Rest and Relaxation

by guest writer Lauren Chapman

“I’m going to give you ten more minutes to feel sorry for yourself.” 

My husband’s directness refocuses my attention.  He stands bolt upright on the muddy single track trail of the rugged Na Pali Coast, carrying his 60-pound pack like it’s full of feathers. He has a tendency to make everything look easy.

Irritating, if you ask me.

A mile and a half into our planned 22-mile hike we heard blasts from the side of the mountain. In the moment, I imagined my husband’s mind snapping back to the battlefield he’d just left. Around the bend, we were greeted by an explosives team who looked as surprised to see us as we were to see them.

They informed us the trail was closed due to rock slides, which they were clearing, and that the permit I thought I reserved for camping at the trail’s end was in fact for a campground at the trail’s beginning. Devastation hit me like a rogue wave off the beach.

This all happened just minutes ago, and now, my husband scowls at my foot-dragging and swats away another mosquito, hungry for his brown, sweat-drenched flesh. “We’re not going to waste what little time we have together being upset,” he continues, pulling me out of my self-pity. “The dynamite blasts are out of our control. We can’t hike this trail. So after the 10 minutes are up, I don’t want to hear another word about it. Let’s move out.”

For a second, I wish to scream, I’m not another foot soldier, I’m your wife, but it would be useless. He is only acting as he’s been trained. Sliding into step behind him, I try to match his cadence with mine, but it’s impossible. His size 13 military grade boots imprint the earth in front of me and spray up a slippery, peanut buttery mud. I wonder if his soldiers have the same difficulty keeping up with him that I do. Do they share the same feeling of not quite measuring up?

He turns back toward the path we just came from, to hike the measly mile and a half back out of the jungle, and I envision him leading his platoon through villages in Iraq. Shouldering armored breast plates, an M4 rifle, and enough water and ammunition to make any patrol intolerable, I realize my husband’s ability to pivot is his strength. I can hear him speak to his men in the same gruff tone he uses now with me, commanding them to follow as if their life depended on it. Which it did.

Service members in the United States Military on 12-month deployments are granted leave from their overseas duty assignment for a period of two weeks. Known as rest and relaxation, or R&R, it is the Army’s way to boost morale and also, probably, to keep families sane. The goal of R&R is to assist in re-energizing and mentally preparing service members for the remainder of their tour. It was ironic that I had chosen to spend our two weeks together in the jungle on a challenging hike.

For ten months, I had buried my sadness of our separation in piles of his clean clothes. I washed, folded, and rewashed socks, underwear, and any item of his I could get my hands on.

Some would argue that washing his clothes would wash his scent away, but the rote task of laundry, though he wasn’t there to dirty any of it, made me feel as though I was taking care of him, even with the thousands of miles between us.

Six months prior to my husband’s R&R, I had arrived home from my own deployment to Afghanistan. A year before that, we were married. In total, we had been separated by deployments for as long as we had been together. This yo-yo effect of life together, then life apart, occupied the first five years of our marriage.

Every time we’d circle back into each other's lives, we slowly, painfully, ironed out the kinks of the relationship, and then we were separated again. As much as I loved him and wanted to be together, I began to build a wall to shield me from the pain of his absence. And this wall made it difficult to work through differences.

With each reunion, he’d diligently tear down my wall, bit by bit. Peeling back who I was and what I’d become in his absence took both love and patience, but his ability to problem solve the puzzle of me has always been his forte.  

Challenges for us are irresistible, and memories like this remind me that we are at our best when we’re in the thick of it. It’s when we feel most alive as a couple. Navigating our differences in those moments, leaning on each other’s strengths as a compliment to ourselves, we begin to step from tolerating to appreciating each other.

This was the kind of man who would say yes to my grand plans of a 22-mile hike during his two-week R&R.

Adventuring together had always brought us close, so I threw myself into the planning. 

Surely hiking together would redefine us as a pair after a prolonged separation. It was a long, treacherous trail that required special permits I had obtained months in advance in order to tent camp on the beach at the end of the trail. I was stoked for his arrival, for his approval of my grand plans, and for a chance to show that I could also be the party planner. Any normal person would have reserved a hotel room on the beach with ocean views. Maybe a spa day. Possibly, a surf lesson.

The problem is, that’s just not us.

We are the couple that, between school and starting a job, thought it would be awesome to bike pack 400 miles through South Korea in five days. I had no idea how long the trail was when we started. There were times I wanted to quit.

When I asked for a babymoon, a few years later, my husband thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a 28-ft sailboat and sail it through a storm in the British Virgin Islands. The boat-plus-baby nausea was laughable. The fact that we did it alone made me question our sanity.

When my husband said, “let’s move out,” I couldn’t move past the stunning scenery that lay before us on the trail. Reaching the end of a switchback, peering out beyond the jungle, sheer lava rock cliffs plummeted to a pristine glassy turquoise ocean below. This Jurassic Park-esque landscape, the jewel of the Garden Isle, was formed by some of the highest rainfall on earth, giving it a signature lush greenery. It was idyllic. 

I didn’t want him to see my tears, that I had fallen short significantly on an adventure I had hoped would bring us closer together. Before I could think of a solution, my husband did an about face, turning back towards where we had just hiked like no big deal.

“I can’t believe you’re just going to turn around and give up like that!” Anger rises up in me like hot steam in a tea kettle.

“What would you like me to do?” He questions, “The trail is closed; we have no other option.” 

Leaving me collapsed in the middle of the trail like a puddle, he says casually, “I’ll be right back,” and I watch him walk away at a brisk pace, summit a nearby peak, and disappear. 

He returns minutes later, walking back toward me through the jungle of vines, and breaks into a smile. I can tell by the lithe stride in his step that he’s already put the details of the hiking catastrophe in the past. Finding a way, yet again, to move forward despite my duress. I don’t know how he does it, but I know in that instant I need this man by my side.  

“Check out this Airbnb,” he states excitedly, thrusting his cell phone into my view. 

“It has one of those swinging outdoor sofa beds you like. The owner cooks all meals for you, and there’s a secret beach within walking distance. “Come on, it’ll be okay,”

My husband never really wanted to come home from a deployment steeped in physical labor to hike a trail and sleep outside, but he was willing to do it for me. We laugh about my grandiose hiking plan now and my dogged determination to walk through a wall if it meant we’d complete a goal.

Fifteen years of marriage and two kids in, resting and relaxing still doesn’t come naturally for us. I continue to find it difficult to adapt to change. But this matters less now. What I’m learning, albeit slowly, is to be more gentle with myself, with my husband, and with circumstances which are out of my control.  

“Come on, it’ll be okay,” I can still hear him say. And with each new challenge that we face, I know it will be.

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This essay was a runner up in our annual Love After Babies writing contest—exclusively open to Exhale members. Learn more here.

Guest essay by Lauren Chapman. Lauren and her family's RV stopped in Park City, Utah and went no further. After years of travel, she has determined to put down roots and call this place home. She believes the best medicine is fresh air and may or may not pull her two boys out of school regularly for powder days on the slopes. She disappears into good books, on long runs before sunrise, or a neighboring greenhouse to write. She is always on the hunt for deep relationships, so connect with her on Instagram.

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