While I will never be able to say I understand what soldiers go through, I imagine it's a lot tougher than civilians like me think. Gunnar probably avoids telling me things that would stress me out or make me worry about him. I don't pretend like I know what it feels like to be shot at, or shoot at someone else. I would never even begin to act like I know what it's like. That being said, I don't really understand what the big deal about post-deployment family reintegration. It sounds like pure bliss to have my family back together. There are ads all around post and on military websites about how to deal with post deployment family issues etc. I am not that naive that I think every family would be all rainbows and sunshine every minute of every day. I live (mostly) in the real world and know relationships require work, sometimes lots of it. I just can't see what would be so hard about having your husband home, or wife, or whatever. Barring psychological trauma I would think easing back into family life should be fairly seemless. Maybe I'm way off base here. I guess we'll find out in 9 months or so.
I'm not gonna lie, there are some things that do get a bit easier with a household made up of just me and the kids. Less laundry, less spent on grocery bills, less work to clean the bathrooms. None of that can ever make up for the lonliness, the empitness, the sadness of being so far away from my husband.
I was talking to my friend David about the reintegration thing. When I'm there we can talk about it. Remind me!
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