Tag: storytelling

Blessings for Thanksgiving and Time for a Hiatus

My apologies for skipping a check-in here for the month of October.

I let my favorite month get away from me and neglected to post. Instead, I spent a lot of time attending to my life outside this website. As the election drew near, I devoted my time to crafting the stories I wanted to share in my memoir. This long journey developing my first draft is still in progress; I like to imagine if I had a background in journalism, creative writing, communications, or English, my project would already be done by now. Instead, it has been an almost forgotten friendship that I visit–to stave off its death. My memoir has become an apology to my younger self for what I put her through and an exploration of the relationships that sustained me, harmed me, caused me to look to the future and ask myself what do you want to become and how are you going to get there and who is capable of traveling that journey with you.

This past month has been a pivot point as the individual stories are finally connecting to each other. I am grateful for my slow devotion because it is far too easy to give up and say it’s emotionally damaging to look back on my failures. There are a number of ways people showed up for me at the same time other people were barely putting any effort into the intersection of their lives with mine. When I look back at those difficult moments, I wish I had the courage to trust my first instincts. Things I felt didn’t line up the way the should and instead I gave some people a lot of grace given their past poor judgements and decisions. I opened myself up to needless hurt while they were running around destroying their own lives. Learning to see my 20-21 year old self and her struggles, I see she gave a number of people a blank slate to start their lives over and people punished her for the sins of women who came before her. I could have been a different person in some of the most difficult months of my life if I wasn’t holding space for people who treated me like a throwaway character in their own stories. I survived them, and it’s time I am honest about what it’s like to stop choosing to walk through chaos to heal hurt I never caused when I can choose shelter from storms I didn’t foster, peace of mind surrounded by like-minded spirits, and build a happy existence away from bitter souls.

This Thanksgiving I am leaning more into a life of peace and appreciating my blessings. The transition from 2023 to 2024 has been far from an easy one. Losing three family members was devastating. Finding time to sell one house and buy a new one heightened my personal stress as I also navigated moving from one work position to a temporary assignment to my current role. Developing yet another slew of health symptoms a source of frustration. My ongoing health challenges don’t yet have an official diagnosis and I will end 2024 in that same boat. Months of nerve pain and discomfort brought on by physical exertion is forcing me to slow down in ways I would not choose for myself. I would love to know what’s going on, but my new health care provider is having me go through a gamut of other lesser avenues of care and potential pain management through occupational therapy and physical therapy before seeing if we need to consult rheumatology. Right now, I am still waiting on answers for my last round of bloodwork, but the holidays are coming up and I am determined to enjoy my tradition of crafting something new for my family to enjoy.

Lamb is the on the menu for our entree and I decided I would like to add some American Indian/Indigenous persons touches to our holiday given the complex origins and ongoing celebration of Thanksgiving. I cannot really say why I hadn’t thought of it before. I haven’t unpacked whether I was concerned it would be culturally appropriate or whether I wasn’t sure I would be skilled enough to try out the recipes and/or able to find the ingredients. Rather than criticize myself for coming to this late realization it would be good for me as an American to try my hand at making this type of cuisine, I am hoping it encourages someone else to do the same. We’ll be using the New Mexico Magazine sumac Navajo leg of lamb with onion sauce recipe to craft our holiday entree although ours will use lamb shanks and lamb neck due to my lack of understanding I could ask my local butcher ahead of time to order a leg of lamb or a lamb roast, the other suggested cut within the recipe. In lieu of dinner rolls, we will make Navajo fry bread, a family favorite, although I made the mistake of not picking up powdered milk so I will adjust my plans and find a recipe that uses regular milk that I already have on hand. The milk I have is lactose free and this will be my first time frying with it, so I need to watch it in case it behaves differently like how it browns more quickly when baking with it.

Our main side dish is the enkum recipe below. I found this recipe a few months ago in The Cookbook in Support of the United Nations: For People and Planet I borrowed from a public library. In the past few years, I’ve come across a number of articles on making Thanksgiving dinner less beige (think white dinner rolls, gravy, turkey, stuffing) and boring. I love how this is a nutrient dense potato dish and the vibrant colors will make for a beautiful contrast to the lamb entree. I will still keep some “traditional” beige on the plate with the stuffing although this year I found a stuffing mix made from Hawaiian bread that caught my eye.

