Summer Days, Drifting Away

Summer Days, Drifting Away 09/01/2011

September 1st marks the end of what I am now calling the best summer of my life. What I got out of this summer was more than I could have ever asked for and I am so grateful to have had it.

This summer started out like any normal summer would. I finished the winter semester at school, took an spring session course and started my summer job. But in the midst of all of that, my husband's helicopter crashed and it was decision time for me. I only had a few days left of school so I stuck it out. But over the days after the crash I noticed the stress of dealing with school, work and the negative crash events were causing my Crohn's to start to interfere with my life too much. I made the decision to cut something out of the equation. Since school and family are unavoidable, the only choice was to stop working. So my husband and I discussed it and decided this would be the summer I have all to myself. And despite the few judgmental comments and sneers about not working this summer, I have to say it was the smartest decision I could have made. I realized I hadn't taken a the time to give myself a real break since I started working in high school and after eight years of university I realized I was getting to a burn out point.

So why was this summer so great? Well, the biggest reason of course was that my husband survived a helicopter crash and kept his promise to me and made it home. Once home, he ended up having two months off from work to do physio and to heal from his injuries. Which meant, for the first time in our relationship, neither of us had any obligations and we actually got to spend time together. We've had a couple of vacations over the years where we got lots of time together but I had finals literally the day after we got home for the first one and he returned to Afghanistan three days after returning from the other. So having time this summer was really special. And, like many other military relationships, we've been apart more this year than we've been together. Having him home for two solid months was unbelievable. We went on vacation, had so many date nights, saw friends, got to sleep in. I got to read books I actually want to be reading, not things I have to read for class (I've read more than 13 books this summer. Haven't done that in years!) And of course, and best of all, we made a baby! I don't think either of us could have asked for a better summer.

Now, summer has officially ended. It's starting to get cold at night and the leaves on the trees are changing color. School starts for me next week and my husband is on course. Life is slowly returning to normal, where I'm locked in the computer room studying all night and he's away for work for too many weeks or months. And if he is home, we see other in the morning before work and school and at supper time during the week.  Weekends are wonderful because I usually put the books away until Sunday night and take time to be with my husband.

The time we got to spend together this summer is something I will cherish. It was the first summer since we got married. And the first time since our wedding day that we had no school, work, courses and deployments. We actually had an opportunity to be together, face to face, as a married couple for longer than a few weeks at a time. It was really nice to have that escape from the reality of our lives for a little while.