The danger in getting involved

 Since we moved to the Fort Carson area, I have mostly kept my distance from family groups and just getting involved in general in anything that required lots of human interaction.  After years of volunteering, I honestly was tired and worn out.  

I still volunteered but it was a little more distant and intentionally staying disconnected from the elements where I volunteered.  Then nine months ago I was asked by a friend from church to make a key fob in memory of a fallen K9 for her daughter, who is a deputy in the local sheriffs department.

It wasn't long before I was receiving more messages about those fobs, as well as a little bit of a startle when another deputy messaged my business page asking for me to call him.  As a friend of the handler of the fallen K9, this deputy was verifying the intentions behind the unintentional fundraiser.  

Fast forward and in the last nine months, I've found myself connected to our local officers in a different way than I ever have been.  From being invited into a group for local law enforcement families to getting to know some of the officers and families, I have seen a glimpse into the lives of those who wear the badge and the families that stand behind them.  

In that same time frame, our community has seen the loss of K9 Jinx, Deputy Andrew Peery and just this week, Officer Julian Becerra.  The community has mourned these losses for the community servants and heroes that they were, but as the outside community - we can sympathize for that Blue Line family, but we will never fully understand the pain they endure in those losses.

This is much the same as the outside viewpoint of the military life, but the difference is that these individuals sacrificed right here in the communities where their families live.  As the events for each of these losses have unfolded, I see those interviewed on the news, those who had an interaction with that individual, but on the backside - it's different.  

The fact is that nine months ago, I should have just stitched some things and moved on, but I had a door opened to a community that I have seen the true blue meaning of family, the joy in the everyday, the pain of not feeling a community supporting you even when you send your loved one out to protect it everyday, the heart of endless caring this 'family' has and heartbreaking devastation of losing someone. 

Today my boys and I wore blue, today we sat behind a police cruiser that's a temporary memorial outside our community police station and we prayed and we cried for an officer gone too soon and a 'family' who is hurting.  I guess my point in all this, is that getting involved is dangerous, being connected means putting yourself out there, but it also means seeing who people are behind an overarching umbrella of a job position.  

Ice cream and wine

    Tonight, I started a downward spiral and am currently 'self-medicating' with ice cream and wine.  Most days I throw myself into homeschooling my kids and my work that I move through days relatively smoothly, but my birthday is this week.  And no, this isn't a 'I'm getting old' post...  I've never had a problem with my age or where I fall in the realm of aging.  My birthday brings up a whole realm of emotions for other reasons.  

    I'll be 41 this week...  twenty years ago was my 21st birthday and the weekend I was raped.  The moment when it felt like things went into an out of control spiral that I feel like I've been trying to correct ever since.  I was raped by someone I had known for years, someone I trusted and someone who I found used that trust to take advantage of people around him.  But I wasn't the first...

 

  After that weekend, I 'unofficially' moved back to my parents' house because staying in my apartment by myself was more than I could handle.  I spent hours at the hospital, then at the police station, then dealt with the being fired, because I worked for his dad, then hours in court and therapy.  And that wasn't the end of it....  given that we had many mutual friends, my support circle quickly dwindled to just a few.  But I spoke up....

    Over the course of the next year, I would spend more time intoxicated than I can even begin to try to remember, I drank the memories away.  I couldn't sleep at night because the memories would constantly flash back, so I drank until I passed out.  Often I would show up work still drunk, not even to the hungover stage.  My boss could have very easily fired me, but she didn't, she worked to try to help.  She didn't cover things up, she pushed me to continue my therapy and continue moving forward.  

    About six months later, I ran into him again at a local bar.  I was still trying to deal things mostly independently.  A bartender friend of mine called the police and reported his probation violation.  He would be on house arrest for the next few weeks, making the comment the day everything was disconnected that 'he was going to take care of the bitch that put him in this position'.  Less than two weeks later, I rolled my car 3.5 times, which they determined was due to tampering.  But I walked away...

    During this time, I allowed myself to get lost in drinking and meaningless hookups - lost in a mix of trying to numb everything and trying to feel something.  

    When I did finally start dating someone again, I thought I chose someone safe - he was older, divorced, had kids.  But I found he was just as dangerous.  He would put me in the hospital and I would end up in jail before all was said and done, because I scratched him when he was strangling me.  

    Fast foward, I would join the Army, deploy twice, be assaulted and harassed by multiple individuals senior ranking to me, get hurt during a mission and be medically retired.  A medical retirement which wasn't what I wanted, but what was needed and the date that happened to fall on my birthday.  

    So hear we are, the weekend prior to my birthday - looking back on twenty years since someone took something that I can't get back, something that started a path that lead me in a destructive direction and could have very easily been the end of me, but it wasn't.  It took awhile, a long while.  I let myself be taken advantage of, I abused myself, I allowed others to abuse me, I didn't value who I was.  

    Today, things are different.  I still mourn that person I was, the carefree person who saw the good in everyone.  But today I'm different, I grew because of the path I was put on and I think that a large part of the reason that I try to contribute within my community is because I know what it's like to be treated like you're worthless - and no one should ever feel that way.  We each have a choice in the situations we find ourselves in, we can blame others and continue in a path of self-destruction OR we can take the bumps and bruises along the way for what they are, lessons to prepare for future bumps in the road.  

    Is tonight a moment of weakness? Yes, but I don't live in this moment.  Occasionally, that trauma rears it's ugly head and I likely won't sleep much for the next couple days.  But then it will pass for the time being and I will continue moving forward with my life, my family, all the things that matter now.  

    That trauma is forever a part of who I am, but it's just that - a PART...  it's not who I am.  We each have a choice in dealing with our past.  It will forever be a PART of who we are, but it doesn't have to be our identity.  I'm a rape survivor, a domestic violence surviver, been arrested, an MST (military sexual trauma) surviver  - but I'm also a veteran, a wife, a mom, a small business owner and a contributing member of my community.  

    I will continue to grow, but I will have my hiccups and moments where things are more overwhelming, but we can't live in those moments.