Confessions of Jersey Girl

The un-official start of summer for most people.  But for military families?  It’s so much more than that.  I’m sitting at my desk right now in an adorable red, white and blue Anthropologie dress with adorable white cork wedges, feeling pretty cute.  I have a necklace around my neck with a charm on it that reads “Wife of a Hero, Lucky Me”.  Lucky me, is right.

I wasn’t going to post today, I wasn’t going to write anything about it being Memorial Weekend.  I thought i’d let the silence speak for itself, you know?  I sort of figure you guys are sick of hearing about the military.  But you know something?  You’re just going to have to bear with me.

Every time a car would drive down my street and pass my house just a little too slowly, every time someone would knock at my door…  my heart would sink.  It didn’t matter that I had just talked to Matt a few hours before.  It didn’t matter that he had called earlier that day.  He was at war, and death is a very real reality of that circumstance.  It’s a heavy load to bear, but all of the families in the military somehow manage.  We manage to put on our brave faces, get through our days and just… manage.  Not because we’re more special than any other girlfriend, wife, fiance, husband or family.   We aren’t superhuman.  We do it because we have to.  We do it because what we go through is easier than not being with the person that we love.

Today, more so than any other Memorial Day, I have a heavy heart.  I just had my homecoming.  Matt made it back to me safely.  I am lucky.  I never want to forget how lucky I really am.  There are so many families out there that are not as fortunate as we are.   Rachel wasn’t.  Take five minutes and look at this map.  Since March of 2003, 4,718 families weren’t as lucky as I was.  4,718.  FOUR THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED EIGHTEEN.  Why?   Why does my love get to come home and someone that they love doesn’t?  It hardly seems fair.  Across this beautiful country, there are 4,718 families with heavy hearts that won’t ever go away.  They don’t get to experience the amazing feeling that is homecoming.

THE Pioneer Woman is hosting a contest this week titled “Coming Home”.  It’s sort of a tribute to military families and it really shows the raw emotion associated with a homecoming.  Some are happy, some are heart-wrenchingly sad.  I was lucky enough to have been selected for one of the final groups out of a pool of almost 90,000 photos.  I am honored. Click over to the Flickr pool and flip through the images.  It’s such a small glimpse into what military families go through.  There is so much emotion.  This little photography assignment is letting you all in on a very personal, very private moment for so many people.  I think it makes it real, a little tangible for people that aren’t directly involved with the military.

This weekend, while you’re cracking open your beers or traveling to the beach or celebrating the un-official start of the summer season, take a second and remember WHY you can do these things.  Remember WHY you have Monday off.  It’s not because it’s a great way to kick off summer.  It’s because men and women gave their lives to make this country the amazing place that it is, so that you can have the kick ass barbecue that you’re planning, so that you can walk the streets of your little town or big city without fear.  Hug your family and friends extra tight, there are 4,718 families that would give anything to do just that this weekend.

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

Edit:  Theraputic Ramblings left a comment with the following information.  I thought I should share it in this post.

Unfortunately the 4,718 deaths don’t even include the hundreds of completed suicides by active military personnel each year and the thousands of OEF/OIF Veterans who suicide because they come back stateside and cannot cope with life after seeing so much death.

1 in 5 suicides in the USA are by a Veteran, and the number of suicides per 100,000 of OEF/OIF Veterans is 4x the national average.

The scariest suicide fact of all is that the estimates are low because many suicides are incorrectly documented as accidental deaths.

In case a Veteran stumbles across this, there is a national number setup for struggling Veterans, it is open 24/7: 1-800-273-TALK.

If you are reading this in a feed reader of some sort, please click through and check out my gorgeous new blog design!

Steph from Luxe Chandelier has started up her very own design business!  She is amazing to work with, super talented and just all around fabulous!  (Super affordable too!)

I’m smitten.

All over the internet, amazing things were happening this weekend.  Nearly 70 bloggers took over Las Vegas for Bloggers in Sin City 2.  New friendships were formed and lives were changed, I’m sure.  Every blogger on that trip came back with a ton of new best friends and more inside jokes than they can even count.  My heart swells a little reading the recap posts, because I was there last year and I KNOW.

Jenn graduated COLLEGE!  Jessica was off on a cruise to celebrate graduating from college the week before!  GO GIRLS!  Woooo!  So proud of you, you’re both amazing.

A handful of wonderfully amazing ladies descended on Indianapolis for a weekend of relaxation, too much fried food and some serious girl time.

After a hiatus from my reader for almost a week, logging in to read all of these amazing weekend recaps was pretty amazing.

But, I think I have you all beat.  See, the reason I wasn’t attending any college graduations, partying in Vegas or relaxing on a girls weekend in Indy was because after an excruciatingly long six months, my love finally came home from war.  Today marks one week since he’s been home and I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night to make sure that he’s still there, that i’m not dreaming.

I hardly slept a wink on Monday night.  I could hardly believe that after so long, he was on his way back home to me.  Tuesday morning, I bounded out of bed bright and early (alright, like 8am… cut me some slack!) and headed out to breakfast with his family.  Mostly, I wanted to try to get some food into my system so that I could maybe avoid throwing up everywhere.

