It’s a strange thing thriving in a marriage that was all but
over just a year ago.
I look back at where we were at this time last year. We pulled into Massachusetts, home, after 7
years away. Back to where the faces were
familiar but none of them really knew me.
They thought they knew the struggles of the past 7 years but really
couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like.
When I think about my very first positive pregnancy test –
it was the most exciting day of my life, everything changed that day but there
was a black cloud. I did what every
suspicious woman does, did a double take at the calendar, ran to the store,
peed on a stick and waited. When that “pregnant”
popped up I screamed and jumped and cried and turned to share my
excitement/fear/love with…my dog. I was
alone, again. Will had returned from
deployment and two weeks later was gone for another two weeks. He learned he was going to be a father 3,000
miles away from the baby.
This memory, the mixed emotions of that day and so many
others like it, will stay with me forever.
Like many military spouses there is a little bit of sadness in every
happy occasion while we were dependents. The end of our army life doesn’t change the
past. I wouldn’t want to take the army
out of our lives but it wasn’t all homecomings and Ranger Balls. (haha balls)
The people I was now surrounding myself with daily will never understand
any of this. On top of this there was
the other thing, the whole reason we were home, the injury.
If I had a dollar for every, “everything happens for a
reason”, “it’s all part of the plan” and “but the good news is that you’re home”
I wouldn’t be stuck in a soul sucking job.
The injury that destroyed the man I married and left me with
some unrecognizable shell of a human, someone who wanted to rejoin the world
but didn’t know how or was afraid to try.
Looking back on the move, I posted pictures on Facebook and updates of
our progress from one coast to the other.
When I look at the video of Addie seeing snow for the first time in West
Virginia all I can think of is the look on Will’s face when I told him to stop
throwing snowballs at my window because he was about to break it. The way he morphed into the monster I didn’t
know. How scared I felt as he marched
over to me, bracing for impact sure this would be the moment he would finally
hit me. The humiliation as he stuffed
snow down my back in anger just to be sure my day of travel would be as
uncomfortable as possible. Driving
through tears was nothing new to me by this point on our trip. That is a story I would never share with my
family because that is not the man I married but this is the baggage that I
carried across the country with me.
As our life together improves daily I don’t feel bad about
almost leaving. How could anyone stay
married when marriage looked like that?
I was in constant fight or flight mode with one priority, my
daughters. I think it’s important for me
to keep these memories, I haven’t seen that monster in months, not since he
walked up to me and told me that he was sick of being miserable all the
time. It’s like those words killed that
monster, much like Dorothy he had the power to go home the whole time but he
just had to believe.
I have let go of the guilt for that period of time. Everything I did, everything I planned,
every thought was done to protect myself and my kids.
But here we are, a year and a day since returning home. I always said the first year home would be
make or break and it was. Together we
are working on what seems to be the beginning of our happily ever after. There are still so many things to work on,
like any marriage. I do know that ours
needs extra TLC, this is what comes with his injury but we are both committed
to being the best versions of ourselves.
We are far from done but we made it this far – both scarred
and changed but we are here. Together.
