So I spent time I didn’t have today watching sappy reunion videos on YouTube. I got linked to one on facebook and that led to another of course and like some kind of sick addiction, I kept clicking those buttons like somehow I had both the time and the hydration to spare. But as I sat afterwards, I thought back to the conversation I have had with many people about Internet reality. Have you seen the website It’s Like They Know Us? If you haven’t, go there now.It will open a new window, go ahead. Hilarious, right? Because while having a baby is beautiful and wonderful in many senses, it is also horrible, messy and sometimes terribly, terribly painful. So is everything in life. Everything. And so the reason we lash out at things like unrealistic photos of women in white pants on their periods playing on beige carpeting with perfectly clean toddlers is that it hide the messy. Not just the literal mess, because holy crap this is what my son looked like the last time we were in public. But perfect Internet photos also hide the other mess. The real mess. Stock mom and newborn photos hide what 72 hours of labour, more stitches in places you cant see that anyone should have, a terrified husband and a baby in the NICU when you haven’t even had time to sleep. Ripping your stitches walking to the incubator at 2 am and hiding your exhausted tears in the breast pump room so the nurses won’t see because you’re afraid they’ll think you can’t cut it. And stock couple photos hide the 8am screaming matches, dirty looks and those times when you were…
So this week, I was inspired. Having read before about Sarah Smiley’s book “Dinner with the Smileys“, I was intrigued about the idea of inviting community members to join us for dinner or adventure during my husband’s current deployment. Our last posting and the deployments we endured at it were made bearable by the people we knew. The community that supported us. And while there are people here who have welcomed us so wonderfully, it is a much quieter place. Our home is not the open door of activity it had been when we were living in our old community. But who’s fault was that? Dh has big shoes to fill and we would never replace him. He couldn’t be replaced. He is their dad, invincible and bigger than life in their eyes. As it should be. He adores them and they adore him. Nothing will ever change that. But there is a chance here to fill his temporary absence in my kid’s lives with the wisdom, support and encouragement of their community. So the kids and I brainstormed. We had an opportunity here to learn about our community and grow in our relationships in it. There was a chance to learn, about occupations, about people, about supporting each other and making connections. And since even here on this blog I’ve written about filling those empty chairs with the people around you looking to fill one, it was time to step up. With dad away, we have many months of time that we could be intentional about inviting people from our commmunity to join us. Who would we start with? So we made…
*Disclaimer: the dates of these events and information of this post, including the date of publication, has been changed or delayed for security purposes* Today I felt the change in my face when you told me. We were at the gym and you grabbed me on a quick second, I know you’d been waiting all day and this was the first time I had seen you since the morning. You said ‘I’m going‘ and my eyes blinked and hardened. I swallowed and I know my entire expression changed. It changed to be expressionless, that was the entire design and my superpower. The ability to remove expression and emotion and take in what I needed to hear without drama or fear. I have a lot of practice with it. * Today as I walked out of my evening class my phone confirmed what I already knew. We were going down this road for the 4th time. I stared at it a while. Someone behind me asked where you were. They joked with me about how eager you were to get out and do your job. I smiled and agreed that it was who you were, I joked that you were pretty lucky that I loved you enough to put up with it. I was laughing when I got in the car. When I pulled out of the parking lot I was already crying. But only until I pulled onto our street so the kids wouldn’t see. * Today you prepared your uniform for the changes you would need while you are gone. We went for coffee and I made you a list of what I need done before you left. It’s all business of home improvements, Powers of Attorney and snow shovels. This…
