The Push

I think that every woman handles deployments differently. Some drink. Some cheat. Some crawl into a hole and don't come out. Some work, and some don't. Some volunteer. Some get involved in PTA. Some work out religiously, while some get fat. Some make a full-time job out of being a supportive wife and mother, attending all of the Army-wife meetings. Some home-school. Some do yoga. Some embrace their time alone and watch whatever television program they want without fighting over the remote.

I grow a penis.

I'd like to think that I'm the one who gets up early each day to go to the gym, then grabs a hot shower as coffee is brewing...a full day of work, then an errand or two...kids get to activities, homework gets done, trash cans get out to the curb on time. I'm at work with nice makeup with my hair done looking like a strong bunny nursing princess. Like magic. Unfortunately, my ideal in my head is far from my truth.

Thus far, this is pretty much the scene...a week before, I start getting solemn. The heaviness of what is to come begins to settle in. He gets increasingly distracted with his tasks at hand. Big, enormous ARMY green bags large enough for one of my children to sleep in come out of closets and make their way onto my floor as contents start filling them up. Equipment and ARMY boots and uniforms litter my hallways and trash my laundry room as items are washed, wrapped, folded, and packed. He's gone a lot, off to meetings at odd hours...like a Saturday at 5pm. When he isn't running around, he's on the phone. The more distraction I sense from him, the more it feels like the mission is taking over my life and my relationship, and the more internal I find myself becoming. I start closing up. I become quiet. I become introspective. I become independent.

When he leaves, I feel like in many ways he was already gone. The physical separation is just a continuation of the emotional separation that has been occurring in our home for the days leading up to the event. It's usually a quick kiss, not a long embrace. Then, like a flash, he's off.

I come home and move the coffee pot. I put his blender away on a shelf. I rearrange everything in the home to put it in a manner that's going to serve me. I set up a few massages. I concentrate on my upcoming work schedule. I arrange child care and transportation for my kids. I go with them on walks. I cook dinner...not his huge, elaborate dinners...but pot pies. From the freezer section. I pull out the list of things I've been waiting to do until he's gone, and I roll up my sleeves and get to work.

I remember who I am and what I'm made out of. I remember that girl who fought her way out of the trailer park into a swimming scholarship at a Division I University, and I connect with her.

I call it The Push. It's my own #bosslife, my version of Sasha Fierce, if you will. I've noticed characteristics of her, this woman I become, when he's gone. Instead of putting him in front of her, or my children in front of her, this #bosslife woman stands alone and puts nobody in front of her. She can do it all. She sets up the coffee on a timer the night before. She arises early before her alarm has gone off not to work out, but to go to work and get paid what she's worth. Her children are in amazing hands because she does her vetting with childcare. She teaches them, not through her words, but through her actions...what a strong woman looks like. She comes home, visits with her children over another dinner courtesy of the freezer section, discusses their days, and is off to bed, sleeping five hours instead of her normal eight. She searches for moments to find her children wherever they are emotionally and connects with their souls, not with their activities....those, she leaves up to them.

Emotionally, she's only open to certain kinds of energy. Instead of the usual openness and kindness and sensitivity towards others that I'm accustomed to feeling, #bosslife has turned off the heat in all the rooms she's not using while he's gone in order to conserve her energy. She has zero tolerance for bullshit. The passive aggressiveness and manipulation that the world brings don't go far with her...she's lost her patience for those. If it serves her, she includes it. If it doesn't, she's quick to cut it off. She doesn't have time for games in her dog-eat-dog mindset. Get in her way, and you'll feel her bite. It's nothing personal, it's just her way.

When I become this version of me, I remind myself of a man. My normal, highly feminine energy that is sensitive to the universe completely shifts into a masculine, task-oriented, zero tolerance person...the kind of woman who would get up in the 400 IM against TCU as the fourth seed and win the event. The kind of woman who says, "You fucked with the wrong woman on the wrong day..." She has no patience when children aren't doing chores, when coworkers are being lazy, or for anyone's drama....subtle or not.  When I connect with her, it's like an old friend coming for a visit. I remember how much I used to be her, how I found her somewhere in the depths of hell and she took over my entire being for the climb. She's a part of me I don't have to use very much anymore, but it's comforting to me to know that she's there in The Push. I'm glad I can call on her when she's needed and she happily emerges with her badass self.