I have one thing that I absolutely love from my childhood and that’s Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. I don’t care that it’s not healthy for me with all the added sugar and the fact it’s low fiber. I love it far too much to care that it’s lacking in nutritional value. While I will occasionally indulge in mine or someone else’s homemade cranberry sauce, if we are going for the stuff in the can, it better be Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. The generic stuff won’t do–it’s not worth saving the $0.30 or $0.40 a can for this stuff.

And for one of the first years in awhile, I don’t have a dessert planned. Originally, I considered making a homemade ice cream with the frozen leftover crumbled chocolate chip pumpkin cookies a girlfriend made for us back in September, but I want a less busy holiday. We have some German Benton’s Spekulatius Cookies we picked up from Aldi’s recently or we could enjoy the Mexican assorted cookies we have in the pantry. There’s always a local family farm we could visit for fudge or pie if we want to venture out in the next few days, too.

Before I leave you all for this month, I do want to say I plan to have a bit of a hiatus to concentrate on my memoir. Whether I stick to said hiatus is another story. I love the fact I am finally past the 300 page mark for my memoir and I want to help see my first draft through completion before the end of 2024. This work has helped me to see the burdens I carried from my service and the blessing of people who want the best for me while I haven’t always worked towards that goal for myself. I’ve gotten to see myself in moments of deep pain and setting big dreams for the future. Next year will be the 20-year mark returning home from my first tour in Iraq and I think a bit fitting of a time to ideally see the draft come together as a finished project I want to market for publication. I cannot juggle that endeavor all that well if I have my regular 40-hour a week job and weeks of planning what to post on this blog. If I do check in, I think it might be a paragraph or two wishing you all well and I hope that’s enough.

I want to deliver this memoir to those who seek to understand our nation’s military better and what service members go through. I want this memoir to show young adults military service is always changing and to help people who have never served to see another facet of the Iraq war. This book is not meant for everyone, like any good story. It is an appreciation letter to a number of people who have worked to make my goal of serving come to fruition, to those who supported me through the unknowns of that first tour, for those who tolerated my anti-social behavior on tour number two, and the ones who met me along the finish line to ending my four year enlistment in the Marine Corps. I do want to see a second book come to light, too, to honor a number of passionate persons who helped get me diagnosed with PTSD and get the treatment I deserved, but it won’t come together as it needs to without book 1 happening first.

Wishing you and yours a lot of blessings this holiday season.

~Cheryl

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Decluttering the Past to Make Space for Future Adventures

My family and I recently completed a relaxing staycation in Phoenix and I loved that the rental home had several back copies of Real Simple magazine (along with several others publications like Dwell and Good Housekeeping). It is rare for me to buy magazines now because they are often so chock full of advertisements instead of useful content. This reality is why I will often pop onto the businesses’ websites instead to jump straight to the content I want to find. I selectively picked up this February 2020 copy, knowing that I had some decluttering I wanted to do in our current home.

This past year my heart has eagerly focused on wanting to move. I want to move up in my career. I want to move in the physical sense of exercising more, something that took a backseat due to health issues. I want to travel more and I accept staycations and out-of-state travel as options. We recently receiving our updated passports, too, so I expect we can start saving up for traveling out of country for an adventure next year or the year afterwards. My love for going to new places has been hampered by financial restrictions and also limited PTO (like most Americans). There are days my heart is jealous of persons living in European nations who can frequently hop on public transportation and move more easily from one nation to the next. Instead of sinking into that jealousy, I decided to do something proactive with my time.

My decluttering process also helps immensely with anxiety. Our home is just under 2,000 square feet and there are many days it feels like too much space to maintain. My body does not crave the micro apartments of New York City or Paris, but I would like something that feels more like a family home instead of a landing spot. My dad’s mom used to have a beautiful home on a lake in South Dakota. Some friends in Kentucky have a river that traverses part of their property. My dad’s home is located in a quiet neighborhood bordered by a little wooded area and there is a brewery hangout spot a short drive or a walk down the road in good weather. My younger sister lives in a home built in the 1960’s that has a layout I like a whole lot more than my complete open concept downstairs and her property is a short walk from a casual beach spot and a few restaurants. Their kids can stop in to get ice cream after playing in the water. I love that. We are getting some amenities like that where I live, but my mind still focuses on the house.