Dear America, Do nations read letters from nobodies? Probably not. But there’s something that today, I wanted you to know. I am proud to call myself a Canadian. I wouldn’t trade my country for anything. I am not American. But I hurt with you anyways. For over a decade. Many years ago, I was a newlywed. Living my life in Northern Alberta until one day after the long bus ride to the depot and walk home after a 9 hour shift at the shelter downtown, I collapsed asleep on my bed just after 8a.m. without changing. And that’s how September 11th, 2001 found me, after a phone call woke me up less than an hour later, watching the horror of the 2nd tower get hit while still in my nursing scrubs, sitting in my living room on a pile of laundry. And even though I am not American, not only could I not understand the unspeakableness of what the news was showing me, I acutely aware that this day was going to somehow change my life, here, completely. I couldn’t reach DH, I didn’t even try. He was in the bush training with a military competition team he was a part of. I wondered if he knew, if he was watching. Would he come home at all? Would I even see him before he had to go? Was there anything we could do? Had this been a third world country that was the victim, I have no doubt our Canadian Forces would have mobilized a disaster assistance team to be there as we have done for dozens of countries in need before and since then. But instead this was arguably the most powerful country in the world we were…
12 years ago, the phone call came after I had gone to sleep for the night. I didn’t watch much news, with Dh deployed I had been overwhelmed with the reports that had come from the first combat deployment since Korea. And so I’d blocked it out, avoiding the reality of it all. My friend just wanted to know if Dh was OK. She had assumed I had heard, but I hadn’t. She felt terrible, it wasn’t her fault. So I turned on the TV and stared as the talking head told me there were reports of Canadian casualties. Almost 5 months pregnant, I had no friends or family in the area, so desperate as I was I called the Regiment. I was 21 and new to everything, I didn’t know how it was supposed to work. This was new ground. War casualties. It’s like the concept caught us off guard. The family support officer took the phone and and all he could say was ‘We can confirm there are casualties but we can’t confirm who they are, because the families haven’t been notified yet.’ They brought me to the Regiment to wait for a bit, I apparently sounded a little hysterical. I’m not proud of how badly I handled the news. I came home to my empty house in the middle of the night, all I could do was wait to see if my doorbell would ring. When morning came and it hadn’t, I received a phone call confirming that Dh was OK. What I felt then was almost harder than what I had experienced the entire sleepless night. It was the guilt that follows that moment…
So yesterday, I got a DM on Twitter. And I thought ‘Oh great, someone else has seen that picture of me…’ But, no, in fact this was not spam, it was someone with a question. They wanted to know Dh’s rank before they followed me. Um…. So we’re gonna go ahead and go there, friends! What I’ve learned about Rank 1. If you’re not in the military, you don’t have one. Most important of all the points. I am not in the military. I don’t have a rank. And as amusing as this little piece is, it’s satire. No one is giving me a rank any time soon. That’s OK by me. Let’s say it together, friends. I’m not in the military. I don’t have a rank. Excellent. 2. Ranks Have a Purpose. Rank is not some arbitrary annoying rule put together by the military to make your life more difficult. When soldiers are in battle, there needs to be Leaders. Those leaders need to make objective, life and death commands quickly. That is profoundly harder if you are good friends with those who you are Commanding. And that is the purpose of Rank. It might be awkward for two people to be friends socially if one is above the other in a direct Chain of Command. It’s hard to maintain a friendship with your boss. It’s done, don’t get me wrong. People do it. But it can be difficult to be best friends with your direct superior. Separating work and friendships can be tough. And that’s OK. But for non-military people reading, the…
Sometimes, it’s hard to put into words what something meant to you. And for that reason, people like me who suck at emotion just leave somewhere they lived for 9 years, the friends they had and the church they were a part of…. without giving a real goodbye. Because goodbyes are hard. What’s less hard? Just ignoring them. But now that I’ve had the chance to sit and I’m not ‘there’ where people are going to see me get all annoyingly weepy, I think I do have some words. Have you watched The Princess Bride? If you have lived under a rock your ENTIRE LIFE and have not, stop reading this and right this very instant go and watch it. Right now. Go. If you (like the rest of the free world who have seen any move, ever) have, you will remember that Wesley says this: “This is true love. Do you think that happens every day?” imbd.com This past year, a friend of mine had his closer-than-a-father grandpa pass away suddenly. And during the hospital visits and funeral preparations, my friend gave me a call. She wasn’t going to make it home when her kids got off the bus. So I drove to her house and did her dishes while I waited for her kids got off the bus. When they did, the looked at me in their kitchen and they said: “Hi Auntie Kim” Then they walked downstairs. When I called them up and told them to pack a bag to stay with me a few days, they said ok and we left. And…