When he comes back, it's another story. #bosslife's highly masculine, strong energy takes up a lot of space, and she's quite directive. She's the kind of woman who cuts through traffic without apologies, and her confidence can come off as being a bit of an asshole. She's not a giver, and she refuses to receive anything she didn't earn herself. She has no time for anything that isn't in her sights...which is probably why she's profoundly asexual. She's someone I love deeply and admire greatly, but I don't like very much. When she's here, it screws up the polarity in the relationship with his highly masculine energy. I mourn as I see her go away, as she was there for me when I needed her. I fall apart a little...after having kept it all together and making sure everything got done the way it needed to during The Push. As I see her walking off in the distance, a wave of emotion and sadness sweeps over me as she departs.

Conjuring our strength is an important part of being a woman. Connecting to our softness, our beauty, and our femininity is also important. Some women can be strong and soft at the same time...that is an art that I have yet to discover. It takes time for my kindness and tolerance to re-emerge after she's gone. He'll make dinner. We will go to the gym. He'll pour wine and ask me how my day has been, and the furnace that has been turned off in each room of my soul will be lit one by one, pop on, and eventually I'll begin to feel their warmth. I'll begin to feel sultry again. My voice will become smooth as I start to purr. From my heart outward, I'll start to glow. Like a flower in the sunshine, I'll open up and becoming vulnerable once I'm certain it's safe to do so.

I'll say goodbye to my strong, fiery friend for awhile...knowing the next Push isn't too far away, and she's always there when I need her. And, God....how I've needed her.

Plastic And Porcelain

I spent the majority of my childhood in a trailer. In the desert. Surrounded by dirt. And pedophiles.

The evening sun setting was just about the only thing that reminded me that I was just like everyone else...that same sunset was gifted to everyone. Brilliant, bright colors spread across the sky in evening sacrifice was no different for the children who grew up at the top of the foothills of the mountain than in was for me, down in the valley.

I remember the hollow feeling of the flooring each time I took a step. The hard desert ground full of rocks and pebbles sounded so solid under my feet. Then, I'd step onto the stairs...usually two or three that lead up to the front door. I'd open it and step in. Immediately, the sound changed. It no longer felt solid. It felt like all it would take is one hard jump, and there would be a hole in the floor....my feet on the solid dirt a few feet below. The walls and doors were all the same. Like graham crackers, those paper surfaces were mostly made of air.

In the bathroom, the tub would be plastic. The sink would be plastic. There would be a plastic-y film to everything and cleaning it just made it seem more plastic. Understandably, who'd put a porcelain tub in a paper house? It made sense.

Even now, after two bachelor degrees and a professional job, when I visit a place or live in a place or go inside somewhere and the surfaces are that of an upgraded life, it takes me awhile. Its as if somehow solid windows and hard wood floors and central air conditioning are all above my pay grade.  Each time I go back to the desert, the paper house with its hollow floor surround and engulf me, as if they've got some sort of power over my worth. I feel drawn back in. I feel like I'm eight years old again, looking up at the hill at the life that I wanted for myself, but had no idea how to get.

I believe it has something to do with the psychology of a caste system. People don't need to imprison you when you imprison yourself. Somewhere in the middle of childhood, we start to make friends, or we attend a birthday party, or we somehow find ourselves in someone else's home. And their bedroom doesn't look like ours. The dishes they eat on and the utensils they use are different...better. More quality. Less flimsy. With the reinforcement of seeing it over and over and over throughout our childhood, we continue to grow under the assumption that things just work out better for the people who live up in the hills. They're funded. There are expectations.

There are also a different set of expectations for the people who grow up in the trailer park.

I don't go back to the place in my mind very often when I ask these memories to arise. They are far too painful. But, every time I step on a hollow floor, there they are...reminding me of how I was shaped so fluidly by those early years. By the rocks. By the dirt. By the dusty trails that would rise up from the earth each time a car would pass by in 100 degree heat. By the pedophiles.

