Today I cleaned the kitchen. This isn’t *that* shocking, I keep a relatively clean house, only because when my house is cluttered my head feels cluttered. But this morning, I had no intention of cleaning. When you live apart for half a year, or, say, more than half of the past 3 years, or huge chunks of an entire 14 year marriage, sometimes big things happen. Sometimes a couple grows apart, someone is unfaithful, someone wants to leave, can’t wait anymore or is just plain done. But other times, other times none of those things happen. You are still very much in love. You’ve never had the time, energy or even the smallest interest in an affair. You’re in this for life Instead something else creeps up when you don’t expect it. Turns out I got really comfortable alone. I made my own choices, my own decisions. If I wanted to leave at 8pm and go shopping, or skip the gym in the morning, or make grilled cheese for dinner all week, no one was there to say anything. Then he is home and I resent it. He is in my space. He has a voice in my decisions. He speaks up and sometimes he says things I don’t want to know or make judgements I am not interested in hearing. So things are tense. Adjusting is hard. I’m not fun to live with, and sometimes that means neither is he. Fuses are short. Sometimes one of us pushes it too far. This morning it was Dh, but that doesn’t mean it’s never me. It just wasn’t me this time. When both of us went to work this morning neither…
This week, Dh gets a new medal. It’s one every soldier gets, just for showing up for 12 years. Dh has 15.5 years in, but I just assumed it was like high school, it just takes some people a little longer to get there. Okay, no it’s actually just the army who occasionally forgets about things. Especially if no one reminds them…. but it’s more fun to explain it the other way. Now, if I was to give you a detailed list of the people who care about Dh’s medals, it would look like this: 1. Me. …. I know. It’s extensive. The truth is, Dh doesn’t much concern himself with what medals he has. It doesn’t bother him that with 4 deployments, he has a total of 2 medals on his chest. It doesn’t bother him that he’s less than 2 weeks from that 2nd bar on his Afghanistan medal, so he will forever look like he’s done less time there than he has. Or that he’s been home months from his 4th deployment and isn’t holding his breath that he’ll see that medal anytime soon. And when he stands on Remembrance Day next to a soldier who commands all the civilian attention due to a rack of medals that actually points to much less experience than Dh has, instead of bitter he’s mostly just happy he’s deflected any attention. In fact, he completely laughed it off when on his 3rd deployment to Afghanistan they gave him a camera to take pictures of the medals ceremony, because he already had the medal and they had…
When I was young, my parents would drag me in the early morning on November 11th to the Legion, where we would sit for the Remembrance Day ceremony. At the beginning of the service, they would dim the lights and play a soundtrack of a battle. You’d hear the bombing, the whistle of incoming fire, the yelling of orders and the screams of pain. As a child it was both sobering and terrifying. As I grew I felt like I understood. I respected and appreciated the battles that had been fought for my freedom. I couldn’t have known then that I would marry a man who would deploy over and over to his own generation’s war. But I certainly felt that I grasped as best a civilian can, the reality that those before had fought and died for eveything I took for granted here. But that understanding, it felt far removed from any real life person. Though I had 3 grandparents who enlisted and served during WWII, I didn’t really connect who they were with what I knew had been experienced. I definately never equated a war veteran with the man who told us jokes, bounced us on his knee and stuck out his teeth at us. This is my Poppa. He was born in Montreal to British immigrants on May 31st, 1920. At age 15 he got a job with United Shoe Machinery. He worked there for 46 years, volunteering to take 4 years off in 1941 to go fight as a Gunner for the Allies in WWII. As a child it was hard to see my Poppa as a veteran. But this week as I prepared his memorial service, I spent my evenings reading histories of his war and his…