We bought in our current area for the local schools. After the pandemic hit and our daughter started schooling online, buying in this area was a decision I started to regret. It hasn’t entirely been a bad decision. I have a great relationship with my neighbor; I feel we are more like sisters than neighbors. A handful of restaurants that have gone in are great and the one that isn’t can easily be avoided. I cook better than their cooks do. The area is also very safe so we can go for walks, runs, and bike areas with very little concern for our safety. I still had to come to gripes with this box and the walls we live within. Our vacation rental provided a means to reassess the space we currently occupy. It can be years before I move out of state to somewhere like Kentucky, Indiana, or North Carolina (all still high on the list), but I can take the risk of selling sometime down the road and picking a new property that could be a better longtime investment due to growth in other communities.

I decided to play with my look at use a lot of different colors and patterns like Great British Bake Off baker, Kim-Joy. My daughter loved the look.

This closet in the vacation rental provided a lot of inspiration that it can be easy to build storage to house more than what we need to retain for practicality purposes and sentimental concerns. I should have measured the closet because it does have room for seasonal and in-season storage needs. I like that it is setup in the master suite so you don’t have to go find things in other household closets for these items. The residence was about 2,800 square feet, so I had the chance to live in a larger home to see what works or does not work at the footprint. I was most happy that each bedroom and the gathering areas has seating arrangements perfect for reading and that reality can be replicated in any home, regardless of its size.

Tackling what to downsize this time was a bit easier because I’ve been on this journey for years. Before we sold our first home in 2020, we had already donated hundreds of books, ill-fitting clothes and shoes, and tackled some excess papers. I still found we came into the new house with too much stuff! My obsession with journaling has gotten away from me over the years and with a clear mind, it was good to see most of those weren’t serving my needs. I tossed a middle school journal where I lamented my mother having a better relationship with my other siblings. I ripped apart a high school journal where I confronted, again, a boyfriend who was unfaithful for our entire relationship. (He has grown into a better man and apologized. He is still married to the woman he cheated on me with, so there’s no repairing the friendship though. She and I aren’t going to be friends. The apology is enough.) A travel journal about my high school trip to Cape Verde was hardly anything more than discussing being an outsider among my American school peers. The best reminders of the trip are showcased in some loving photos I still keep to this day. 2024 was a repeat of paperwork reduction.

Paperwork and photos are my kryptonite.

I try not be overwhelmed and saddened by events I experienced, some things I put myself through, and people that I’ve lost.

Here’s what I parted ways with in 2024:

  • Old Marine Corps cartoons I drew (keeping only two and a realistic pen drawing of Marines sleeping in MOPP)
  • High School report cards and official transcripts (3.75 GPA doesn’t matter when you have two grad degrees)
  • Marine Corps training certificates from Technical Escort school (I am not in the CBRN community anymore)
  • Photo duplicates and bad quality photos
  • Condolence cards after my mother’s death (I did keep one because my teacher wrote a lot of heartfelt messages)
  • Old cards from my Grandmother with basic greetings (I did keep meaningful letters she wrote)
  • Letters from one of my high school best friends (We are no longer friends and stopped talking about 2006)
  • Old VA decision letters (after carefully shredding them because they contain PII)
  • Board games we don’t play or don’t play often enough
  • Books donated to the public library (Mine included There’s No Such Thing as An Easy Job, How to Pronounce Knife, Stiff, etc.)

I am trying to find a balance between Marie Kondo’s “Does is spark joy?” and the reality that some of my possessions are practical even if they don’t always bring me joy. I don’t follow a modern minimalism approach as I feel some of those houses come off real cold, but too much stuff makes me feel like I have too much to maintain and I lose track of what I already possess.

Staying in that rental where possessions can be spread out and breath a bit more was more helpful than I expected. I could see my hobbies haven’t changed all that much since my early 20’s. I grew to love cooking after separating from the Marine Corps. A family and friends centric kitchen and dining area will always be important to me. My mom worked hard to get me to love reading and that grounding activity still matters to me. Sure, I don’t need a library that rivals the one in “Beauty and the Beast.” Right now, I have a few on display and because a move is financially possible this year, some other favorites are tucked away, including Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody, DIY MFA, and Lauren Graham’s Talking As Fast as I Can: Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between). I am actually eager for Kelly Bishop’s The Third Gilmore Girl to be released later this year to add it to my collection.