As I embark on my dreams and work hard to get them accomplished, often trying to relax into them just as much as pushing through and doing the work, I look at the porcelain life and in my mind I know that I deserve nothing less...but knowing that in the heart can be another story. Often, my biggest enemy to accomplishing work that serves me is me. Getting on the other side of the psychology of victim-hood can be difficult, but it is liberating. It is really hard for me to stand in the middle of that upgraded life with nice things and nice people, and believe in my heart that I deserve it.

I remember watching the documentary, Food Inc. In it, someone said that people who are poor are poor in everything...education, healthcare, food. Rising above that poverty of money and of spirit can be most difficult because of how we learn to define our worth. We put beliefs into motion that both shape and bind us. We believe we deserve McDonald's when others deserve gourmet.  This is why I believe white privilege is so prevalent. The children growing up on the foothills never ever happened to walk into my old neighborhood. Never did I see any of them wandering the dusty streets with broken windows and dogs on chains. Never did they take up residence there. Never did they amble through to water roses dug out in the dirt patches around trailers in scattered attempt to beautify. No...those kids were playing soccer in grassy parks. They were swimming at the tennis club. They were attending the birthday parties of other kids who lived in the hills, in homes with hardwood floors, nice lighting, and porcelain. The last thing on their mind was what was going on in the trailer park down below 20 miles away. It's not that they were insensitive...they were blissfully ignorant to the un-privileged, plastic and paper life just down the way. They did not know what they didn't know, and even today, those children who've grown up to become adults don't have the same internal conflict with nice surfaces and textures. The same is true of our own societal caste system. For someone to think that they understand another's culture, beliefs, or challenges is not only ignorant, it is also arrogant. To think that someone can just get over their past...what they've seen, what they've experienced...and rise up and become something different than what they've learned through repetition and reinforcement applies one person's experiences, principles, and beliefs to another person with a completely different background. I cannot know another's journey by looking at them through my own eyes. It's impossible. Just like someone can look at me and not know that sickening, nauseating feeling that brings back horrible memories that comes with the feeling of hollow floors, the smell of scotch, or porn...I can never look at another person and know what chains bind them.

When I was 14, we moved from the trailer park into the foothills. I spent my high school years in those grassy parks. Then I went on to college and got a degree, then another. But the beliefs that draw me back into bondage are never far at bay. My best friend from those years wasn't so lucky. She died of a drug overdose in her 20s.

I understand the psychology of being raised in the dirt, how becoming a rising phoenix is next to impossible. The internal caste system we create where we identify some people as better than us, and then elevate them above us is almost impossible to break. Beliefs don't just change without a ton of internal work. And, it makes it so much worse when others continue to remind us that they grew up on the hill and we didn't, or that we should just get over it.  As a white woman in America, I know I'm completely ignorant to what I don't know. I don't know what it feels like to be marginalized and stereotyped. I have absolutely no clue what types of forces, both internal and external, need to be overcome just to speak out.

As long as we believe we deserve plastic and not porcelain, someone is holding us hostage...and we're the ones who gave them the key. It is time that we stop giving our power away. It is time for those who live on the hill to take a stroll through the desert, with arms open and wide, inviting others to educate us.

Never Sell Your Sword

When I was thirty-eight, I learned how to love. Really love. For the first time. It went something like this...

Me: I'm here because want to talk to someone because I don't know what to do.
My therapist:  What to do about what?
Me: It's really hard because my husband is experiencing a lot of pain, and he suffers as a result. And then, I suffer.
My therapist: You're here because your husband is experiencing a lot of pain?
Me: Yes. And he suffers.
My therapist: Right. So he experiences pain, and he suffers.
Me: Yes.
My therapist: And...then...you suffer.
Me: Yes. Exactly.
My therapist: Ok. You're here because you suffer because your husband suffers. Because he experiences pain.
Me: Well, yes.

Long, awkward pause...

My therapist: Did you cause the pain?
Me: No.
My therapist: Can you control the pain?
Me: Well...no. I guess not.
My therapist: Then why do you think you are capable of curing the pain?

