June 1987

As soon as I saw her enter the house with her arms full of bags, I knew there was fun to be had.   She placed the bags on the kitchen floor and began unloading the groceries.  My sister and I would peek into the bags looking at the colorful boxes and asking what she had gotten for us.  We looked for our favorite cereals and drinks and smiling triumphantly if we found ourselves the victors of discovering a great prize.  Plastic bags covered the floor, but we waited for the coveted paper bags to be empties so that we could crawl into them and hide.  Usually there was only one paper bag to carry the bread and eggs, but if we were lucky there were two: one for each of us.  We were used to sharing though and since I was the youngest I usually got to go first.  I remember crawling around on the brown linoleum floor waiting until we were able to claim the bag as our own.   Although the process of getting into the bag seemed easy enough, I often had a hard time crawling in and would ask for my mom to put me in the bag.  The dim yellow lights of the kitchen vanished to darkness.  The smell of the thick brown paper enveloped me and I laughed with joy because I knew I was well hidden since I could no longer see anyone.  After a few second I would tire of the loneliness of my shelter and lift my head out over the rim to expose my eyes, making eye contact with either my sister or my mom before I retreated back into my hole like a prairie dog. Once my turn was up I would push myself forward, toppling the bag and rolling out onto the floor as I waited for my sister to play in a similar fashion.  If we were lucky, the bag would hold up through multiple turns, but usually once was all we got before our paper fortress was nothing more than brown paper.

Body Part

topic #2: pick a part on your body (inside or out) and describe it in great detail...we will see if we can guess the body part on each other's posts :)

No one ever seems to notice me, just part of a group.  When I am noticed I am usually criticized for being too long, crooked or chubby.  I may not seem important, but if you lost me, you would be thrown off balance.  I know; I know I am pretty small, but I am always trying to get your attention even if it means I have to throw myself out at inanimate object for you to feel me.   I may seem the runt, but I do my part.  Only a couple of people recognize me, usually it’s my companions who are adorned with rings.  People are always taking me for granted; mushing me in tight places that were too small to begin with. I bet you won’t even guess what body part I am because I am so overlooked.

First prompt: word poem

Tpoic: Grab the nearest book to you (not a children's book) and pick ten random words. Now write a poem using these words. Make sure and underline the random words

Punishing*

Overstepping*

Deviant*

Yielding*

Dimensional*

Coupling*

Crayons*

Cloistered*

Reverently*

Turmoil*

Love is multi-dimensional;

Yielding secrets of what we are composed of-

Reverently overstepping convention into ourselves.

To some it is deviant, punishing themselves unknowingly-

These few fester and sink in turmoil.

But beyond oneself is a coupling…a sundry of attributes,

emotions and experiences cloistered together waiting to be attained.

Crayons of color for our soul.

I wrote this last year while my husband was deployed to Afghanistan, but still hold sjust as true:

As a sixteen year old junior in high school I didn’t realize how one day would shape the rest of my life.  I didn’t know then that what had happened would become the life I was to be a part of.  I didn’t understand its true significance.  Like others who watched the planes fly into the New York Coty Trade Centers, I had a hard time processing what was going on.  Why were they saying we were under attack?  Who was attacking us?  Did this mean war?  Why were civilians targeted?  Why? Why? Why?

                Although it has been (ten) years I still remember everything about that day.  I remember getting the news about a plane hitting the tower before the first bell rang at 7:20 A.M.  I remember trying to do math as the TV remained on, but muted in the corner constantly drawing my attention as news bulletins and updated flashed across the screen and I remember the gasp and the deadly silence of the class when the second plane hit.  The bells still rang and my day went on, but classes didn’t. 

                Second hour Spanish class I was lucky enough to sit next to my best friend Zach.  My teacher said there was no way she could teach when our nation was in such a crises and the whole hour I remember Zach and I sat hand in hand as we watched the towers fall.  I cried; we all cried.  It was so sad to know the thousands who perished.  It hurt hearing people frantically calling into the news stations searching for their loved ones.  It hurt because the safety our nation had always felt had been destroyed within a couple of hours.

                Classes crept by and the halls were filled with people crying for people they knew in New York.  As word hit that another plane had hit the Pentagon there was no debating that this was indeed an attack.  Who would do this to us though?  Teachers tried to comfort us, but they were just as disoriented as the rest of us.  No one had answers and no one knew what to do.

                (Ten) years have elapsed and that tragic day has fallen from the minds of many.  What was so catastrophic and unexplainable had to many people become just another story for the text book.  On the anniversary the hero’s and fallen are remembered, but it is now talked about as if it had happened decades ago.  As if we were not still fighting the same war, the war my husband is now in Afghanistan fighting for.  I know (ten) years before I never realized how personally involved I would become in all of this.  How close this war would touch my heart.

