Choice and Accountability

Solidly in the latter part of my thirties, I feel maybe it’s time to tackle this subject.  Growing up in an LDS home, there is an organization for the girls ages 12-18 referred to as Young Women.  The spiritual study is rooted in the Young Women Values.  They are:  Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue.  They are values taught to help build the foundation of what will become a good woman, wife, mother, friend, and sister.  Now, I have not been an active participant in any organized religion for going on 20 years.  However, those roots were planted young and many of them remain today despite routine church attendance.  The one value that has always struck strongly with me is Choice and Accountability. 

Honestly, when I was a kid, those words were just recited every Sunday.  They weren’t verbs until I grew up and acknowledged how truly important those characteristics to me in those with whom I interact and bond with.  When you look at that short list, it seems pretty simple to see why LDS young girls are taught about these attributes.  It is a list of values that when truly applied to as much of a person’s erred life, can really have a lot of joy and success.  Choice and accountability, for me, should be listed last.  When you evaluate the choices you’ve made in your day, are you including your personal responsibility in those actions?

Have you ever considered how many actions have been taken in your lives that were truly a choice?  We often tell ourselves, “I had to.”  How true is that when you break down some raw and honest truth?  There are absolutely things that happen to us.  Without debate from me, I will agree that shit truly happens.  We can’t control the choices others take.  We can’t control a weather system.  We can’t control the literal acts of God that take place.  But…here’s the big but:  We choose how it impacts our lives.  So, when you break things down, life is literally the consequences of choice after choice after choice.

These days, there seems to be a lot of reasons why a person can’t or can do something.  There is a magical force, apparently, that removes all choice from a lot of people.  It’s weird for me to witness.  When a person says, “I can’t stop being angry because of whatever…” I am hearing one thing.  “I am making a decision to stay angry.”  Is it hard to control the way our emotional and complicated minds and hearts do?  Absolutely!  It’s sometimes the hardest thing in the world to control the emotions.  There is an entire industry of pharmaceuticals dedicated to helping that issue.  I will admit that there are chemical imbalances that literally take away an individuals ability to control certain things.  Those are the circumstances that won’t apply to my philosophy.

We are very quick to justify the outcomes of an individual based on where they come from.  The neighborhood they grew up, the way their parents treated them, the quality of their education, the amount of income and lifestyle they had, etc. all contribute to what a person becomes in their adulthood.  It’s almost like a predisposition damning or exalting a person.  I don’t believe that at all.  Because, at some point in a person’s life, they have the ability to choose the path they want to be on. 

I was sexually molested when I was 10 years old.  It changed me.  A lot.  At a very young age I was introduced to a context of relationships I was not mature enough to comprehend.  It required some therapy.  There have been times I wish I had stayed in therapy for a while longer than I did.  During the same timeframe of the assault, I was living in a home with a very abusive father.  Feeling safe was something I lost at a very young age.  It forced me to figure out how to self-preserve young.  Why that was the way I reacted to such trauma I believe is a nature element of who I am.  Resiliency is something I have always had.

My grades didn’t ever suffer.  There was never any outside evidence that I had gone through some pretty ugly stuff before I was even 14 years old.  People on the outside looking in on my life didn’t see any kind of distress.  I had a lot of friends.  I had a good character.  I didn’t act out or misbehave any significant way to indicate a kid in pain or suffering.  My faith in my religion remained strong and probably a contributing factor to my resilience. 

Only those very close to me have ever even known these truths about me.  The art of the façade is also a trait I have grown to really know.  I have put myself together for the masses and pushed towards whatever I was pushing towards.  Many times I had no idea where I was going, but it was at least some form of forward.

I have a long list of reasons why I should not be successful.  There are hours of stories to justify a severe mental break in which I never recover.  When I was 28 years old and held a lifeless baby in my hands, the pivot of my path headed straight for that fate.  It wasn’t until I went to a therapist, after terrifying thoughts of suicide, that I figured it all out.  I had made a choice at a point in my life and that current state of my mental faculties was the accountability I violently faced.