Paring down photos is still an ongoing journey. I haven’t completely pared down my Marine Corps collection, but last year we finally tossed our Marine Corps recruit training yearbooks. They weren’t doing anything fabulous in our lives (and I’m hardly photographed plus mine look awful). I also destroyed the bulk of our excess Marine Corps camouflage uniforms last year too by rendering them unserviceable before they went into the trash. Our daughter is starting to be more interested in our Marine Corps careers, so I selectively set aside some photos not in albums. I figured this way she can easily find them when she wants to look at them and if not this weekend, maybe next weekend I will write down where I was at in them.

Me in 2003 (left) left photo and on the far right (right photo) at Marine Corps Combat Training (East Coast)
Me (center) with two sailors I met while attending Command and Control Personal Computers (C2PC) at Naval Base Coronado in 2004. My coworker, Balsam, is on the far left (seated). We worked together stateside and on my first tour in Iraq, although on different shifts.
These are two of my favorite photos from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq (July 2006)

Clearing out some physical space in my life and more mental clarity is what my April needed. As a short snippet, I was reading through old journal entries sent to my family members and their letters to me. Revisiting these sentiments was a real strong clue that the Marine Corps needed to revamp how it treats service members in need of medical care and I should have trusted my instincts more. Decluttering can be calming although it does often bring trauma up to the surface.

Right now, we are in the process of adding a new fur baby to the family. My husband’s service dog will retire sometime this year and this new bundle of fluff will have a lot of hands-on training with the family to step into his role. In anticipating her arrival, I cleared out all the old veterinary invoices for our dog, Gregor, and the ones for our guy, Radar, who passed in 2022. Removing the vet bills was one of the hardest things to tackle this year. Our time with Gregor is limited based on his age and Radar’s death resulted from a swift decline in his health. I don’t have the heart right now to part ways with the journal entry I wrote for Radar just before his passing or the obituary I wrote after he passed.

My journey is a reminder it’s ok to keep even some sad memories. And it’s more important to talk about those experiences. We’re not meant to pent up all our pain. But when the right time comes, we can release it.

Shred useless papers. Burn or toss the photos that need to go. Write and edit your reflections.

Talk about it with your friends, family, and strangers (depending on your comfort level).

Declutter and regain your power to breath life into your dreams.

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A Year of Health, Happiness, and Feeling Like ‘Home’ Is Less of an Abstract Concept

Thanksgiving 2023 is TOMORROW. Families or friends will gather to give thanks for all that they have. As someone who has struggled with being told to express gratitude, this holiday is one of the hardest for me. I AM grateful for all that I have; I just know for all the work I’ve put into certain endeavors my expectation for the final results has not always aligned with what came to fruition. Some years that progress is easier to greet. The more that I’ve seen social media explode into a world of influencers (with a lot less education might I add) flaunting monthly income figures easily topping $20,000 or more, the more disheartened I am that I committed to earning four college degrees and my take home seems paltry. My post-graduate career path has felt like I am on a crumbled asphalt road leading at points to a dirt path to a dying town no one wants to see survive. It’s like if you’re unwilling to hawk every product known to man to make a buck there is no (or little) space for you in this employment minefield. This situation has recently led to me popping onto social media for fixed amounts of time and to start culling my list of accounts I follow. I’m tired of everyone gushing over every car brand, type of wheat flour, fashion trend, or makeup product and their #ad posts reminds me that as much as I’ve cut back on retail therapy in my in-person life, there is always someone itching to sell a product online their own pockets. 2023 is a year I’ve worked to re-establish peace in my life.

This situation has not been easy to tackle. We are still witnessing the Hamas-Israel war continue to unfold; if things continue as they are, the Russia-Ukraine war will also hit another anniversary in February; this year, it took some time to watch my health turn around; and we’re all around the globe continuing to see unrealistic housing prices and grocery costs make it harder to get by. Reclaiming some semblance of control with what is and what is possible takes an honest look at the circumstances of the past, present, and desired future. As a war veteran, I am not near the landscape of either of these wars, so I am, like so many, an important witness instead of an active participant in the fighting. I have a responsibility to build my education about what is happening and to encourage the resolution of these wars. My heart has an unlimited capacity to care for the non-combatants whose lives have been turned upside down by these events. When I see their strife, I know that my chronic health struggles of this year pale in comparison. Not that it means I should not attend to my medical needs, but I can keep my complaints in check. I still live in a world where I can regularly access fresh safe drinking water, enough food to support my needs, and medical care to help reduce the severity of my symptoms and encourage the prevention of longterm health problems. This year, with the world being what it is, I have tried to enjoy the natural beauty around us more.

