Anniversary Week: The Deployment

After Jesse and I got back from Minnesota, I started my career at a local public accounting firm. Jesse and I settled into normal dating life. Most of our evenings involved each other, watching movies, having dinner, going to movies, or hitting up the piano bar right across the street from my new place. But unfortunately, that “normal” life didn’t last long. Jesse was scheduled to deploy at the beginning of July for four months.

Jesse’s parents wanting him to come out to Minnesota again over the 4th of July weekend, so they could see their son one more time before his first deployment. He said he wasn’t coming without me. So, we both made our way back to Minnesota for a long weekend. When we returned on the night of the 5th, I was hit with unexpected news. One of my friends from college had drowned in a lake the night before. I was devastated. Jesse was amazing and just held me through my tears, but had to leave the very next morning. It was an emotional time for me.

Jesse and I talked on the phone as often as we could while he was gone. Soon after he left, he mailed me a ring that was engraved in Hebrew writing that says, “My beloved is mine and I am His”. I wore it during the whole deployment and still where it anytime Jesse is away from me. Our conversations got more serious and we began to talk about the future. It was different than any other relationship I had ever been in. It just felt right. I was dating a man, not a college kid. Jesse was not afraid of the future or to tell me he loved me. It was a more mature love than I had experienced in the past.
The first couple of months seemed pretty effortless, but for the last month or so it became increasingly harder for me. I had only been with Jesse for a little over two months when he left, at that point he had been away for longer than we had been together. Jesse’s great grandmother passed away a few days before he was scheduled to come home. He was able to leave early to return home for his grandmother’s funeral. And a few days later, he was back to Washington.

It was great for the first few days, but then things got to feeling not so right. Jesse was home a few days before the rest of his squadron. I noticed that he kind of had an attitude, hung around my place and created messes. It just didn’t feel right. We got into a couple arguments and decided to take a break. In the couple of days we were apart, I went on a date with a guy from work and he had a post deployment briefing with the rest of his squadron. I think we both came to some realizations. For me, I realized that I had found the real deal in Jesse. Jesse realized that there are some common things that happen in relationships right after a deployment. What our arguments had stemmed around where the most common ones for military members coming home after being away for months. Before the week was up, we had sat down, talked, and resolved the issues at hand. Everything was back to normal by the beginning of November. :)