I walked out of that therapy office with the decision to take control of my emotions and NEVER let them get control of me again.  I did a major overhaul on my perspective.  It took me a few more years to get ultimately in the place I needed and wanted to be.  I would say about five years after that moment, was when I could say that I had successfully established a realistic grip on the fact that the way I reacted to situations was solely on my shoulders.

I have not become immune to crap situations.  I still get into circumstances that make me frustrated and upset.  But, the choices I make in reaction to my interactions with the world are thought out with the accountability attached.  Meaning, I make every effort to not make a decision without being willing to accept the consequences fully of my actions. If I use angry words, I accept the outcome of those words.  If I get hurt, I choose how long I am willing to allow that pain to resonate and what I permit it to affect.

At no point in my adult life, have I thought about letting the bad things that have happened to me control me.  They happened.  They have hurt.  They have healed.  They have shaped who I am but not defined who I am.  The definition of who I am is directly related to the choices I make and the accountability I take in those choices.  Who I am is not where I came from.  I don’t use those shit situations as an excuse to behave badly or stop pursuing my self-satisfaction.

It sucks that it took me so many years to figure out just how much power the choices I make have on so much.  The reason I felt compelled to share this now, is that I see a lot of people thinking they don’t have the ability to make their life better because they are still choosing to hold onto the pain.  If you’re one of those people, step back and really investigate the importance of the power you are allowing to give up to past mistakes, poor decisions, people who have hurt you, or bad things that have happened to you.  Make the apologies you need to.  Give the forgiveness to whomever or whatever has offended you.  Take the necessary accountability to repair damage you have done so you can forgive yourself.

No real success story is without challenge.  Choose to stop being angry, sad, depressed, lonely, afraid, etc.  Choose to not be your mother or father.  Choose to educate yourself.  Choose to be the best version of yourself you can possibly be.  Choose to change a predetermined idea of who you think you are or should be.  You are the only one who can make those choices.  Make the choices that defy stereotypes. 

Beautifully Sad

With this incredible joy that I’ve been experiencing, I am also adapting to a great many changes in my routines and lifestyle.  Since Tim and I got married, we have been through a whirlwind of adjustments and uncertainties.  The first question anyone asks me when I inform people that my husband is currently deployed is, “Where are you guys going to live when he gets home.”  This subject in particular is very complicated and difficult to answer.  I have an answer, it’s just not what we both would ideally like to acknowledge as the answer.  We will be more than likely living apart until he retires.

Finding my soulmate in the vessel of a soldier has come with a level of adaptation that I have not experienced to this degree.  He has never lived in the same town as me.  He was here temporarily for school (or as I like to think of it: to meet me).  We have been somewhat accustomed to having a long distance relationship.  We have traveled many miles to see each other over the past year.  When we found out he would be going OCONUS, it introduced us to a completely new level of emotions.

I read a lot.  I surfed blogs of military wives’ accounts of their deployment experiences.  I read through several different lists of coping mechanisms to combat the struggle with loneliness.  There was a common word used throughout all perspectives:  communication.  I believe that went without saying.  If Tim and I stopped talking to each other while he was gone, we would have to reintroduce ourselves to each other on the other end of the deployment.  We promised to keep each other deeply informed of our day-to-day experiences. 

The first week was a state of numbness.  I wrote avidly in my “deployment journal” and accounted all the thoughts my mind wove throughout the day.  The intent of this journal is to hand it to him when he comes home.  The things I don’t say to him while we’re on the phone/video chat, he can read when the situation is less helpless.  I put into place a very strong support system to help me through the transition.  I made promises to keep him positive and light when he called.  I wanted to make sure he never felt obligated to call me, but felt enthused to call me because I was a source of positivity for him to look forward to. 

I expected this to be hard.  There was no doubt in my mind I would ache being apart for nine months.  We talked a lot before he finally shipped out.  I cried uncontrollably for a while once the time officially started.  We have been blessed with frequent opportunity to communicate.  Twice a day, at least, we are able to either see each other, text, email, or talk on the phone.  I have been surprised at the availability of contact.  Thus, we have been very spoiled.  I have come to expect to hear from him at a certain time.  It has been a security blanket that has kept my mind from wandering too deeply into the dark and scary places I can get worrying about his safety.

