Lesson Learned

Ah, reunions! They just never live up to the hype.

I was super excited to get off the plane and see my DH. After being separated for 4 months, I had some pretty grandiose ideas of what our reunion would be. Here is the scenario I created in my mind:

I run into my husband's arms at the airport. We hug tightly; break the embrace for a passionate kiss. People are yelling, "Get a room!" We ignore them while tears gently roll down my cheeks. We can't stop touching one another (kissing, holding hands, hugging) while we wait for my luggage to arrive. He whisks me off to a romantic dinner where we gaze into each others' eyes and tell each other how much we missed each other and how we can't live without the other one.

Eeeerrrrrrccckkkkk! (That's the sound of brakes screeching.) Wake up! Here is the reality of what happened.

It's the weekend before Christmas. I arrive at the tourist capital of the world where the airport is under construction. My husband is waiting for me at the wrong exit and can't find me because I'm already at baggage claim (where my carousel has been changed twice). When he finally finds me, he's grumpy and put-out because of the stress of just getting to the right place.

5 minutes later, our son and my best friend arrive and all chances for romance go out the window! We are whisked off to dinner but it's Chili's (which is normally is awesome but is never really romantic) where we spend the evening talking about Rei's deployment. Forget the gazing into each others' eyes. Forget the emotional sentiments being shared over a lovely dinner. We are lucky to even be sitting next to one another.

We do get some alone time that night but we are exhausted. We spend the next day with friends and family before heading to a condo that we had rented near my parents' house. The homeowners forget we are coming and we spend 45 minutes checking in before they finally release a key to us. Then we arrive at the condo, and there is no electricity. I could feel my DH, who is not a patient man to begin with, slowly begin to boil over. Luckily, my parents have a spare room available, and we stay there.

That's not the end of our condo woes. The next day we go back to the condo to check that the electricity is really on - it is - and we turn on the air conditioner because, well, this is Florida in December. It's what you do. We left to spend the day with my family, and when we return that night, we realize that the air conditioner is not working. It's 80 degrees in the condo, and there are no screens on the sliding glass doors to let in some air. At this point, my husband is not just boiling but completely over the edge. We end up mad at each other and spend the night in separate rooms (it was cooler that way anyway!).

Luckily for us, our vacation did get better. We end up cancelling our stay in the condo and just stay with my parents (p.s. I'm still waiting to calm down before I review the homeowners on VRBO). This works really well; better than I anticipated. After Christmas, we take our son and grandson to the beach for a few days and really enjoy ourselves. It was a good end to what started very shakily.

So you might be saying, "That wasn't the greatest of reunions," and you would be right. It wasn't. The best part was when we arrived home. We. just. clicked. We snuggled on the couch. We watched movies together. We worked on the Honey-Do list together. We went out to dinner. We exercised together. We cooked meals together. It was beautiful. Here was the reunion I was looking for but had tried to make happen in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm not sure how I would have done it differently. Maybe I couldn't have. Maybe it was meant to happen how it happened. Or maybe I shouldn't romanticize reunions...

Time Drags On

Have you ever anticipated something so much that the hours seem to drag? Think back to Christmases from your childhood. There was just so much anticipation that you couldn't sleep; it seemed like morning would never come!

That's how it is with deployment reunions. You have dreamed of this day; it has loomed large on the horizon for weeks now. And finally, the day is here. And the hours draaagggggg….

I can hear it in your voice now: “Jennifer, are you really complaining about the day of your reunion?” And my answer is, “Yes, don't you know me by now?”

Seriously, folks, I'm flying on a plane right now, just hours away from seeing my husband, and the minutes are creeping by. Time has ceased to move up here at 30,000 feet. Really. I looked at the clock and hours should have passed and instead, it's only been 15 minutes since I last looked at the clock.

So, I'll continue to sip on my wine and complain. It's what I do best after all.

So whenever a spouse gets deployed, the one that is left behind has all kinds of plans. Trust me, I'm the queen of making plans. And as I told you before, I wasn't going to sit around and mope. So I made plans; I was off and running with any invitation that came my way: dinner, shopping, volunteering, etc. I was there.

Then there were the projects. I had BIG plans. I was going to paint the house, re-stain the bathroom cabinets, and cover the filing cabinet to make it pretty.

I didn't get to those plans. Everything looked so far away on the September/October side of Thanksgiving. But once December came, time sped up (until right now that is). I have no idea where it all went. It just flew. Before I knew it, it was time to pack and get out of here. And that's the last conscious thought I had.

In order to make it seem like I had accomplished something while my DH was away, I came up with a couple of smaller projects that really made a difference in the way the house looks and feels. I found stencils at Target and Michaels and bought some photo collage frames. I became the preeminent expert on hanging stencils. You should invite me over to put your stencils up. All you have to do is pay me in wine (and pay my airfare).

I also ordered curtains for the bedroom. However, they were custom ordered and didn't get in until Thursday. They take a special kind of patience that I don't possess. So they are waiting for Rei to get home. Not that he has that kind of patience either.

Have I rambled enough? Nope, only 30 minutes have passed. See what I mean??!! You probably think you have been reading my blog for hours.

Anyway, plans…

So the plans went out of the window, and I revamped what I was going to do. Then I made a new plan, one that seemed feasible in the face of a fast-moving clock. I would leave little things all over the house for Rei to find when he came home. I bought his favorite wine; I got chocolates and put them on his pillow. I made turkey soup from the Thanksgiving leftovers and froze it. I CLEANED!!!!! And I wrote love notes with dry erase markers on the mirror.

What was that? You are flabbergasted that I cleaned??!! Well, I did. I swept, mopped, and dusted. I made sure every dish was clean and put away. The laundry basket is empty and all the clean clothes are in drawers and closets where they belong. There are clean sheets in the bed. My DH is coming home to a beautifully clean house.

Now one thing I have neglected to tell you is that he gets home before I do. He will be home on the 30th and I get home on the first. So I won't be there to point out how awesome everything is and what a wonderful job I have done on making the house beautiful. So I hope it is obvious! I hope all the awesomeness jumps up and smacks Rei in the face! Then he will call me right away, with tears in his eyes, to tell me how much he loves what I did and how much he misses me all over again even though we have only been separated for two days! (Hopefully, reality lives up to my fantasy!)

Well, the captain just came on to tell us that we only have 648 miles to go. Lucky for you, I’m all complained out.