(Before we start here, I just want to mention that this is me, being honest. It’s my narrative. My voice in my head that, like many women, tells me what it doesn’t like about me. It’s not a judgement on anyone else, and it’s not meant to give a standard to anyone. My guess in writing it is that, regardless of our different sizes, many woman have this same conversation with themselves. This is mine.) This deployment I put on some weight. I ate more than usual. I had to change gyms and with that my routine for exercise changed. I was working on top of parenting and I didn’t make the time for meal prep and planning as I usually do. All those excuses to say that these last 6 months I just didn’t make exercise and healthy eating as much of a priority as I have before. So even though I usually lose weight when he is away, I gained. Not a lot, but enough that I look a little different. So for the last month or so, that’s been all I’ve seen. In fact, in my eyes, that’s been all I’ve accomplished. I look at the little muffin top and that’s all I have used to sum up months and months of my life. I didn’t get it together enough to keep that under control. I failed. I have measured the success of my accomplishments this deployment on the size of my stomach roll and nothing else. I’ve looked at pictures where I’ve been speaking or working and all I…
Here in my house, pity parties are not allowed to last the night. Sure, it’s okay sometimes to sit with your glass of wine and your bag ‘o chocolate and moan because you’re doing it on your own again, or because you’re little family won’t be complete at Christmas, or because not one child will have dad home for their birthday this year….. but then you pick your bloated, wine filled ass off that couch and you pull yourself together. Life moves on. And sometimes pulling yourself together just involves enough energy for yoga pants and wiping the grime from the toilet before someone thinks there’s a frat house using your bathroom. But it’s still progress. In my house, we move forward because experience has taught me nothing gets better if you’re waiting for the ideal moment to try. So last fall when Dh left I decided we wouldn’t be sitting on our butt waiting for community to magically appear and make this 4th deployment easier. We were going to make community. Inspired by Sarah Smiley and her book, we started our Invitations Deployment Project. Each Sunday, we invite someone new for dinner. Each Sunday, we have a new chance to expand our community. Tonight’s dinner was on the road. It was getting harder to book things when our house is on the market, and so we decided to go somewhere that we knew we couldn’t get them to come to us: the firehall! After a few emails they agreed to let the crazy lady and her kids bring ham dinner over, and so after cleaning up for a showing and leaving the place smelling like the ham I had in the slow cooker, we packed it all…
A few weeks, maybe days after Dh left I found these bowls. My kitchenware is eclectic. I don’t have a set, instead I have bowls and plates and mugs that I chose separately. For Dh’s sake I chose all the same bowls, all the same plates… but the mugs don’t match the dinner plates, and nothing matches the desert bowls. So I’m always on the hunt for ones that I like. And back in October, I found these ones. Dark colored with a big red flower on each, they match the colors of my great room and so I added them to the collection. That was 6 months ago. They are now part of my routine, they hold my breakfast oatmeal and soup for dinner. They have a place in the cupboard. They fit in here now. It’s down to days/weeks now before Dh will return. It occurs to me this morning he’s never seen these bowls. And I have never told him about them. Why would I? Occasional rushed phone calls and emails that share the more important information over 6 months, it’s just one of those things that doesn’t come up. And yet how strange it must be to return home and see them there, in a space they weren’t before, part of a routine that is no longer familiar. The media often paints reintegration as a terrifying balance of happiness and rage, shows like Homeland reach to the extreme and other movies with returning soldiers often focus on panic attacks,anger, fear. There’s huge issues that certainly happen, confronting infidelity, financial misuse, PTSD, traumatic physical injury. Dramatic scenes play out on the soldier’s…
April is the month of the Military Child. I mean, there’s a month for everything, right? So why not one for them? Let me start off by saying that kids in any circumstance, are special. Farmer’s kids are amazingly resilient at sleeping in combine’s come harvest time. First Responder’s kids spend nights worrying about dad every time they hear a siren. Pastor’s kids get dragged to every single church potluck and hugged by strangers. And kids who’s parent’s work in banks, in fertilizer plants, in prisons and in offices, they have all learned very special ways to adapt to their own life. But I have Military Kids. So that’s what this is about. When April comes around, I see quite a few posts going around the social media world, and they start like this: ‘Your average military brat…..’. And I think… Is there an average military child? Some kids, like my husband, will move 5 or 10 times in their life. Across the country and across the world, they will watch the trucks pack up their life and they will make new friends and learn what TV shows are cool in which crowds. They will adapt to different playgrounds and different teachers. Sometimes they will even adapt to a different language. And other military kids, they will only move once. Or not at all. Some military kids will say ‘See You Later’ and watch dad’s ship sail out of sight. Some will say goodbye in a cramped room and watch the bus pull away. Some will say goodbye while dad heads to war. Some will say goodbye when mom heads on training exercise. Some will…