I think it took us both by surprise just how much being away from each other hurt.  It wasn’t the kind of pain we were used to feeling every time we parted ways.  This pain has been the debilitating kind that has brought us both to our knees and made us both weep.  We didn’t expect to miss each other this much.  I well up with tears all the time just missing him.  Some days are easier than others, depending on the level of distraction the day provides.

There was an expectation I had that I would at some point during this separation, begin to feel somewhat complacent to his absence and perhaps the pain of his being gone would slip into a monotonous day that I could numbly advance through.  I miss him more every day.  There has been zero numbness.  Not a single moment has passed since he’s been gone that I have felt anything like comfort being without him.  This, I’m learning is the hard life of a military wife.  The selfish parts of me, shout jubilations that his retirement is very near.  This is more than likely his last deployment and we won’t have to go through this again.  Though I would still appreciate the numbness to kick in, it’s also a beautiful manifestation of just how deeply I need him.

We are half way through the duration of this agony.  I am getting more and more anxious about the moment I get to hold his face in my hands again.  I daydream every day about running and jumping into his arms.  Watching reunion videos of soldiers coming home to their families has always pulled at my heart and tugged a tear or five out of these stubborn eyes.  When I see them now, I avoid those videos because I bawl like a child without their pacifier.  We both talk about how good it’s going to feel to be together again.  Before this deployment, the longest we had gone without seeing each other was 11 days.  This will have been 270 once he’s home.

What I have learned about this time has been intense.  I have learned how to be completely open with him.  Not that I lack the ability to fully disclose, but I’m talking to him with intent.  I’m writing in his journal with purpose.  I’m asking him questions that force more than a yes or no answer.  I have learned how to tell exactly when he’s off.  This has no doubt made us stronger.  He is my best friend.  I feel giddy to talk to him each and every day.  I get butterflies like a teenage girl crushing on the quarterback whenever I see his face.  This deployment has taught me just how intensely I love this man.

Depression has for sure seeped in and taken a chokehold to the sadness I’m feeling missing him.  When I first recognized depression was slipping in, I looked at this depression with almost a fondness.  I have learned that I am allowed to be depressed missing my husband.  I know with 100% certainty that all these feelings of woe are going to evaporate the moment I see him safely home.  I recognize that I wouldn’t be able to feel this incomplete if I didn’t know that he completes me.  My tongue has never tasted something quite this bittersweet.  To miss him this much is a testament to how much I love him.  So, I lay in bed at night and feel beautifully sad knowing that I have the man I’ve wanted all my life and I just have to be patient for a little while longer.

A Girl Walks Into a Bar

I’m happy.  Slap it on a billboard, put it on I-10, and let the world know, Emma is happy.  I’m the kind of happy that wakes me up giggling.  I’m the kind of happy that puts a twinkle in my eye and better posture in my step.  This isn’t just plain old, run of the mill, happy ending happy.  This is pure joy.  The way I feel today is only matched by the feeling I had when I held each of my children for the first time.  NEVER before, have I known this kind of joy.  This intense emotional experience has had such a monumental impact on my life, that it’s time you read about it.

When I first started writing this blog, it was more selfish than anything.  It has been a safe place for me to sound off about the trials and triumphs life has presented me over the years.  When I read back on them, there is a resounding foundation in each of them.  The battle.  It is this blog that I have been yearning to write.  Writing before now, has been a source for me to whine, lament, openly share my struggle, and if you’ve paid attention…post the hope for better and the baby steps of progress I’ve made.  With each one, there has been the current of depression and the very real fight I have had to keep it at bay. 

Every time I started to write a new entry, I recognized that there was mostly some kind of crises taking place that was challenging any progress I had made.  Death, divorce, kids, disappointment, blah, blah, blah.  Tear jerking experiences and honestly just a lot of trauma that I have gone through.  There were many times, if not every time, that I wished I was writing about something purely joy filled.  I wanted to write to the audience about the fact that I had truly overcome depression, solidly.  But, I couldn’t.  I was still depressed!

