For most of the last three years I have been deployed on operations, or preparing to deploy on operations. It has been challenging, stressful, a deep learning curve and immensely satisfying; I am a very different person now from what I was in 2015; but adjusting to the ‘now’ as opposed to the ‘was’ comes with its own challenges.

While I have seen a campaign through almost from start to finish, being deployed is life in a bubble. I have been intensely focused on one thing and one thing only, and with that comes a battle rhythm. Meanwhile in the real world life goes on, and goes on to its own rhythm. Coming back is stressful.

Returning from deployment is much like experiencing two of the four main stressors of life (birth, bereavement, marriage and a new job) in life.  After an extended period away I have to readjust to family life. The family has moved on, I have not. We all need to readjust. This can take time, one of the briefs I received on my return highlighted that most domestic issues come to a head three months after return from deployment. Adjusting takes time, and the pressures of not adjusting well take time to rise as well.  A family has a balance of its own, this is a dynamic thing – it takes time to recover its equilibrium.

Recovering equilibrium needs a broader perspective as well.  There’s many things that make a balanced life and that balance is different for everyone. Work, creative pursuits, emotional support, spiritual life and physical fitness all need to be balanced, and on deployment that is difficult. My fitness levels have decreased over the course of deployment, my creative pursuits dwindled to nothing and while I maintained some degree of spiritual balance I now need to regain my equilibrium while at the same time balancing reintegration with the family. My desire for a week in the mountains hiking is neither practical nor desirable from my wife’s perspective and while I would like to start writing again sooner rather than later, quite frankly I feel somewhat frazzled yet. On the plus side my attempts at baking have been met with both approval and an expanding waistline. While I have time now, I do not have limitless time, and while time is a great balancer, time and thought are better together.

In the same way that I deployed to a plan, I have to think through the return. It sounds trite, but goals and timelines are important, as well as measurements. I have to set realistic expectations for me and my family, accept that I am not going to start from where I left last year, but instead will be ahead in some areas, behind in others and different all round. The plan is nothing, but the planning is everything,

So older, wiser and with a good malt in hand, I shall contemplate the future with a certain degree of trepidation, some frustration at opportunities lost and a great deal of anticipation at what the future holds.