Making homecoming day a dream come true
We won’t spend too much time on the redeployment phase because the reality is it lasts a short amount of time. We can focus on our dreams or let them go by the wayside. The choice is always ours. It is also true that during this time, we are one month out from a dream come true.
The ALWAYS DELIVER stage is very exciting, no matter what the dream is. Our dream may be to be reunited with our spouse. Our dream may be to survive a deployment. Our dream may be to thrive through a deployment. Our dream may be to watch our spouse meet their child for the first time. There are so many dreams that we could have throughout a deployment, and any dreams that are deployment-related will be coming true soon.
I want to talk specifically about those reunion dreams because that first moment isn’t always as perfect as we pictured it. The biggest key to making that moment a success is communication. And I know we are all sick of hearing that communication solves everything, and honestly, it’s a pat answer if we don’t talk about what that actually means. If we have issues in our marriage, being told to “just communicate” doesn’t actually give us marching orders to improve anything, even if that’s all we want to do.
Regardless of how well reality matches our fantasy, this is still a dream come true. That being said, I am literally the worst person to surprise. I spend so much time fantasizing about best-case scenarios that I always talk myself down so I’m not disappointed if they don’t happen. This may sound like a great idea, but I usually forget to talk myself up to be excited if it does happen.
For example, I got a car for my 18th birthday. In the prior weeks, I had been constantly thinking that I would probably get a car. I am the oldest child, so there wasn’t a baseline of when we would get cars or even if we would. But I figured that my 18th birthday, right before I was leaving for a college that was four hours away, would make the most sense. If I were going to get a car, it would probably be then. But I didn’t know if that was a guarantee. I didn’t know where my parents were financially. So, I spent that time beforehand managing my expectations so I wouldn’t feel disappointed if I didn’t get a car. But I didn’t realize I needed to work on my excitement too because when my dad handed me a birthday card with a car key in it, he definitely didn’t get the surprised and excited reaction he was hoping for.
My reaction didn’t change the fact that it was a dream come true. I am so grateful that my parents were in a position to give me that gift. It’s a gift I still have today and will have a hard time parting with when the time comes. It was also a dream come true for my parents to be able to do that for me. The fact that I didn’t have a film-worthy reaction didn’t change that.
But on homecoming day, we want to do our best to align our expectations with reality. It will be a dream come true, no matter what, but if we can set ourselves up to make it magical, then let’s do that. The last thing we want is to be disappointed with a dream come true, all because we had an impossible standard set. So here are some practical things to consider to manage expectations so that our fantasy comes closer to reality.
1. Time
The return time is constantly changing. We generally don’t know when our spouses are getting back until the plane actually touches the ground back home. And even then, it can vary whether they are stuck on that plan for hours while customs gets sorted out or if they can come right out to see us. We all have the perfect day planned, but that can look very different depending on whether we can leave the base at 2 p.m. or 2 a.m. That day of travel is exhausting. Their schedules are all sorts of messed up from the time change. On my husband’s flight to deploy, they played the movie Scoob! four times. It kept stopping at random points, and they would just start it over. I don’t know whose idea that was, but I imagine my husband was not in the best headspace after hearing that repeatedly and being unable to fall asleep. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case on his return, but we all know how our spouses get when they are sleep-deprived. The adrenaline of the reunion may be enough to get them through, but they will probably crash at some point, and we need to be prepared for that.
2. Relationship Status
If things have not been peachy over the deployment, it is unlikely that all that will wash away as soon as we lay eyes on each other. If communication has been limited over deployment, it may take a minute to get used to being in person again. I was lucky that we talked, texted, and FaceTimed so frequently over my husband’s deployment, but if we had been limited to one email every couple of weeks, it might have been a different story. There has been a gap in every relationship over the deployment. For some, that gap is minimal; for others, it is a gaping canyon. But the size of the gap doesn’t necessarily relate to how quickly we can close it.
3. Family
There are two significant aspects of this to consider: kids and in-laws. Both sets have their own expectations for what this dream come true looks like. Some people love a big surprise party right when they get home; others want no one but their spouse and kids around. It’s also a dream come true for our service members, and we need to help their expectations match reality.
Depending on what time homecoming is, determines whether the kids get to be there. If it’s in the middle of the school day, we may send them or give them the day off. If it’s in the middle of the night, we can decide if we take them or let them sleep. We get to choose if our kids know it’s homecoming day or if we want to surprise them. There’s no right or wrong answer, only what is best for your family. There also needs to be a disclaimer that if our spouse left when our child was very young, they may not have much memory of them or be very comfortable around them. Be prepared to give them time and space. They need to reconnect with their parent just like we need to with our spouse.
Most of us don’t live anywhere near our extended families. It was about a month after my husband got back from deployment before he saw his parents. He came home right before Christmas, and his parents couldn’t travel out to see us. That was just the status of what was happening at the time. But my husband also needed a beat before family came rushing in (my family came out about a week after he got back) to get used to being home and being us again. A lot of that probably depends on how close our spouse is with their family, both emotionally and proximity-wise. Still, it is important that everyone knows what the expectations are for when they come home so that we avoid hurt feelings as much as possible.
I don’t want any of this to scare you. I talked with a trusted friend ahead of homecoming who had been through way more deployments than me, and she shared what homecoming and the first couple of days looked like. I did not like the picture she painted, and it definitely worried me. That same friend had advised me about what the weeks leading up to a deployment look like, and I let that picture freak me out as well. By this point, I had realized that she had a very different marriage than me, and her reality was not a baseline of what was true after a deployment.
You know your marriage best. You know your relationship. If there is something you absolutely do not need to worry about with your spouse, then don’t give it a second thought. The point of this is to make sure that everything about homecoming day feels like a dream come true. And the reality is it should look like a dream come true for you, regardless of what someone else might think that should look like. So, talk to your spouse about what the perfect homecoming looks like. Talk about things that might throw a wrench in that plan and how y’all will handle it. And then, just get ready because we are T-minus 30 to our ALWAYS DELIVER moment!