Letter to T
he first few days were most odd. Prior to your return I had developed my own rhythm, my own routine.
Our house was my house and you were now a guest within it.
Your things, packed long ago with precision and tidiness into the cupboards, had lain untouched. Your bedside table was now my second bedside table, there were new kitchen appliances in place and I had rearranged some of the cupboards. We had a new hoover.
You went around each room slowly, assessing what had changed. You scoffed a little, asking why I had spent so much money. My own money. You did not want me to make you a cup of tea, you wanted to go back to the way things were before, with us sharing tasks. I did not remember the way things were before. The way I do them now is the way I want to do them. “Just go and sit on the sofa and let me get on with it!” How could I let things go back to the way they were when I knew you were going back soon? I did not want to adapt and re-adapt. I was happy with my system.
To begin with you let me wait on you, but after you had recovered from the flight you wanted to do things for yourself. The house had become a bombsite of exploded kit bags, dirty washing lay strewn across the living room, spare bedroom and hallway. Webbing, helmets and body armour were still on the floor by the front door where they had been discarded.
Each time I tried to tidy it up to regain some sense of order I was rebuffed with “leave that babe, I will do it” I gritted my teeth, stopping myself from replying that I knew you would not, because it had been three days and you still had not.
As I prepared food you would bump into me in the kitchen going to get something
18 Envoy Summer 2011
Nowhere by Charlie Fox
for yourself, or stand over me because you were hungry and I had not finished cooking yet. Finally, when I could no longer get into the bathroom because of the amount of stuff on the floor blocking the doorway, I snapped. My first cross words to you. I put my hands to my head in distress, and walked off to the bedroom.
By the time I got back you had started hurriedly tidying up. “I am sorry…” I was sorry too. This house was our house but.. at least you understood. Arranging what to do by this point had also become a nightmare, we were beginning to cross swords over arrangements. You announced plans by beginning sentences with I. “I am…. I am going, I am doing.” Where was the ‘us’ and ‘we?’
One morning you disappeared off to play golf. Why had I taken the week off work if this was how you were going to treat me? You tried to fit in seeing every friend, every family member. I was stupidly jealous, even though I knew I should not be. They were not the ones who had ached every night, crying into their pillows for the lack of you by their side. They had not lovingly packed boxes full of your favourite treats. They had not wept when they missed a phone call from you. I had been fixing their problems, lending them money. I was beginning to fall ill from stress.
You got up early every morning and went to bed late at night, passing out as soon as your head hit the pillow. You made comments such as “I don’t even know what you do for a living, you changed jobs whilst I was away” but you did not ask me what my new job entailed. You did not really seem interested. All you spoke about was tour. All you showed me were photos. You messed up, showing me exactly how dangerous your work was. Work that you were going back out to do, within days.
Too much was being fitted in to the daytime, there was no time for us. No quiet time. You were all over the place, and I was completely confused. Sometimes it did not really feel like you were glad to be at home. I felt very lonely.
We bickered over things we had not been able to from far away; all the things that had annoyed each other were now open for discussion. It culminated in a huge flaming row, and many, many tears on my part.
The relief of finally being able to tell you how much it hurt to go from being completely enveloped in a bubble of love to being abandoned and hurting for weeks on end with no contact for huge spaces of time was horribly juxtaposed with the pain I could see on your face. Finally you got it. Finally I could see my boyfriend in your eyes.
For the first few days of RnR, we had been two single people co-existing in an unfamiliar familiar relationship. Now, we were us again. All it took was some wine and a lot of shouting.
I explained to you that to me, it had felt like our relationship had ended and that I had ‘got over ’ it. Now you were back and even though I was obviously over the moon to be back in your arms, it was not all rose tinted romance.
Your reply stuck with me…. “For us everything goes on pause. We go out there leaving a home situation and a relationship, and we expect that situation and relationship to be exactly the same when we get home… But your situation has six months of change, you make new relationships and old ones grow with you. I suppose I just forgot that you carry on being you, on your own, without me. I don’t like to think of you like that.”
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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