We started our year in California, having ended 2022 in a short vacation there. Our stay in Rancho Palos Verdes gave us a respite place to land after a difficult year where we lost our dog, Radar, to an unexplained illness. He struggled from the moment we brought him home with chronic skin infections and towards the end of his life all the veterinary care we could afford did not result in diagnosing a treatable condition. Starting and ending our day by the ocean helped me to appreciate the fact the world is vast and will always be larger than our existence as human beings. Every day, the ocean starts a cycle anew and is transformed by the heat of the sun, cloud cover, the wind, and the moment of animals. She is never the same, and I think I’ve had to learn to accept that about myself, too, instead of mourning the ways my career has not gone.

While I take a moment to breathe about where my career has not gone, I am fortunate that friends remind me of what has been. One of my Marine friends from my time with 1st Marine Division sent me this photo of our shop located at Camp Pendleton 33 Area. When I joined, it was the NBC platoon shop until our career path was re-fashioned as “Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Defense.” Sandwiched alongside Combat Camera, I lived in a world that I was never quite sure I belonged in, but I was smart enough to squeak by and join. That imposter syndrome people talk about, I get it. There was so much educational material thrown at us during our MOS school that I no longer remember. Once I stopped using this information my brain was absolutely ready to dump it. I guess that’s why I never feel it necessary to tell people about what I did in the Marine Corps for my MOS. The work I did in Iraq for 1st Marine Division was outside the MOS and has remained a more honest reflection of my skills. I have a lot of administrative skill as it relates to records and seeing how different pieces of puzzles fit together. Could I run a gas chamber today, if permitted? Probably. I wouldn’t enjoy leading service members now through the steps of donning and clearing their masks and having them go through certain exercises in the gas chamber any more than I did in the service. But put me back into the command aspect of operations and I’ve found myself a home. It’s a different way of seeing people, society, the elements of risks and safety and I kind of shine there.

In trying to find where I belong, I also have to confront what is not meant for me. (Isn’t that one of the hardest things to accept?!). Earlier this year, we started to explore moving to a different part of the Phoenix Valley. Our current home has appreciated in value quite well due to the pandemic housing uptick and the modifications we’ve made to it since occupying the house. We educated ourselves about listing offerings through Zillow and ones curated from a custom listing search with our realtor. A 1950’s home was high on our interest list but we were never able to visit it since the family handling the estate didn’t respond in time to our request for a showing. We saw large properties (think 13,000 square feet…which is good for us here), but both of those older homes were less appealing on the inside due to lack of proper came from the homeowners. Nothing dire, but there would be some serious elbow grease involved and a questioning as to when things like the roof, water heater, and HVAC might be in need of replacing. One of my favorites, although it had a quirky layout, was a home in Tempe, Arizona. This is the front door to that place. It is more a patio home. We could have lived with the quirky layout, but it had an incredibly low fence, about 4-5 ft high. The lack of privacy and risk our dog (or future dog) would get out made it a no go.

This is where that journey of what’s not meant for you can lead into something that might be a better fit. We settled into the fact we weren’t uprooting our existing lifestyle (although we prepared and packed a bunch of boxes that are still packed up) and busied ourselves this summer with work until we could take our fall vacation. Going to Louisville, KY this year with a brief stay in Nashville, TN opened us up to a possibility we didn’t know existed. Our Marine Corps friend, who we were visiting to see him and his family, told us the state of Indiana offers a tuition and fee exemption for children of service-connected veterans. We’d have to live in Indiana for at least 5 years before our daughter is eligible, but it’s still worth exploring. Over the past few weeks, my husband and I have started to look at career and home prospects in the Indiana area. Knowing that it wouldn’t be good to just look at this one opportunity, we’ve both applied to different federal jobs: some are remote, one is in Kentucky, another is in Chicago, and we have covered our bases in the Virginia/Washington D.C. area. If we want more pay but aren’t in a position to settle in Indiana, we won’t have a tuition exemption for our daughter in the other locales. My preference would be for us to both move into higher paying remote jobs and find our next home in Indiana, allowing us to tick as many boxes of “financial life hacking” as possible. Plus it never hurts to live closer to people you love and trust. Our vacation visiting these friends was one of my happiest memories this year. I felt at home in Louisville and that doesn’t really happen when I visit somewhere new.