We left for the airport around 11:30am, with four cars in tow.  It took FOREVER to get to Philly because old people (sorry pops) were driving and they don’t like to go any faster than 60 miles an hour.  Shoot me in the face.  When we got to Philly International, we couldn’t find parking anywhere.  We seriously drove around for half an hour looking for a spot.  I was about to cut a bitch.  We ended up parking in all sorts of illegal ways… handicapped spots, parking spots that weren’t really parking spots… whatever we could get because I needed to GET IN THAT AIRPORT IMMEDIATELY.

So we all get parked, say a quick prayer that we don’t get $300 parking tickets and head inside.  There was lots of waiting.

I was FREAKING OUT the entire time, no joke.  It might have been worse than the whole deployment.  I was shaking.  My heart was racing.  It was AWFUL  (But now that I look back, it was completely awesome).  It was also pouring rain that morning, hence the scraggly looking hair (that was perfectly straightened when I left the house) and me NOT wearing my beautiful Anthropologie homecoming dress.  I had to improvise morning of and go with jeans and red white and blue tshirts that made me look fat.  WHATEVER.).

He was on Flight 701 out of somewhere in Germany.  That was all I knew.  The time for his flight to land came and went.  They never updated the flight board with anything.  No “At Gate”, no baggage claim number… NOTHING.  We kept watching people walk by, and we were scoping out their baggage tags to see what flight they were on.  He was supposed to land at 2pm, it was close to 2:45 when one of my cousins yelled “THAT ONE SAYS 701!!!”  I raced to the end of the hallway thingy where we were allowed to wait and then… there he was.

I couldn’t believe it.  I could see him, but he wasn’t close enough for me to run to.  Do you know what it’s like seeing your whole heart, just a few feet away after ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DAYS? AHHHHH! I just yelled “WALK FASTER!!!”  He smiled.  I melted.  Once he crossed that line, I ran.

It was also right about here that I sprained my ankle.  Later that night, it was all swollen and purple and gross.  Awesome.  ANYWAY.  I love that you can see him putting down all of his stuff to catch me.  For a minute there, I seriously doubted his ability to get everything on the ground fast enough to catch me because I was jumping whether he liked it or not.

Thankfully though, he managed to get it together in time to catch me.  Can I just tell you how perfect this moment was?  It was better than the day I bought my house, better than the day that I got engaged… it was just the purest, most perfect kind of happy ever.  He was just HERE and I was with him and his arms were around me and I just never wanted to let go.

Wait, this was the BEST moment.  Who gets to have a second first kiss?  Seriously.  It all felt new again  (and GOD, he is devastatingly handsome, isn’t he?).  I was sort of awkward doing all of this with an audience.  People were yelling and cheering.  I didn’t even realize until after I jumped off of him and looked around.  I don’t think there was a person in the huge room not smiling (one lady was full on BAWLING).

See?  This is my giddy face.   I don’t think I let him get more than a foot away from me the whole day.  I don’t think he really minded all that much.

I had goosebumps.  Holding his hand, I literally had to catch my breath.  I was in complete and total shock walking out of the airport with him.  After six long months, we were going HOME.  Together.  There really is no better feeling in the world.

I had been in contact with his patrol Sgt. all morning long because he was organizing to give us a police escort for the last leg of our drive home.  It started out with one police car in front of us, the three family cars, two police cars and an ambulance behind us.  As we drove home, it got larger and larger. People met us out on the highway in their cars and started flashing their lights and joined in on the parade.  Final count was 3 police cruisers in front and 14 police cruisers and ambulances behind us.  That’s 20 vehicles.   People were pulling over left and right for us, we went right through red lights, it was a pretty awesome experience.  See?

You can sort of see how far back it all goes, but trust me… this does it NO justice.  This was right by a stop light where they had traffic blocked off for us to go by.  It’s about two minutes from our house.   I have a great (and noisy) video of it up on facebook.  It’s pretty neat.

We got to our house and Matt’s dad had tears in his eyes.  He told me he was just so floored with how much Matt means to the community here that all of these people would take time out of their day to welcome him home in such an amazing way.  I just hugged him and told him he had raised an amazing boy.   Our street was FILLED with police officers, firefighters, EMTs, Friends, Family, Neighbors… It was really a sight.  I have never in my life felt so proud.

And then, after the chaos died down a little?  He got to meet his Penny girl for the very first time.

The cute KILLS ME.  Seriously.  He was so excited to see her.  I was excited to have someone else around to poop scoop the backyard and take her out when she wakes up at 6am.

We ended the day with five pizzas and a movie on demand with our families.  It was blissful.  The rest of the week, we spent relaxing, out processing and getting ready for our completely over the top Welcome Home Party that we had on Saturday.  It was ugly.  We went through 14 bottles of wine and two four bottle jugs of wine (that’s 22 if you’re counting) for Sangria.  We also had a keg and a lot of sweet tea vodka and Malibu Bay Breezes.  And Jello shots.  Ughhh.

Needless to say, we spent Sunday recovering.  And cleaning.  Ohhhh the cleaning.

But he’s home, and life is slowly but surely returning to normal.  I really couldn’t be happier you guys.  Thanks for keeping me sane on this crazy deployment journey.

* Here’s an article that ran in the local paper about his homecoming. :)

Everyone.  I need your help.  PLEASE head over to Unusually Fine Photography and send a quick email to vote for picture #1.  Yes, that is me.  Shhhhh.

(*full deployment homecoming post soon, promise.  trying to get caught up in the office!)

Full recap post to come, don’t worry.  I thought i’d give you this to hold you all over. :)