I know, right?
All the feelings today.
This will be our third, and if all goes as planned –– [I laugh to keep from crying] –– last, deployment. So our third and (hopefully) final reunion.
Each deployment and reunion has been so different.
Paul left for the first time in 2011 when we had been married for just over a year. While he was gone, I moved us near a new base and into a new townhouse, right by the beach. I spent the seven months living alone for the first time ever (I moved from my parents' house to college and then from college to an apartment with Paul). It was a special season of my life that I have thought about often this time around. All that space! All that time! I was lonely, yes, but mostly, I was content. When deployment ended we struggled. Those first few months of fitting ourselves back together were much harder than expected.
But we adjusted. We worked on it. We set up new routines. We rebuilt our relationship, together.
And then, not even a year later, Paul deployed again. This time I was 22 weeks pregnant! I didn't want to be pregnant alone, of course, but there was stuff to do! We were moving back to San Diego! We were buying a house! I got to decorate! I had gestational diabetes so I was following a strict diet and walking after meals! I was reading books about how to have a “natural” labor! I was practicing holding ice cubes because holding ice cubes was going to prepare me for contractions! There had never been a person more ready to be a new mom than me! [Narrator: lol]
Paul was able to come home right before Ellerie was born (wouldn't you know all the ice cube holding in the world did not prevent a c-section) and then he left again when she was four days old. The final weeks of that second deployment, while he was gone and I was learning to be a mom, were some of the hardest of my life.
When the deployment was actually over and baby Ellerie and I picked Paul up at the airport in Los Angeles, I was despondent. We spent the night in a hotel and I just cried. I cried at how hard this all was. I cried that we didn't have a shared experience of the newborn days. I cried that breastfeeding hurt. I cried that he had “missed it”. I cried that he was home now and I was still drowning.
That was a tough reintegration but in a different way. I didn't have the capacity to care about our relationship; I was much too overwhelmed by the effort of rebuilding myself. It was unfathomable to me that there was anything left under the haze and panic that (for me) came with becoming a new mom.
It took a long time to find balance between all my roles. But/and life moves on. Ellerie grew. I grew. Paul grew. Piper arrived. With patience and effort (and childcare! Remember childcare?!) our family found it's footing.
Six years and four months after that second reunion we got the unexpected news that Paul would be deploying again. My mind instantly went not to the time apart but to the time that comes after the time apart.
"I don't want to do that again." I protested. “I can't believe we have to do this again!” I raged. “We are in such a good place! We can't rebuild again.” I cried.
As you know, this unexpected deployment has coincided with some unexpected global events. When Paul left I was worried about –– wait for it –– picking up the kids from two different schools, preparing dinner and doing bath and bedtime myself. THAT WAS MY CONCERN IN FEBRUARY 2020. (And here you thought pregnant Elise holding the ice cubes was naive.)
But somehow it's mid-September. We are heading to the airport (in face masks!) to pick up Paul this evening. I am as fiercely independent as I was in 2012 and as desperate for help as I was in 2013. I am excited he's almost home and nervous that we once again find ourselves in a brand new world. I am so frustrated we had to do this at all and also so grateful for the stability of Paul's career path.
As I said, all the feelings today.
What I am reminding myself, between deep breaths and frantic vacuuming, is we have time on our side now. We've had eight extra years of building our relationship. We've had seven extra years of finding ourselves as parents. With luck, we will have decades more of both to come. Not everyone gets so many chances to “begin again” with their partner. It's not easy, but wow…the potential.