This sense of “home” is something I know is unique to all of us. I recognize some people are grateful they live in large cities with a plethora of amenities while others crave rural roads and lots of open space. Arizona as “home” has been something I’ve questioned a lot over the years. We had a real rocky start our first few years, but there are things that I also enjoy tremendously outside of living near some good friends (and family a few hours away). Seeing plants bloom in the desert is almost a spiritual experience. The area comes alive with color for a brief moment of time and the fragrant scent of some plants, especially after it has rained, has a calming effect. We don’t get a lot of rain, so it’s something I always look forward to here and I love when the sky darkens as monsoon rains are almost ready to cascade down on us. I also enjoy the smell of jet fuel when we visit ASU’s Polytechnic campus. Not the best thing to breathe in, but it is a reminder of passing diesel fueling stations at Al Asad Air Base and it’s a weird comfort thing for me. Will it feel weird one day to say goodbye to this place? Sure, but starting over somewhere new can be exhilarating. There are possibilities like owning more land, seeing more fall foliage, enjoying a smattering of new restaurants and cuisines not as easily found where we live now, and making the eastern half of the United States (and Canada) more feasible to visit.

Taking the time like this to write down about my year makes it easier to see that a lot has gone well, even if not all is right with the world. Tomorrow, we will keep our festivities simple. We ordered Hawaiian food from Highway Inn through Goldbelly. For dessert, I am making cookie dough dip from Blackberry Babe and we’re pairing it with Goya brand chocolate Maria cookies. A holiday cocktail is on the menu as well and for this year, I’ve chosen Liquor’s Expense of Honesty, which will require modifications based on the type of alcohol we have on hand. There is no way I’m visiting Total Wine the day before Thanksgiving!!! If our dog lets us, we’ll sleep in. The day with start with a leisurely walk and a morning coffee (black, no sugar or cream). We are not hosting anyone or going out anywhere. In this year where we’ve traveled more, there is no disappointment on my end to enjoy a quiet holiday at home. I will revel in fact we have a roof over our head, enough food, our health and happiness needs met, and a future that is ours to carve out differently than we previously imagined it would take shape.

Wishing you and yours the very best until we touch base again.

~Cheryl

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What Does a Dairy Free Thanksgiving Look Like?

Food memories are something I quite like talking about–we all tend to have some positive experience around food or drink choices, be it recalling the best lunch entree in your elementary school cafeteria, cookies from grandma, or the first alcoholic drink you ever tried. In answering those questions here are my selections: I liked school pizza, my grandmother-in-law makes some great snowball cookies, and my first sip of alcohol I believe was Southern Comfort and coke (it’s been a minute!). There is something to be said about how food transports us; even the move “Ratatouille” honed in on this reality in the scene where the harsh food critic remembers how comforting ratatouille was during his childhood years.

I do not see my family that much for the holidays as an adult now because travel is expensive, but something like a holiday meal allows me to feel like the space between is not as great. Well before we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinner, my family is on my mind and I often wonder if I’ll get ahold of everyone and/or whether we’ll have time to chat. Making a festive meal certainly takes a lot of time and the duties are not always split among a lot of people. When I was younger though, my family broke down these responsibilities pretty well when my mom was sick during our last Thanksgiving together. Her cancer progression is still an issue that hits me hard, but that last Thanksgiving is a fond detail in my wealth of memories. I made an ice cream pie; it was far from fancy, but as a teenager, I could make it on my own and I was proud to (literally!) bring something to the table.

My parents’ home is rather modest in ways, but there was always space to crowd in people and all the food they brought with them. The kitchen is a pretty tight space, but my dad and stepmom remodeled over the years, improving the flow of the space. Their work has been exceptionally helpful with our family expanding due to the addition of partners and grandchildren. Every time I think of my parents’ house, I think of nearly every inch of counter space eaten up by an assortment of plastic storage containers full of side dishes, holiday tins full of treats, and roasting pans and saucepans with the dinner entree and whatever sauce was appropriate for the meat selected that year.