The conversation continued. I didn't realize that within the 2 minutes she'd met me, she'd already had my number down, and that the next hour would just be the cathartic unleashing so that the exorcism could begin. She allowed me almost the entire 60 minutes to go through my story, taking tangent upon tangent. My tissues soaked. My heart broke open and laid bare. My insecurity of feeling as if the problem was so complex that it must be difficult to follow. She didn't take notes. She didn't seem all that interested in the details. She politely listened, quietly...offering me a fresh, dry tissue each time I needed one. Then, as we were nearing the end of the hour, she took a long sip of her hot tea. She looked at me lovingly and with the most sincere, penetrating kind eyes someone could offer. And, she spoke into me.

"Mariah...if what you are telling me is true, and I believe that it is...then your husband is a very unhealthy person. Healthy people are not attracted to unhealthy people. Healthy people are attracted to healthy people, and unhealthy people are attracted to unhealthy people. So, if he is this unhealthy...that means that you and I have some work to do about you."

The next few years...yes, years...took me on an inward journey that resulted in learning how to accept situations, people, relationships, and myself just as we are. If we don't see people as they truly are, then how can we really love them? What we love is the version of them we want to see, discarding all of the parts we don't like. With the unskilled coordination of a child trying to tie his shoes for the first time, I learned how to set boundaries so that I could start to participate in self love and self-care instead of living in over-extension and resentment. I was terrible at it, but I set boundaries anyway. I inventoried every nook and cranny of my heart....finding earned guilt and unearned guilt, and making amends where they needed to be made. I started backing out of situations that I knew were a trap for me, patterns in my own life that I did not yet posses the maturity to stop, so I just avoided altogether. It was ugly, really REALLY ugly. In the process, I angered almost everyone and deeply offended more than a few.

Here's what I learned....

Some people are stuck. They were hurt terribly in their own lives, often as children. They relied on coping mechanisms to escape from their pain because it was their next logical step...control, addiction, anger, violence, passive aggressiveness, immaturity, manipulation, taking, saving...They reached for the wrung of the ladder that felt better than the wrung they were dealt. And that's their business. What they put into their own body, how they behave, who they hurt, who they use (as long as it isn't me or those to whom I've been entrusted to protect)...that is their own business...not mine. The key to my own happiness is to accept them, me, and the situation exactly as it is...without the intoxication or inebriation of denial.

There are also people who find themselves somehow stuck and desire to become unstuck. These are the same people as above. But, one day they wake up and realize that what they are doing doesn't work for them anymore. Old patterns served well in old relationships and old situations, but are no longer needed and now they are a hindrance to the life they feel they really deserve. So, they seek out guidance and start doing the work...

...doing the work.

I've learned that I don't like unfinished business. Closure just feels good. I like having the kinds of friends in my life who call me on my shit, people who are kind, and honest, and real. I like owning up to my side of the problem, and utilizing dialogue and discourse to work through a solution with people who have the emotional intelligence and maturity that I'm attracted to. I've learned that I'm better around people like that...I like myself better, I feel better, I do better. It doesn't feel game-y. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't have the highs and lows that the toxicity offers, its much more boring..and predictable...and consistent...than that. It's two real women having a real conversation about real life. It's steak and potatoes instead of Oreo cookies. I've learned that I desire those deep, spiritual, honest friendships with the people with whom I am most intimate. People who at the same time honor and respect unspoken boundaries. People who never have to be reminded of where lines are drawn.

Healthy people are attracted to healthy people...

I've learned that if I find myself caught up at margarita night with a crazy girlfriend with a lot of drama, that's a reflection of me...what I'm attracting...and it's time to do a personal inventory. I've learned that I am highly sensitive to energy fields and auras, and I've come to trust my intuition like it's a compass that always points north. When I sense any of those old negative energies like passive aggression or manipulation, it is as shrill as nails on a chalkboard, and I can feel it from miles away. I've learned that, unfortunately, some people choose disrespect or are just incapable of respect. Either way, it is not an attractive relationship for me, and gently withdrawing participation is always best for everyone. I've learned when enough is enough...after being pulled and pushed, after holding the hands of the sick, after giving what I am willing to give of my heart, there is a moment that comes when I am just done. And, that's not just okay, it's what's best. It's not about cutting someone off, it's more like the tide rising and then retreating. We are not better when we rise because we sacrificed more....there is a time to retreat and give no more. There is something holy about not robbing others of their right and responsibility to carry their own burdens.

