I survived

I saw something this morning this is very true...  It said 'Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I've been through. I said, it's because no matter what, I'm a survivor.  Not a victim.'  I have found on more than one occasion that I have become a victim of a situation, but through each one I have found a new strength, a new faith.  I have learned who my true friends are and those who I could let go of.  Bottom line - I survived....

I survived being raped by someone I had known since I was a kid, someone I had worked with and our families had spent time together.  It was tough, I spent more days crying than anything else, sleep was hard to come by, but I didn't want to get out of bed.  But I survived and I stood my ground by facing him in court.

I survived being beat up by someone I was dating, someone I cared for, someone I thought cared for me, someone who ended up sending me to the ER.  Then because I had scratched him once in the whole situation when he had me pinned down by my throat and was blacking out - he called the cops on me.  I was taken straight from the hospital, arm in a sling and all, to jail.  The judge ended up dismissing my charges.  But I survived and I became a stronger person for it... 

I survived two deployments - granted day to day tasks are sometimes a challenge, I struggle with back pain, with speech and memory issues due to a TBI and being oversensitive to noise and overcautious when I go places due to PTSD.  But each day I get up and face the new day that has been given to me... another day with my husband and my son, another day to share my story and hope that it may help someone. 

Life isn't always going to be easy - in fact, most days it's probably going to be more difficult than we probably planned, but the bottom line - it's not our plan.  We have an opportunity to make the most of each day given to us.  I have survived those past days and although those will always be a part of who I am, they will not control who I can be.

A perfect picture isn't always the picture that's perfect

Earlier today I had a client tell me that she has wished her hair hadn't ruined so many of her and her husband's pre-deployment pictures.  I shared with her a realization that I have come to over the years both with taking pictures and with life just in general.  When we have pictures done, we all hope for that picture perfect moment where the smiles are just right, our hair is exactly in the place, all the kiddos are looking at the camera and smiling their best smiles. 

The reality is that's not how things happen.  Often times those perfect moments may be caught for a split second, but most the time they don't happen at all.  A few hairs, if not a chunk of hair is out of place, the kiddos are looking in twenty different directions or when they are looking at the camera, they have a cheesy smile that is not at all what was envisioned. 

The session this lady had been talking about was a pre-deployment session as her husband is preparing for his first deployment.  From past experience, I have learned that the moments when you need those pictures the most when you are deployed - you appreciate the ones where things weren't perfect, because it reminds you a memory.  It may make you think of a smell or a situation, either way, outside of letters and the occasional phone call, those are what get you through the deployment. 

I'm just as guilty as anyone of trying to make the picture just right, but the short conversation that I had with this lady made me think of my son's session last night.  I had planned on taking him to the park and doing his pictures outside, but he has allergies and they were bothering him - so we ended up doing the studio setting.  He wouldn't let me take his binkie and he wanted to hold his comb.  After it was all said and done, and with a little help from my husband, we got the binkie and the comb away from him and got a few smiles.  But in the midst of the rest of the pictures are him crawling away and trying to climb out of the little Radio Flyer he was in... and you know - that's ok...  Because in a few months when he's walking, I'm going to think back on the days he was crawling and be happy I have those less than planned pictures to hold on to.

Small towns

Small towns often get overlooked because they don't always have all the amenities to offer like bigger towns or cities do.  There is one very large positive about smaller towns, they remember. 

They remember what it's like to be patriotic, they remember to fly the flag and they remember to bring the flags to half staff when an order is to be executed.  They remember that Independence Day isn't just about fireworks.

Last year, we had just arrived back from living overseas for the past five 4 of July holidays.  We had missed the parades and the fireworks.  My hometown is one of those smaller towns and last year we watched at the outpouring of community involvement in the parade and other activities throughout the day to commemorate that day.  This year, we were in another smaller town hours away, but the outpouring was the same. 

Along the streets kids proudly waved the flag and the parade was ongoing.  After the parade was a ceremony done in honor of all veterans.  They actually run their ceremony for five days here, which includes concerts and a car show among other activities.  Events like this is something that bigger towns have gotten away from.  They put on the traditional firework show, but that's the extent of it. 

It was nice to see that some haven't forgotten that the 4th of July is a holiday for celebrating with fireworks, but it's also a holiday to reflect back and salute those who have continued to keep this country free for the last 236 years.  May we never forget those who have served this country and the sacrifices they have made. 

How do you answer a thank you?  Sometimes it's hard especially when it's someone thanking you for your service.  There is the simple 'you're welcome', but often times it just doesn't feel like that is appropriate.  'It was my pleasure' also doesn't have the right ring to it.  And then there is the way to respond when the individual thanking you is someone who themselves have served too.  It doesn't seem to matter what direction you go or what choice of words, none of them ever seem just right. 

Some days...

So some days are better than others...  I think that is a statement that almost anyone in or around the military can relate to.  Just like with everything else, I have good days and I have bad days.  Days that I'm in a lot of pain and days that it is managable, days that I'm overly paranoid and days that nothing seems to bother me.

This time of year things are a little different.  Fireworks used to be one of my favorite things.  Our family ran a fireworks tent every year, I can't remember a year growing up that we weren't either at the tent or watching fireworks. 