(Ten) years later and I still don’t have any new answers, just new information as my husband writes, “I can’t help but question why we are here.  I know we are trying to help these people gain freedom and a better life, but they hate us.  They hate what we stand for.  They hate what we believe in…then I think of all the innocents that will ultimately be helped by us and I am ashamed for thinking of the easy way out.”  Nine years later and we still don’t know who is friend and who is foe as he continues in a different letter, “It is a land destitute of joy.  It’s a place of heat, pain, and sorrow.  The children are raised on lies of hatred and anger and the adults thrive off of death and terror.  We’ve come to this place to help build it up, to try and give these people a boost to live happier more fulfilling lives and they smile and give thanks and as soon as we start to walk away they continue to make instruments of our destruction.”

I never would have guessed that the sixteen year old girl watching these images would become the wife of a soldier who fought to protect my freedom.   Married to a man who fought to protect the countries freedom and to secure a safety we lost on September 11, 2001.  My husband is my hero and an honorable man because although he sometimes cannot see his contributions to a definite outcome, he believes in what he is doing, which is why he has pledges his life to the United States Army.  

This September 11^th is very different for me as I realized more acutely that there has been more blood spilt that just on that fateful day and a couple of weeks ago I feared my husband’s name would be added to the list of those who dies fighting for this cause when he was wounded.  As he says though, he still has “fight left and a work to do” and he excitedly returned to duty as soon as he recovered. 

I never would have imagined how long this war would last and how much it affects each and every one of us whether we realize it or not, so I beseech each of us to recognize the war that still goes on around us and to remember to give the reverence and respect for those who will never return home to their family because of terrorists.

I'm Pregnant, but shhhh don't tell anyone yet; I only just found out!

So to those of you that actually follow my blog, you already know this is a journal for me, so in keeping true to myself I am excited to share with you some very exciting news that I have been dying to write about. Even though this news is early and I am not posting it anywhere else I felt my journal needed to be suplamented :).  I have a ten month old son who has blessed our family.  You see it took three years to conceive him.  I had been told I couldn’t have children so his birth was nothing short of miraculous.  My husband and I knew we wanted a large family and with his next deployment already scheduled we wanted to try and conceive again so that he would be home for it this time.  Although we were both hopeful, we feared it would be just as difficult to conceive again.  Yesterday, I found out I was pregnant after only two months of trying.  My elation is indescribable!  This means my husband will be here for my pregnancy and the first 3-4 months of life before he has to deploy to Afghanistan again.  We couldn’t have planned it any more perfectly.  I was so excited to tell him so yesterday as soon as I found out, I went to Walmart and bought an “I’m the big brother” shirt for my son.  I then went to the mall to make a custom shirt for myself that said “new recruit” with an arrow pointing to my belly.  I made plans to meet my husband on post for lunch.

                As soon as I saw him my heart started beating a mile a minute wondering when he would notice.  As we got out of the car I realized my son’s diaper had overflowed and my husband offered to change it.  I took picture after picture thinking he would notice my son’s shirt, but it went unnoticed.  We started in on our burgers when I noticed my husband eyes on me.  I saw the wheels in his head working as he looked up from my shirt and asked, “Really? (short pause) Really (said in a high excited voice)?”  I told him to look at our son’s shirt (which gave me time to get the camera out again) and caught his excited happy smile

New Goal

So I haven’t posted in almost a week because I have been feeling pretty low emotionally.  I felt as if I was on the verge of tears and everything seemed to irritate me.  I was overly cynical and feeling a little worthless; pretty much I was depressed.  My sweet husband has been so patient with me trying extra hard to put a smile on my face and slowly over the days I have felt this burden slowly leave, leaving me feeling lighter and more myself.  The reason I am posting this for viewing is for two reason, and these are the two reasons I feel I am more myself.  Let me explain.  While I was in this deep funk, I spent extra time doing the things that help relax me: which is mostly crocheting.  When I had finished what I was working on I sent it off to a friend.  I just got word from her on how much it meant to her and I couldn’t help but feel valuable, appreciated and validated in who I was and what I did (something us mothers don’t always receive from our children).  Honestly, I hadn’t thought it much of a sacrifice to send the gift and I felt edified in at least thinking of someone else other than myself for a short while during those somber days.  So really in this convoluted paragraph all I am really trying to say is remember to serve someone today and also to compliment or recognize someone and it will surprise you how well you will feel after you get outside yourself.  I have a new goal of trying to reach out to someone once week in some sort of service so that I might become an active participant in my life as well as those around me.  I will post about my experiences if I feel they have inspired or taught me something.  May I encourage all to do the same! J