Veronica Shoffstall once said that love does not mean leaning. Holding a hand does not entitle us to chain our lover's soul. We must learn to plant and decorate our own garden. And, it is with our defeats, not our triumphs, that we learn the grace of a woman.

Love everybody, but never sell your sword.

Under Lights And Wires

Today is the first day of October. It has been exactly four weeks since he left. Suddenly. On a plane into a storm....which turned out to be two storms. Two catastrophic storms...

...no return date in sight.

I received some devastating news today. A childhood friend of mine, the son of my father's best friend, is dying. Under lights and wires, my children and I were at Oktoberfest on base at our local post. Three amazed faces at the excitement and energy as their faces would light up with the flashing lights of yet another ride as it went round and round. I rode until my tummy hurt. I chatted with my son about Westpoint. My daughter educated me on box braids. The four of us shared a funnel cake, each of us with powdered sugar on our faces. We talked. I feel like those lines are constructed so that there is forced bonding. Ultimately, conversation starts to occur...partly to distract from the nervousness of the anticipation...partly because you're just sharing a moment with your most precious, loved ones.

As I was waiting in the car for the three not-so-littles to arrive after their last ride of the night, I plugged in my phone and received a barrage of texts informing me of the unfolding events half a world away.

My heart sank. I was already on the brink of tears, and I've just needed a good cry for some time. Between riding the people-flingers and eating the bratwurst and listening to music, I would catch myself people watching. Every family reminded me of my own....father with shaved head, tactical sunglasses and watch, fit trim waist with broad shoulders. Every woman pretty, smiling eyes, kid in tow or pregnant...or both. Catching moments together. Camera. Ice cream. Slide, ride. I felt sadness and gladness at the same time. There's a sense of family. There's a sense of community. All different colors, all different races, yet a common thread. Me and my three don't stand out because there are so many partial families with a deployed soldier running around. Life must go on living, nothing stops when he's gone. So, we don't endure. We live.

And then I checked my phone. The tears that were squeezed down tight emerged and spilled over. A man I barely know, but shared a childhood with...his daughter the same age as my son. He won't live to see Thanksgiving. I wonder if last Christmas, when he was opening presents with his daughter...if he knew that was the last Christmas he'd spend with her.

I've come to realize that with each deployment, I am going to feel every single emotion. And not just feel it...but FEEL it. In my bones. Anger, sadness, jealousy, and resentment are all committed for the stay. They've become long term residents who leave to do their daily activities, but come knocking back on the door come dinnertime. To try to keep them at bay is fruitless. To pretend they don't exist is unnatural. Even though its a choice to be here, these emotions are going to stop in to raid my fridge. It's okay. I get it. Then, there are the other emotions that are harder to pinpoint. Gratitude. Solidarity. Community. Solidarity and community because there are just no words that need to be said....people take care of each other when there are deployments. Nobody knows how you feel more than the woman standing next to you, and she has your back. And the gratitude...that comes because you know that complacency cannot exist in a relationship with as many ups and downs and unexpected turns as the one the ARMY gives you.

I wanted him to hug me and wipe away my tears. I wanted him to make me a cup of coffee and give me some good conversation, to validate my feelings of loss over a man I barely know. I wanted him to hold me tonight in the crisp autumn air. Let one of those other men leave their families behind, tonight let him be the one here to share an ice cream cone with me.

But it doesn't work that way.

Soon, he'll be under lights and wires with me. And it will be someone else's turn. We all sacrifice, we all learn to self-soothe. We all learn who we are in the absence of one who can hold us when we hurt. Sometimes, we look in the mirror and we don't like what we see. But sometimes....we realize that we are built of more solid stuff than we thought.