Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Germany & Homecoming: Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

Amy and Sarah (our God-daughter!) picked me up at the train station and we walked back to their house. We played with Sarah a little bit before Amy put her to bed. We had dinner and we proceeded to talk until midnight. I loved our late night chats, talking about literally everything. I loved talking to her, to be able to have a conversation (in real life!) with someone who understands what the last year was like, and talk about our excitement of the guys coming home. I admit I was a little nervous to stay at their house since we'd only met once before, over a year ago. But it was awesome staying with her.

I went to bed past midnight, which was really late considering the time change and traveling. I
wanted so badly to take a shower, but I had no clean clothes and felt gross putting on dirty clothes after a nice hot shower. The airline had given me a consolation overnight kit, which consisted of a t-shirt, deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shoe polish and some other random little things. Oh, and my feet stunk really bad. My feet never stink (except in high heels!) but they were hot and sweaty from running around in airports and train stations for the last 30 hours. I didn't have any clean socks or underwear and felt extremely nasty. (Note to self: pack a pair of clothes in my carry on luggage!) I slept until 9 AM the next day and it felt amazing. It was a super comfortable bed!!! I checked the status of my luggage and had no idea when it would be delivered so I decided to go to the PX and get some clean socks and underwear, so at least I could feel a little refreshed. We went to another wife's house for dinner that night and I wanted to look half decent, even if my clothes didn't appear so and I had no makeup. I also bought two shirts at the PX.

We spent our days talking, playing with Sarah and taking her to play groups, running around post to post, back and forth, talking and dreaming about what it would be like for the guys to actually be home, going to the commissary to get food for our baking extravaganza, getting on Facebook to see status updates from a particular soldier who was en route home and torturing ourselves with when they'd be home. (I know, he shouldn't have done that, but he did and I'm not one to ignore and not analyze what his posts meant!!) She showed me the ins and outs of Army life and what living on post is like. Most nights we stayed up until midnight talking. I remember one pa
rticular conversation we had while we were walking back from a German grocery store. We were talking about how much we had talked to the guys over the course of the year, how they told us they were deploying (she knew for a year beforehand...I found out about 4.5 months before). I told her how the conversation went for us and she said, "see, you were meant to be a military wife!" For some reason, it just was nice to hear. I never, ever pictured myself as a military wife, but somehow this is where I ended up and I like to think I'm doing well so far.

I was there 5 days with Amy before the guys returned. I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with her, get to know her, learn from her and share the excitement with her. She is a true friend and I'm excited to meet more women like her, who understand the lifestyle and will be a lifetime friend.

The next part will be the actual homecoming ceremony :)

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