I am not as consistent as my parents in recreating my Thanksgiving dinner. The same is true of Christmas. I love trying out new things; I guess that can be our tradition of sorts unless I start to be more consistent in making the cinnamon pie I love for Thanksgiving. This year we brought one to Friendsgiving since I already settled on making a vegan pecan pie for our family meal. Preparing the same components for the holidays is not important to me, and I think it’s important home cooks feel comfortable deviating from practices established by older family members. I constantly make new things for our weekly dinners, so it is only natural to keep up the same practice for the holidays. Cooking is my hobby; I may not create many of my own recipes, but I don’t think that decision reduces the enjoyment I feel from the craft. Now that I am lactose intolerant, it is becoming more of a mindful practice. Vegan and lactose free ingredients are not always options for me. Something could be out of budget, out of stock due to low supply, or the vegan version does not work as well due to textural differences or fat content compared to the traditional dairy products. None of these concerns though drove my desire to build a dairy free Thanksgiving this year, a complete 180 from what I know will be found in my parents’ home.

I’ve grown tired of remembering what dishes require taking Lactaid beforehand and buying the medicine is truly a waste of money when I have the power to create dishes without dairy. Last year I wasn’t as mindful in building a dairy free Thanksgiving, selecting items like Trader Joe’s green bean casserole bites because I wanted a taste of green bean casserole without being stuck with a lot of leftovers that would be painful to my digestive system. Those little bites still upset my stomach. What is off-limits to me does not keep me from recommending those to others who might need a last minute appetizer. They are tasty. If Trader Joe’s went out on a limb and released a vegan version, I’d gladly buy it for future holiday gatherings. Returning to this year’s dinner, there are some traditional selections:

  1. Turkey with gravy
  2. Cranberry sauce
  3. Dinner rolls
  4. Sweet potatoes (savory, not sweet, topping)
  5. Pecan pie

The execution of the menu is what lumps my choices into being somewhat non-traditional for the holiday.

  1. The turkey uses Aarti’s tandoori butter turkey breast recipe from Selena +Chef as the base idea, substituting vegan butter for dairy butter and increasing the amount of ingredients to cover the entire bird. We will also use the vegan butter for the gravy from this same show episode.
  2. Cranberry sauce naturally is dairy free, but I’ll use apple juice instead of orange juice to sweeten it.
  3. Udi’s gluten free classic French dinner rolls replace the Rhodes dinner rolls. While the two roll choices are both dairy free, my body also feels better when I cut back on the amount of gluten I eat during the week.
  4. A sweet potato casserole with marshmallows could have been on the menu and made with vegan butter, but I opted instead to roast purple sweet potatoes and will top them with The Mushroom Company au jus onion saucy mushrooms. The other plus is these steam in the bag!
  5. I thought a vegan pecan pie recipe would be harder to come across, but I will make the one from Nora Cooks. (I’ve never made a pecan pie before, so wish me luck!)

As far as price goes, the dinner is $117.27 pre-tax, and excludes items that are pantry or fridge staples already on-hand like flour, vegan butter, apple juice, and spices. I also plan to pair the vegan pecan pie with the dairy free Cherry Garcia ice cream Ben & Jerry’s makes; since the latter was already in the freezer and not specifically bought for the holiday, I did exclude it from my pricing. The only thing I truly forgot to account for was buying flax seed for the pie, and I am ok with not trying to tally it as we bought non-dairy Reddiwhip and So Delicious Coco Whip for pies recently and I included numbers for both of those in my Thanksgiving tally.

Our breakdown looks as follows (and is enough for Thanksgiving dinner plus leftovers!):

  1. 10.76 lb. free range organic turkey ($53.69)
  2. 2 packages Trader Joe’s cranberries ($5.00)
  3. Vegan pecan pie ($24.65)
    • 1 pie shell, frozen store bought
    • Non-dairy Reddiwhip
    • So Delicious Coco Whip
    • 10 oz. chopped pecans
    • 1 bottle dark Karo syrup
  4. (4 packages) Mushroom Company onion au jus mushrooms ($15.96)
  5. (2 packages) Udi’s gluten free classic French dinner rolls ($10.98)
  6. 3lbs. organic Stokes brand purple sweet potatoes ($6.99)

I hope this little snapshot of Thanksgiving inspires you all and wherever you find yourself this week, may you be surrounded by people you care about and who care about you. Life is short. Be around people who matter and whatever you are grateful for this season, please remember there are many grieving this time of year. Their “happy” will not look like your “happy” and that’s ok. I speak about loss not tied just to the Club Q shooting in Colorado, but these families and many like theirs will stare at empty seats this year and without the person(s) who brought particular dishes, jokes, games, etc. that make their family events memorable. We can enjoy our blessings and still be mindful that hands need holding, prayers are requested, and support options exist within our means and spheres of influence to serve those families in need this season. Remember, it is not the time of year to only think of ourselves.

