Common Thread Comfort

When I think of those people I choose to surround myself with on a regular basis, I find that there is usually an invisible thread that ties us together. It is not the places we live, or the schools our kids attend, or even the personal interests and hobbies we have. It is the circumstances we face and the journey we have endured that are the true ties that bind. It is the common roads we have traveled.

When I share my story or listen to another's I am most comfortable when I can relate. This is no doubt why most of my close friends are military spouses. Even more specific, ones who have dealt with hardships brought on by the last 10 years of surviving deployments and the aftermath of their soldier returning home. Don't get me wrong, deployments themselves are hard. We all know that. The extensive separation, the worry and the "having to do it alone" are tough and will test even the strongest of women.  However, it's when your soldier returns home, and the rest of the world celebrates, that some of our hardest challenges surface.

I don't know a single woman that will tell you war did not change their husband. I know no soldier that has deployed and not come home more jaded, hardened, and even damaged. The damage may not be physical, but it is almost surely their soul and spirit that suffer.  We live in a movie age where homecomings are celebrations and life is full of happy picnics and reading bedtime stories as a family. The reality is that even with our soldier home, this is not an automatic transition.

I remember after my Hubster's first combat deployment telling our family NOT to plan on being here upon his return. I told them we needed, well HE needed, time to transition back into family life. I was met with the statement, "Transition from what???"  At that point I had to walk away from the conversation before I blew a fuse and popped off at the mouth saying something I may later regret. I realized that even through all the cards and care packages they had sent, our family was clueless to what he had just lived through.

It's when in the company of others who understand what this life entails that I feel my strongest. It is when we can share a morning conversation and openly discuss tempers, reclusive behaviors, rigidness, intimate distance, and other realities that plague our fairy tale homecoming that I know I am not alone and my experience is valid. When I am building walls around me to avoid dealing with the ignorance of others it is these women that are there with me passing me the stones and mortar.

I am grateful for outside support. I appreciate family and "back home" friends' kind words. However, when it comes down to the nitty gritty and I am worn down to the bone that I will call on those on the same side of the wall. I know they will not only listen, but truly understand. They have lived it all too and that is a bond that can never be broken.