Bittersweet Joy

The seesaw of letting go and letting in

Yesterday, I became the wife of a military veteran.

My husband medically retired from his career as a Special Forces soldier. This exit is bittersweet as he LOVEs his job. Or, at least, he did. He loved his slightly insane fellow gun-slinging teammates. He loved shooting guns and things bigger than guns, diving in serious squalls (except he’s Army, which does land things, so 🤔), relentlessly pursuing the enemy, and generally just being a BAMF.

Their idea of “party planning”…

But there were parts he didn’t love too. He lost 4 guys in 2 days, received 3 bodies at Dover, and buried 2 men at Arlington, one his own Senior. He broke a finger saving a teammate from drowning when his boat flipped and got stuck. I squirted out our daughter 9 hours after my first pitocin dose in a miserable induction so he could be there for her birth, then head back to class. One year, despite not leaving the country, he was gone more nights than he was home.

To be incredibly transparent, this is light work for SOF guys, of which we are well aware. In this community, absence is part of the deal, danger is real and coveted, and the needs of the Army supersede every need your soldier thinks he has and those you and your children know you have.

Fear is the constant companion to duty. And duty is the excuse and the reason.

Over the past 8 years we’ve been together, I have balked having my identity stolen by the military. While I proudly and begrudgingly call myself a “milspouse” or “milspo” for short, I do so with some distance between myself and that term. The Army owns my husband, that much has been proven to me on repeat; but they do not own me. I’ve used that distance, that space, to calm my fear, to feel powerful against the might and indifference of the military, to explain and fuel my fury when my desires and even my needs have been squashed without explanation, concern, or frankly, a flying fuck given.

So why am I sad today?

Sad may be the wrong word, as the sad is sitting next to a lightness I haven’t experienced in a long time. It’s as if the latent fear that’s lived in my body for 8 years is slowly finding another soul to settle in while the realization of all that has been and all that’s being left behind nestles deep.

I have hated the Army, raged against their inefficiency, their disregard for families and well, people, their largesse which makes them fat, slow, and sloppy. And I’ve admired the men my husband served with, calmed by a deep knowing that his life, in as much as was within their control, was safe in their competent, caring, albeit crazy hands.

This duality of feeling, the yin and yang of our relationship with the military makes this ending bittersweet. The leaving begets sadness, a sore spot of missing that will inevitably reopen itself at certain moments in the future. But in the letting go of leaving, there is the potential, albeit uncertain and unpromised, of joy.

As I write this, I realize how familiar my body is with this bittersweetness. It is the same dichotomy I’ve experienced at the end of every one of my foundational relationships. Each time the recognition of it being “over, over” makes me melancholy there is a tiny modicum of hope that gives me the strength to move forward, igniting some small measure of curiosity at what could be even as I mourn what has been.

It’s tricky, this bittersweet, as it holds all the power over which side of the emotional coin is experienced at any given moment. It can flip on a dime, and the joy you thought was coming is replaced by something that resembles regret. “What have I done?” and “What can I do now?” playing seesaw.

And so it will go. Back and forth, up and down, and likely around and around too. The one constant in all this movement will be joy. It will take up residence on the “can” side so when your butt touches down, even if for only an instant, it will flood in. The joy will be hiding in moments, minutes where our needs are not only considered, but fully met. There will be joy in what’s next, as the context of the question will no longer include a move, an absence, a missing.

A few weeks ago, my husband got to be the “mystery reader” in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom. For anyone with a child in primary school, you know what a BIG. FREAKING. DEAL. this is to a little. He was actually subbing for the time I signed up for in the Fall, because that type of forethought is required for these coveted spots. I ended up being out of the country on my given date, so he was filling in, a foreshadowing of our altered roles with his exit from the military. When I got back to my phone, there was a voicemail. I listened as my husband, voice breaking, told me about his daughter’s elation at him reading “Walter the Farting Dog” to their entire classroom 🙄. It was the first time in her entire life HE was the one who showed up for her, not me.

“I just want to be home with my girls.”

Yes, joy…yes.

For those who continue to serve our country, you have our deepest thanks. We know that sacrifice and honor it.