Over the years and after many frustrated tears, I am proud to say I am now one of those classy milspouses I always admired. It wasn’t an easy road to get here.
While I am proud of all Jake has accomplished in his military career, the fact that he’s in the air force has been a struggle. He works long hours when he is here, and when he is deployed, I get lonely. The other officers’ wives in our little development are very supportive, but they aren’t Jake. Jake has been to many dangerous places, and he is gone for a year at a time. Jax has been a wonderful companion, but he is getting up in years, and I know he won’t be around forever.
His deployments have been the hardest part of our marriage, and they usually happen around every twenty months or so. So he’s home for twenty months and deployed for twelve. I would think that the night before a deployment, we’d have a quiet evening together, just the two of us. Nope, at least not in our home. The night before, Jake is frantically packing and preparing to leave. By nine in the evening, he realizes he’s forgotten a hundred things to pack. Our house always looked like it had been ransacked with stuff flying everywhere, and I’m the one running behind him cleaning up after him. It was pretty pathetic that Jake was leaving in less than twenty-four hours for a war zone and this was how we “savored our last moments together.”
Sadly enough, it never got better. I think, in fact, it got worse. We never really mastered the preparation part of his deployments.
I can’t help but realize those precious hours before his departure could be literally the last hours we ever spend together, and we totally never appreciated the time together. It became a common thing, and we would both get in “deployment mode.” Jake would prepare for the mission before him, while I prepared to hold our life together without him. It was more survival mode than anything else. There were times when facing the true emotion of his departure was too challenging for either of us.
During deployment, it is so important to keep on with our separate lives. We stay connected as much as possible. I believe we have grown as a couple and have learned how to keep our marriage strong during our many separations. While that is a good thing and surely helps get us through the deployment, it does nothing to help us reconnect upon his return. There is still a distance that lingers. I am told by the other wives it is common and never really gets easier with time. We both struggle with the reintegration but understand that in time, the reconnection will happen.
There are so many mixed emotions when Jake returns. His homecoming is a snowball of mixed feelings: joy, excitement, anxiety, apprehension, restlessness, and even, at times, impatience. I’ve learned not to dwell on these emotions, as they usually have nothing to do with me. I focus on the things I missed about him while he was gone.
Change has become part of our normal life. While change is hard, it has to happen when you spend so much time apart. With every deployment, we create our own new normal. We change and grow during our time apart, and when he returns, our marriage becomes new again. We communicate and try to minimize conflict during those first few weeks at home. We encourage each other. We have learned so much during the first years of our marriage that I believe will make our union stronger as the years go on. We have had some really hard times, but I believe those times have made our marriage stronger. I can say, without any doubt in my mind, there have been more good times in our marriage than bad. Our marriage has been fun and an adventure ride I don’t ever want to end.
I remember as a kid watching the movieGone with the Windwith my mom. It was one of her favorites, and in 1976, it aired on television for the first time. I was eleven, and I remember the scene where Rhett comes to propose to Scarlett after Frank Kennedy dies. She says she will never marry again and that she doesn’t like being married. Rhett asks her if she ever thought about marrying for fun, and Scarlett replies, “Marriage, fun? Fiddle-dee-dee. Fun for men you mean.” I did not understand what she was saying then, but I understand it now because marriage to Jake is fun.
We take advantage every time Jake gets leave and make it a special time. One time, Jake got us tickets to a KISS concert. He always used to give me crap about some of my music tastes, and I was never into KISS like he was. Then he started buying me their albums, and I have to admit, I like their music. He went to see them when he was thirteen, right before he met me. He said it was unlike any other concert he had ever been to, and when given the opportunity, he was going to take me to one of their concerts and it didn’t matter how old we were.
So for my birthday this year, Jake gave me a card with two tickets to see KISS in concert at the Bloomingdale’s Pavilion, and the concert is tomorrow night. At dinner, Jake asks, “So are you excited to see the ‘greatest show on earth?’”
“Oh, Jake, I really am. This is going to be a lot of fun.”
He agrees. “A lot of fun, great music, and my best girl. What more could a guy ask for?”
I begin to clear the table and pick up his plate. He gets up to help, and in no time, we have the kitchen cleaned. We have a quiet night at home, Jake watching TV and me working a little on my latest work in progress.
While I don’t regret not attending a full-degree-bearing college, I learned a lot in my creative writing classes. I truly believe a college degree is not necessary to become a writer, but learning how to write is. When I look back at the first couple of books I published, I realize the writing is juvenile and raw. Through the years and having a good editor, I have been able to improve my writing and produce better quality stories for my readers. I’m not famous like Danielle Steele, but I have a decent fan base that provides a nice supplemental income for Jake and me. I graduated from the community college with an associate degree in creative writing. Jake has offered several times for me to go back to school and get my four-year degree, but I refuse. I would rather take a writing or literature class here and there to help keep my writing fresh.
***
When Jake and I get to the KISS concert, I am in awe by the people who are here. There are little kids, roughly ages four through twelve with signature KISS makeup. There are young people, people our age—which I guess you would say middle-age—and seniors here, all toe-tapping and air-guitaring to the music. How amazing it must be for a band to have such a following.
By the end of the concert, I didn’t just like their music, I am in love. For the next several weeks, I play their albums over and over. I learn the words to all their hit songs, and frankly, I drive my husband crazy. Instead of complaining, Jake smiles and goes about his business. Or comes and gives me a kiss and tell me he loves me.
He is patient, but there have been many times I have tested it, like when I clean the house. I love to play music loudly and dance while I clean. It’s noisy and causes a lot of commotion, but it is the only way I can build up enough energy to clean. I mean really, how many people out there will say they love to clean their house? And if there is someone out there who actually loves it, then there must be something not right with that person.
I usually try to keep my cleaning days on a schedule when Jake is working. This way, my dancing around the house doesn’t annoy him, but the day after the concert is my regular day, and Jake was supposed to have been working. Because of the concert, he took the day off.
I get up at my usual six in the morning. I have coffee and write for a few hours in the morning. Jake is still sleeping. I put the KISS CD into the player and begin my routine, dancing toShout It Out Loud.I keep going to the CD player to raise the volume. By the timeRock and Roll All Nitecomes on, I am in full cleaning mode and totally oblivious to my surroundings. I dance to the kitchen entryway and bump right into Jake. He has that look, the one where he’s annoyed but he’s about to laugh about it.
“Oops, I forgot you were home.”
“Obviously,” he replies coolly.
Is he mad? I’m finding it hard to judge, so I brush it off and go about my cleaning. WhenLove Gunis up, I notice Jake has a dust rag in his hand and is dusting the living room. I stand there in utter amazement. He doesn’t dance, but he is singing along, and it appears he is enjoying himself.
He catches a glimpse of me from the corner of his eye and asks, “What?”
Not to risk losing help, I reply, “Nothing, just passing through,” and I make my way into the dining room.
“I gotta hand it to you, Jayden, there’s something that makes this so much better when you are listening to good music.”
“And dancing, Jake.”
He glares at me. “You will never see me do that.”
I don’t say another word and go about my business cleaning. From that point on, when Jake is home, I always have help cleaning the house.