The months leading to the big change in my life, were filled with pivots.  I had reached a point of financial security that made me feel comfortable.  In the workplace, I had earned some level of respect and trust and was promoted for it.  The relationship I had with my boys was solid, but my daughter and I were struggling.  Honestly, the relationship with her was the most difficult thing in my life at that time.  The merry-go-round of bullshit I couldn’t seem to fully jump off of was becoming, finally, annoying enough to discontinue.  One day, I will write a full disclosure op-ed piece about the damaging effects of a narcissist.  All-in-all, I was in a very good place.  I felt secure and independent.  The ability to walk away from things I truly couldn’t control was becoming easier and thus allowing me to move freely about.

I walked into Big Nose Kate’s that night, like I do every night of a gig.  I scan the room and assess the clientele.  I start at the front of the bar and work my eyes through and just gaze.  I stopped at the end, a guy in a snug white t-shirt…whoa…I need to see the front.  I made my way through to the stage to meet my band, and checked out t-shirt guy.  Double whoa!  I proceeded to flirt from the stage.  I sang my heart out.  I made eye contact.  He gave me nothing.  Not a single symptom of mutual attraction.  Humph!  I took a break outside and stretched my legs.  T-shirt guy came out with his two buddies.

“Crap, they’re leaving.” I thought, but stayed put on the bench.

The three of them walked over to me and started the typical small talk with a girl in the band.  T-shirt guy made eye contact finally and smiled.  So good looking.  I found out they were all at the Army base for training and were leaving at the end of the week. 

**I have had a pretty strict rule.  I don’t date guys in the military.  Obvious reasons.  They leave.  I live here, they leave.***

As they were leaving, T-shirt guy gave me a hug, kissed me on the cheek, complimented my voice, and told me I was gorgeous.  WHAT?!  He started to walk away and somewhere inside me, perhaps sloshing with the Crown Royal, the ability to utter the following words: “You should give me your number.”  He looked surprised!  He may have even asked me, “Really?”  He took out his phone, which was cute, because I asked him for his number.  But, I realized I didn’t have my phone on me, so I gave him mine.  He asked me what I was doing after my gig to which I replied, “You tell me.”

He took his friends home, he was the designated driver, and came back to Tombstone to hang out.  I still get butterflies when I think about watching him walk back into the bar that night.  He drove for nearly an hour to come back to hang out with me.  I finished my gig and walked over to meet him.  The first thing I said to him was, “I hope you didn’t come back to get laid.  I’m not that girl.”  He smiled and said, “Not at all.”  Over the course of the six hours that followed, I knew I was in big, big trouble.

His name is Tim.  The more I got to know him, the more I felt like I’ve known him my whole life.  It took only a little bit of time, exchanging stories about our lives, for us to feel completely at ease with each other.  It was incredible how peaceful it was to sit next to him in a booth at IHOP.  I didn’t feel like I needed to elaborate any story or bedazzle my personality.  I was simply able to be myself and it was amazing.  By the time we left IHOP that morning, I was trying to figure out how we could make a long distance relationship work.  I didn’t want him to go anywhere.  He was breaking my rules.  I didn’t care.

I went home that morning and we continued to text each other until the overdose of caffeine wore off.  I have been with him ever since.  We took turns travelling to see each other.  The ten hour drive (one way) to each other’s house was worth it.  Each time we reconnected in person, we knew we were falling in love.  It happened psychotically fast.  We would acknowledge that we knew this was something we wanted, but the pace it was moving both freaked us out and made us comfortable.  When you know, you know.  On July 31, 2016 he asked me to marry him.  He got down on one knee in the living room of my new house and asked me to be his wife.  It was perfect.  He was perfect.

Tim coming into my life and being the man that he is, aligned my planet on the orbit I had desired.  The ferocity of impact sustained by falling in love so fast was proof that I was exactly where I needed to be.  I was ready for him to shake my world up.  He didn’t just shake it, he flipped it.  My mind spun and there were moments of skepticism.  The question of whether this was really what I had wanted or if this was yet another creation of my delusion crept in and tried to dismantle this new found security.  It didn’t take me long to discredit those insecurities.

I was asked, “What’s the rush?”