Last year, we arrived back to the States in June after being overseas for the previous five 4th of Julys.  I felt like I was in culture shock... you see, the last time I had been home for a 4th of July was prior to my first deployment.  Prior to the anxiety and being paranoid.  Prior to PTSD.

I heard the fireworks going off throughout the week leading up to the 4th, but most of them were far enough away not to bother me.  My parents, husband and I hit the fireworks stands and we were all excited to get some stuff to shoot off, afterall we had five years to make up for.  The night of the 4th we went out to my cousin's house and even though I could see where everything was coming from, I still felt like the cat hanging from the ceiling after someone had spooked it.

Shortly after the 4th was when we moved into our new house, in the short months before our son was born we were frantically unpacking.  Then our son arrived and life became even busier than before and the thoughts of the 4th drifted away. 

Until last night....

I heard what sounded like someone banging on one of the doors downstairs trying to get into our basement.  I started panicking and I was quickly armed, pistol in one hand and my phone in the other.  I called my mom and asked her to stay on the phone with me until I checked everything out.  As I checked each room and saw nothing was wrong, I quickly moved on to the next room.  When I finally moved downstairs, I could feel my body tensing up, but I was ready for what, if anything, I would find. 

After everything checked out and I was heading back upstairs, my mom brought up fireworks...  I hadn't even thought about it being that time of year until that moment.  A little while later, I heard the same noises again and as I listened intently, I realized that it was fireworks.... 

love letters

The other night I did pictures for a military spouse.  Her husband is currently deployed, so she wanted to do something to surprise him.  I had come up with an idea for a picture, but given that most anymore rely on technology, I wasn't sure if she would have what was needed for the picture. 

I sent her an email with the rough idea for my picture and she said that wouldn't be a problem.  This picture was going to require a letter.  With all the different forms of communication that are out there, the handwritten letter is something that is not seen very much anymore whether in the form of military love letters or just a simple thank you to someone.

This spouse told me that although they skype and email back and forth, she writes him at least a short handwritten letter everyday.  During my husband's most recent deployment, he was able to get a cell phone where he was, but we never used Skype and often times there was minimal to no signal at the remote sites he was at most of the time.  For us, the handwritten letter was our primary form of communication.

This made me think of a couple things.  The first is the box of letters that carry with them a little bit of the dirt from where we were at in that moment, they carry a little bit of our smell and on some there are small spots of either sweat or tears depending on what was in the letter.  That is something you won't ever get in an email.  My second thought was thinking back to the wives and mothers of wars past, who had nothing more than snail mail as a way to keep in touch with their soldier. 

The second thought has come to me many times as I wonder how many of us would survive as military spouses if we had nothing more than that one tie to our soldier.  Or sending them off not having even a rough timeframe on when they would be coming home.  In a day where casualties are a fraction of what they were years ago and where technology has protected our soldiers in ways not even imagined in the past, it's easy to forget how difficult it was years ago. 

I guess for me, sitting down and writing my husband when he is gone is a way to send a little bit of me to him in the form of seeing my handwriting and maybe catching a slight scent of me.  For us, this form of communication that is often looked at as ancient or a way of the past, is the main thread that binds us when he is away. 

Photos for Soldier (http://photosforsoldiers.com) is an organization that provides free photo sessions and a CD of all the pictures at no charge to deploying service members and their families.

Father's Day

Today we celebrate fathers.  It's my husband's first year celebrating as a daddy to our nine month old son.  As I watch him play with our son, feed him and rock him to sleep, it makes me think of what my dad was first dealing with thirty years ago. 

His first father's day I would have been a little over five months old, I'm sure he was as overwhelmed as we have been in this first year of parenthood.  Now he's a grandpa.  But even though I'm grown, married and have a child of my own, inside there is still a daddy's little girl. 

When I joined the military, I was scared to tell both my parents, but I was more nervous about telling my dad.  I had been going to college, but hadn't quite finished yet when I enlisted.  I was worried that he would be disappointed, but just as my dad has always done he had nothing but a sense of pride in what I was doing. 

The day I left for basic, we all struggled with goodbye.  I didn't really know what was coming, and they didn't know what they were sending me off to.  It was a post-9/11 Army and everything was already active in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  A little less than two years later I found myself getting ready to head overseas.  My family came down the weekend before I deployed and when it came time for them to head home, we all knew things were going to change. 

Fifteen months later when I redeployed, my parents were there in Fort Hood to welcome me home.  As the buses pulled up in front of Cav headquarters, I was scanning the crowd looking for them.  The first person I saw was my dad, who was standing on the field with a couple other individuals.  As soon as we marched across the field and the order dismissed was given, he was the first one to meet me on the field.  Nine hours later we would return back to that same field and he would meet his future son-in-law. 

I look back over the years and all the memories, the games of catch, fishing and camping, the practical jokes and the slightly off key singing.  I would imagine that his first father's day all those years ago that he probably imagined all the different possibilities on what path I would take, none of which are probably anywhere close to the path I took. 

But there has never been a moment where I felt like he wasn't proud of me and no matter how old I get, daddy's little girl is always going to be a part of who I am.