Day +11: First Day of School

Today was one of the longest of the year, other than the day before my husband came home, the first day of school. After two months of mostly sitting down, part of the difficulty of the day is just standing. I wore a nice dress, the same dress I wore when Chad came home, with relatively comfortable dress sandals, but after standing on hard floors for most of eight hours, my feet feel swollen and bruised.

Coming home emotionally and physically tired with a lot of things to do, I was superbly grateful to have my husband home. He didn't do anything amazing, but he noticed how tired I was. He offered to let me take a break. He made dinner, which while not a gourmet affair tonight, was on the table with minimal effort on my part. He put the baby in her pj's and held her while we said her goodnight prayers.

We didn't get a lot of time together tonight between dishes, mail, parent phone calls we each needed to make, etc., but we are starting to get back into a rhythm. It has been a long time since I came home exhausted and had someone here to be supportive.

Last year, the first day of school was my husband's last night in the country. I knew I would need all of my sick days, so I went to work. I came home exhausted and had to swallow my emotions to be supportive and strong while he packed his last bags for Iraq.

I think I came home the next night, just as tired, sad, and then all alone and cried. I think I spent much of the next few months just trying to survive, begging for help without getting much in the way of actual support. It was probably the second roughest time in my life, being a new mom, single and alone with no family nearby and few friends.

I don't know how I made it, but I did. And I am supremely grateful that at least for now, this year, I get to have him home, safe and sound, loving and kind. I don't know what I would do without him. Even though after a year with him absent, I know I could manage, I know I don't ever want to try. I am crashing hard after this very long first day of school, and am so glad that he is sitting across from me painting decoys, trying to decide if he should go with an African or North American coot even if no one has any idea what he's talking about. I just like watching him be home and excited about his hobbies again. 

Day 283: 10 and 20

This weekend I watched an ABC News Report on their show "What Would You Do?" about abusive relationships. They mentioned that the very first experiment for the show was an adult couple in an obviously physical argument. Only 10% of passersby stopped and offered any form of assistance to the abused woman.

Now, several years later, they did the same experiment with teens. A young man screamed at a young girl, calling her a "whore"along with various other derogatory terms. He grabbed her arms, got in her face, pushed her down onto a bench. Only 20% of passersby stopped to offer assistance.

According to their statistics, 1in 3 girls today will be affected by an abusive relationship or encounter. If that figure doesn't scare you, it should. It scares me. To me it warns me of a future where my daughter will potentially be victimized and reminds me of a past when I was. It also stood out to me because of the student whom was murdered a few weeks ago by her abusive boyfriend.

Why is this number so high? Girls today are bombarded with images on TV and other visual media portraying the current ideal of physical perfection, flawlessly airbrushed and pedestal perfect. I would suspect that many of them look to those images and see themselves as falling very short. I know I do. I can't ever live up to those standards. Even when I was younger, I had too many flaws to ever be considered cover girl material. Somehow these visions make girls feel less valuable or important if they don't meet the standards of a very narrow industry. I don't have a degree in sociology but our society puts a lot of emphasis on having a romantic partner and being "happy". Maybe girls are willing to be with or stay with someone mean or violent rather than be alone. "As long as he loves me, I can't be a complete failure" mentality.

And they generally don't start off abusive. By the time you realize he's abusing you, he's sucked you so far into his twisted world that it is nearly impossible to get out. We all know that most women stay. Very few have the courage to stand up under the abuse and even fewer to leave. Adult women with degrees and brains and successful careers can't stand up and leave most of the time. Of course teenagers who can't see past the next five minutes, who feel more pressure to conform than anyone, would have even more difficulty leaving. They are inundated with messages that they have no worth as human beings unless they look and act a certain way. Abusive men know how to manipulate and charm. They hit and caress with equal skill. It is a quicksand trap to almost everyone. Teen girls with barely formed identity are going to be more vulnerable.

So then why is the number of people who will get involved so low? Why in an age where we know what abuse looks like, we have laws against it in many forms, we have TV movies about its dangers and effects, why do we still walk past and think it is none of our business?

A famous quote says, "The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing."
 I would hazard a guess that many of us have heard this or something similar before. We know that evil tends to be the natural order of things and to prevent it, good must rise up. But we stand idly by and think it is none of our business. We know that the poor girl on the bench is almost physically unable to leave. We should step in. Whether the woman is an adult or child, or a boy or man, abuse is wrong. We need to stop walking past thinking it is someone else's concern.

A little girl won't graduate this year because not enough effort was made to get her away from an abusive boy. Too many others will carry stains on their hearts for years. It is unconscionable that so few of us will take a second to stop to help someone in obvious distress. The one thing the ABC folks were able to show was that once someone stopped to help, many others were willing to jump in as well. All it takes is one good Samaritan to garner help and support for someone being abused. If all you can do is dial 911, it is still something.

Please, let this year be the year you don't walk past someone in danger.

Day 355: Suck it up

Yesterday, a new wife facing her husband's first deployment commented that her mother-in-law (MIL) had told her to "Suck it Up and deal! You signed up for this." She was very upset and frustrated with her MIL. I told her I could relate.

First, my mother-in-law is AWESOME! We <3 her!! But we did have a similar conversation many years ago. It was Chad's second deployment, but my first. We were just engaged and busily planning the wedding. It was one of those days when the weight of missing him just drags me down and the emptiness he leaves in my heart twists and turns inside my stomach like a fear dagger. I don't remember exactly what I said or what she said, but the essence was this is what you signed up for. My son doesn't need to deal with your tears and weakness. You need to be strong for him.

I was taken aback. Here was the one person I expected to understand the worry, fear, longing, love and she was sharp, almost cold to my plea for support. It was one of those comments that stung for a time, but got forgotten. She is very supportive and probably reading this right now so I don't want her to think I am upset, but I have learned a few things along the way, now three deployments into this marriage.

1) After two glasses of wine, don't ask my MIL anything unless you expect the unvarnished truth! 2) Her experience and fears are different than mine. She saw me vulnerable and weak and went straight into momma bear mode. She saw the woman her son loves desperately, has gone over and beyond to propose to and make a life for, being weak. She saw her son's heart breaking when I change my mind about marrying him or marry him and eventually cheat or leave. She saw with her heart and wanted to be sure that I was strong enough to maintain a marriage during the most difficult of times and that I would be strong enough that he could leave me, children, home to go into war without worry. His mind has to be singularly focused on what he is doing or he could put himself or others in danger.

While I still have those days when I need to cry, vent, rage, she now realizes that I need those releases so I can be the strong independent woman her son needs and not lose my mind. While she will never understand exactly what I am feeling during these long stretches of time he is away in danger, I will never fully appreciate her perspective either as a mother fearful for her precious child. We are both here loving and supporting my husband and each other. Military wife/MIL lesson aside, the real lesson is to see things from someone else's vantage point before you get your panties in a wad. Often the view is surprising.