At first, I didn’t have a very solid answer other than a typical dreamy-eyed girl talking about her boyfriend.  But, as I gave it serious thought, I discovered the exact reason to rush.  This wasn’t the rush to get married at 18 in effort to escape my parents or “do the right thing” because I was pregnant.  There wasn’t a single person telling me what to do.  It was just us.  Through hours and hours of talking with each other, we knew that we gave to each other the things we wanted in a marriage, not just some flippant summer experiment.  He is everything I want in a partner.  His family is incredible and has raised a man who knows how to love.  Even better than knowing how to love, he seems to have been customized to love me.  Why would I want to put off the very feeling I had prayed for?

Because I’m not a naïve 18 year old girl lacking worldly experience, I know how to decipher between the good and the bad.  Because I had been intimately familiar with all the things that are wrong in a relationship, it had put me in an educated position.  Here was this man who treated me like I was the center of his universe.  He is the perfect balance to my personality.  We enjoy the same activities and were engaging in them.  The vulnerability I was feeling was not singular.  He felt just as exposed.  Together we were feeling it all and it was amazing.  I couldn’t marry him fast enough.

I had a very vivid dream one night before we got married.  I remember intensely, the feeling of vulnerability.  Initially, the dream felt terrifying and heartbreaking.  But, as I analyzed the emotional thread than ran through the dream, I realized why it was so terrifying.  Wanting to marry Tim, pushing toward more out of my job field, working daily to provide for my kiddos, finally getting in serious shape, all the joy I had was on me!  I was successful because of my hard work.  No one handed it to me.  As I recognized all the security that I had established in my world, I was ready to bring someone else into it and join our worlds together.  Never in my life had I felt such vulnerability and truly understood just what that meant.

If I was picking the wrong man to join my life, he could destroy so much of my hard work.  What was the most terrifying aspect of that truth?  I had no one to blame but me if it failed.  I saw for the first time that I was in total control of pretty much all the aspects a person can truly control.  Here I was feeling so sound, so content, and ultimately so trusting.  In the moments I realized just how easily he could really set me back if he hurt me, I was comforted knowing that I trusted him implicitly, that he wouldn’t.  This was tsunami revelation for me.

On January 21, 2017 during an absolutely horrible rain storm, I married Tim on the beach, on Tybee Island, GA.  Everyone said, “Its good luck to get married in the rain.  I means you can weather any storm.”  Well, as the clouds around us turned more and more ominous, we smiled and vowed to cherish each other for the rest of forever.  Those first drops of rain came down sideways and straight into my eyes.  The white sand turned dark beige as the rain poured.  If there was ever a metaphor brought to life, it was our wedding day.  I wouldn’t trade that day for anything.  If we could have another ceremony, I would want it exactly the same way.  I married the love of my life and there was nothing getting in the way.  The rain suited our wedding day so perfectly.

Tim has been the catalyst that has launched me into the best version of myself I have ever known.  Because of the love he has introduced me to, I have had the room in my heart to forgive, let go, move on, and truly enjoy all the positive in this beautiful life I’ve been given.  The nature of his heart has taught me to simplify what has seemed so complex.  The way he looks at me has put a posture in my walk that has my spine rejoicing.  He has shown me what it feels like, looks like, and sounds like to be in a love that is healthy.  Which, has made it possible for me to step forward into my remaining challenges with a level of confidence that only comes from the feeling of being truly supported.

Today, my daughter and I have a brand new relationship that is budding into the relationship I have always wanted with her.  What was, was.  What is now, is our future and a bond that is reforming and a love that is going to do nothing but grow.  My two boys are amazing and challenging me.  The challenge is brand new and I’m learning as I go.  What I have now that I didn’t before, is a slightly more stable level of confidence that I’m not going to repeat mistakes.  Tim is bonding with them as best he can, despite our distance.  I am so excited for the dynamic of our little family when he returns.

Life is not going to stop putting things in the way of ease.  But, I have my partner, the kiddos, and the tenacity of a quarterback loaded on steroids, on Super Bowl Sunday, to navigate them.  I am ready and feel adequately supplied with what I need to get through what is ahead with a little more grace and less pain…and god willing, less gray hair added to this coif.  All the lovely clichés of love are mine to enjoy and brag about.  If you see me, you’ll see it.  If you talk to me, you’ll hear it.  If you hold my hand, you’ll feel it. 

…and she lived realistically happy ever after.