Planet Deployment, I feel like I am staring at a new part of the universe, considering where we want to go from here and how we want to get there. I've been looking at my goals, hopes and dreams and feel a new freedom to reach for some things, take time for myself a little more and stretch my wings more. It's a fun feeling. I like looking out over so many possibilities and thinking about where I'd like to go first.

I'm thinking about finishing up a book I started the last couple of months of deployment. I want to take  music lessons and make use of the beautiful instrument that sits in the corner of my room unused. I want to shake up our routine, check out new neighborhoods and refresh everything about our life. I'm liking this feeling. I can't wait to see where it takes me in my journey with my darling little family. It's fun to have new things to look forward to.

Some day I will get used to the fact that everywhere I go I no longer need to explain why my husband seems like just an invisible friend no one ever really sees, why my daughter, at least publicly seems fatherless, that I am not a single mother. I will get completely used to making daily decisions as a couple again. I will lay down that fearful, desperate need to check the news every night right before bed to see if anyone has died in Afghanistan that morning. I will quit imagining what I would do if two men showed up at my door in uniform to make a death notification. I'll relax more.

I knew when my husband came home we would have to reinvent our life. But I didn't imagine how much I would have to reinvent my life and how I define myself once he came home. It's a pretty interesting journey.

Have you gone through a strange personal transition once your service member came home? What surprised you? What excited you?