On Returning.

When the Taliban has spent the better part of the last year trying to kill your husband, this is a welcome sight:

 

The last 36 hours.  Wow.  Amazing.   Joyous.  Sobering. Overwhelming.  Surreal.  All kinds of everything.

What a week. I left work between 9 and 10 on Mon, Tues, Wed, and Th.  We weren't exactly sure when Philip would be arriving at BWI.  He has repeated as a reminder to each of us this reality: "The only flight that I've ever been on this whole deployment that has been on time was the one that got me to Afghanistan."  I've just had to learn to tolerate complete uncertainty, plans completely changing in the 11th hour, and not being able to truly trust any dates/times we're told related to our lives.  We had been told that he would likely be arriving on Friday am.  I literally did not book the hotel for us to stay in this weekend until I knew that his plane had left Germany after refueling (Friday morning at 1 am).  And I was wise to do so.  Earlier in the day on Thursday I received a cryptic message from one of his teammates saying "we're going stuck in Kuwait." That was the last I heard from anyone.  I thought "hmm. . . so they're going to be delayed hours? days????"  This is my life people.  My wonderful but oh-so-crazy life.

I slept about two hours on Thursday night.  I left Princeton at o'dark thirty and arrived in Baltimore w/o any hiccups or too much excitement on the NJ turnpike.  The hot red welcome-home-from-war dress was disturbingly wrinkled when I arrived though.  But nothing that a little ironing in the bathroom at the USO couldn't remedy.

Miraculously, the flight got in around the time we had loosely been anticipating.  I'll probably process more fully the homecoming experience on another post.  It was wonderful and joyous but complex.  I couldn't stop thinking about Dana.

We left the airport and headed straight to Andrews AFB to deliver Philip's weapons.  There were actually odd layers to complexity to that too.  There's something about a weapon that becomes part of you.  That's been with you through your first firefight.  The weapon that has been in your hands when blood has been shed and lives have been saved.  The weapon that has become like a part of your body while you participate in events that will change your heart and your mind for the rest of your life.

On the way to the airport, in the midst of unbelievably heightened emotions, I got a crazy phone call.  I may post about that too when I know whether the crazy was a good crazy or a make-me-want-to-cry crazy.

And then this.  This is what really happens when you get home from a war.  When you haven't eaten or slept for more than 24 hours.  When you've been trying to get out of the Middle East for over 2 weeks (seriously folks, getting into and out of a combat zone is a loooong, drawn out, PAINSTAKING process).

We were blessed with a great afternoon yesterday and were actually able to connect w/ some good friends last night - a dear classmate of mine and her state dept. husband (I had a suit-borrowing emergency [having to do with aforementioned phone call]).  We hadn't anticipated having the people energy to see much of anyone this weekend, but it was actually a great way to help Philip power through jetlag and was blessing to be able to clock some time with them.

One of the things that was most powerful and I was most appreciate of yesterday was Philip and I both being able to process the bittersweetness of the day in light of our grief and survivor's guilt.  We're obviously both processing different things, but the parallels of the struggle helped us not to be alone with the challenges that come with the reality of "yes, I'm thrilled to be home/I'm thrilled your home AND. . ."  Simultaneously holding the joy of the day and the sobering knowledge that not everyone gets that kind of homecoming is a precarious balancing act - one that's more affectively kinetic than static.

But for now, I'm sitting right next to the person who I love and respect more than anyone on this planet.  And it's an incredible thing.