– One who rarely drinks should not take an ativan before an early morning flight, eat nothing all day then grab a couple glasses of wine and questionable calamari unless one would like to be vomiting in the bushes outside the Eastside Mario’s at 11pm. Happy 11th Anniversary, babe, I thought for good measure I’d make you hold my hair like we were 17 again. – Living in a city on a lake means beautiful views, amazing weather and absolutely no chance of me having a good hair day for the next 3 years. 12 hours in the city and my hair sprung out in curls no chi iron will ever hold down. – This was the first time since Freckles was born almost 10 years ago that DH and I have been alone for more than one night. All the good intentions in the world aren’t getting me up in the morning to run during that. The alarm went off each morning and every single time finding DH in the super huge king-size bed and cuddling back for a few more minutes sleep next to him seemed infinitely more appealing. At the time I felt guilty. I got over it. Now that we are back to life I am so glad I did. – I have been spoiled by rental cars, heated seats and climate control. My 2002 Winstar with the broken key fob and the back gate that only occasionally unlocks just isn’t stacking up anymore. – I am completely and hopelessly in love with the man who still opens my car door, holds my hair back when I’m sick in public and instinctively takes the side of…
This weekend, on May 19th, is mine and DH’s 11th Wedding Anniversary. And I’m going to let you in on a little known fact. It’s actually not. It’s true, even ask my husband who had his security clearance papers returned because he used this date as his wedding date. If you look at our Marriage Certificate, our actual anniversary is in March. Why, you ask? Because we were 19. We were broke. We couldn’t even afford an apartment and if we were going to be married and actually live together, we needed to live in military housing. Military housing required a marriage certificate to place us on the waiting list for a house. The waiting list was one month long. Before we were married, I lived with my parents in a city about 3 hours away from him. He lived in the single quarters on base. It was not an option for either of us to move in with the other, so had we waited until our wedding to put in our names for a house, we would have had to wait a month in order to live together. A month still being apart after our wedding. We were unwilling to do that. So we went to the office of our Pastor with 2 of our friends and signed papers. In our jeans a t-shirts. With no one there but the required witnesses. We didn’t invite our parents. I think we might have gone out for lunch with a friend after. And that was that. When I walked down the aisle at that fancy dream wedding I mentioned here, I wasn’t scared he’d run. Technically, he was already my husband. The army, it…
I’ve written something like this before, here. It was called ‘Seeking Understanding’. Cause, well, we all crave that, don’t we. Someone who ‘gets us’. Then yesterday, my Social Media lit up with a blog written by an American Army Wife who decided to call out one of the other branches of the Military for not being worthy of being compared to her husband’s branch. In fact, she went so far as to say they had no right to call themselves Soldiers, or for their wives to be referred to as ‘Army Wives’. I’m not going to give her blog any more traffic with a link. (Doesn’t that make my blog sound all important like the traffic it would generate would be enormous!) The truth is, this post is more about realizing the ways I act like her instead of just taking her on. She’s entitled to her opinion and mine are probably not going to change them. I can only imagine how she feels about Canadian military calling themselves Soldiers and Army Wives. I mean, we don’t even have our own Drama on Lifetime. Instead, I will say that as Military Wives…. or lets be honest, as human beings, we do this in other, much less obnoxious levels all. the. time. Check out any forum of people with similar experiences. “You were only in labour 4 hours? Oh honey, I did 92 hours of hard labour and have 110 stitches and I still left the next day and walked 5 miles home with my baby in a sling. With. No. Drugs.” “You just have…