Here in my house, pity parties are not allowed to last the night. Sure, it’s okay sometimes to sit with your glass of wine and your bag ‘o chocolate and moan because you’re doing it on your own again, or because you’re little family won’t be complete at Christmas, or because not one child will have dad home for their birthday this year….. but then you pick your bloated, wine filled ass off that couch and you pull yourself together. Life moves on. And sometimes pulling yourself together just involves enough energy for yoga pants and wiping the grime from the toilet before someone thinks there’s a frat house using your bathroom. But it’s still progress. In my house, we move forward because experience has taught me nothing gets better if you’re waiting for the ideal moment to try. So last fall when Dh left I decided we wouldn’t be sitting on our butt waiting for community to magically appear and make this 4th deployment easier. We were going to make community. Inspired by Sarah Smiley and her book, we started our Invitations Deployment Project. Each Sunday, we invite someone new for dinner. Each Sunday, we have a new chance to expand our community. You can see previous months here: https://www.sheisfierce.net/deployment-project/ Well, as Easter approached we didn’t have a dinner lined up as most people had family plans. That’s when I found the “Meet a Muslim” project and signed our family up. I was contacted by Noor Ul Sabah and Tahir Ahmed Mirza and were invited to have dinner with their family Easter Sunday. He had not realized what day that was since it wouldn’t be part of…
Usually when I’m asked to speak somewhere or write something, it’s to give insight into the lives of Canadian Forces families to a culture that doesn’t know a whole lot about them. Or what they do know, they see on the news or on Lifetime, a jaded, spun and less than realistic portrayal of a life. Many many days, the military plays very little role in my day to day activities. I get up, I go to a gym in my (civilian) community. I get my kids off to (a civilian run) school. I go to work. I happen to work on the base part time, so that part is a little skewed. But then I come home. I take my kids to Jiu Jitsu at another off base gym. I clean up and watch Netflix. I start over. So while the undertones of my life have been set by my spouse’s employment (I live where we were told, not where we choose. I sleep alone though I’ve been married 14 years), for those mundane daily activities we’re not any different. We’re average. My spouse, though in a combat trade and on his 4th deployment, has never been wounded, emotionally or physically. We walk through life like everyone else. Except we don’t. Not always. And there are times of year where the military stops being one of those quiet sideline participants and starts screaming for center stage like a tantrum throwing toddler. That’s the season of life we are in now. And I could yell from the rooftops that the military is ‘just a…
I have always wanted to work in social services. Ever since I was a kid, I can remember wanting to be a ‘helper’. Like Lucy on Charlie Brown with her Psychiatrist booth, I figured I would be good at it from the beginning. And that’s how at 20 I found myself behind a woman almost twice my age, washing the blood off her back and legs that had been left there by a John unwilling to accept the limitations of her services. He had carved words into her and thrown her from his car. I bolted to her when she arrived back at the shelter and she held up her hands. ” no! I’m positive (for HIV and HepC). Not you Kim. You’re too young to touch it.” I had assured her I had my gloves. She of course didn’t want to answer questions at the hospital so I cleaned her up. And behind her while I gently wiped the ragged shallow cuts, tears spilled down my cheek knowing the next day I would see her leave back out there. Real poverty, real addiction, it’s messy and stark and heartbreaking. But I am fairly practical and I’m not much of a cryer. Over the years I became less so. I am still a helper in my heart though, it’s why I took up social work. I’ve worked at shelters and as a child supporter with children’s aid. I’ve worked in harm reduction for pregnant addicts, volunteered at soup kitchens and with exploited women’s groups. I’m no expert by any means but I…