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Anxiety Self-Care and Vacationing

I took a trip to Wyoming recently with my family to visit Sheridan and Gillette and as rewarding as vacations are, I am always happy to get back home.

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Flying back into Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport

Home means stability for me and it helps me greatly in managing anxiety.  I don’t over schedule myself when I am at home the way I do on vacation.

This vacation, in particular, was a bit more full than I expected.  I had dreams of lounging around a bit more but now that my daughter is 7 years old, she wants to, naturally, do more.  She wants to explore and visit, and being a young child, she is demanding, hates naps, and will squeeze every ounce of daylight when not impeded by her mother.  Unlike when we lived in Wyoming, she is also old enough now to have a fully fledged opinion.  She was “meeting” people for the first time because she didn’t remember them from years ago and she also was insistent on having as much time with her young cousins as possible.  As an only child, she craves time with other children and summertime is the worst time of year for her.  She is not around her school friends and with high temps here, we spend more time indoors.

My daughter does not yet comprehend the stress I carry on a daily basis.  She knows I don’t like fireworks but she hasn’t caught on how a significant change of routine bothers me.  I look forward to vacations but I also struggle with leaving my comfortable environment.  I worry about what could happen when I leave my home, both to my home and the people in it while we are away.  There’s a lot of history recorded in my journals, photo albums, and scrapbooks that I can lose if something happens.  Additionally, I don’t like the idea of someone’s possessions becoming personal effects, to include mine should something terrible happen while we are away.  I considered writing about these feelings when I took my trip to Albuquerque last year but was quite hesitant to do so; while I am beginning to feel more comfortable talking about my personal struggles and coping, I still tread lightly.

I’m not surprised by my sensitivity to people and possessions, but I’ve had 12 years to wrap my mind around the intense situation that was my first deployment.  After spending 12 hours of nearly every day on deployment knowing people died and others were wounded, I became more aware we don’t all get a fair shake at living (and living the way we choose).  Without knowing the true number of people who died on my deployment, it’s still safe to say I have few peers who will ever understand the human toll of a deployment like I do.  (For any newbies, my alternative view of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as incomplete as it is, is available for viewing here. If you check out the video, please also read the blog entry for clarity purposes.  Thanks. )

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Some of my most precious possessions

For me, this vacation was a beautiful experience and one of the true breaks we’ve taken this summer as we had quite an unexpected–but necessary–financial burden demanding our immediate attention.  My husband’s service dog tore her ACL in June but was (and is) recovering from surgery and was unable to walk more than five minutes shortly before we left for vacation.  Her recovery will still take months but she is starting to show tremendous progress and is happy again, instead of her morose state when we couldn’t let her do any activity except use the bathroom.  If she had been able to walk, she would have flown with us for the first time and yes, there was some anxiety about that issue as well.  As you can see, she’s not a petite girl and even with my husband, daughter, and I all in the same row, she would attract attention.  I have no doubt other passengers would have inquired about her and peppered my husband with questions.

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That happy kid look after surgery was too precious.

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She became quite leery we’d take all the fun out of her day with her surgery recovery restrictions.

I’ve made great strides to significantly reduce my chest pains this year through regular self-care, but I had four of them during the course of this trip.  The additional stress of monitoring my husband because he didn’t have his service dog was a contributing factor. While I can recognize times where my husband needs additional support I notice it much later than she can and I didn’t feel quite as prepared to be his “service person”–yes, that’s what we joked I was doing in my caregiver capacity–because she had to stay behind.  Other things, like not being consistent about my sleep routine, contribute to the frequency of my chest pains.  Normally, I like to be in bed no later than 10pm and  I think most nights we were lucky to be back at our hotel room by 10:30 or 11pm.  Different noises also present challenges when it comes to sleep as I have trouble drowning them out; my bedroom at home, by comparison, is kept very quiet.  I do not have a wall clock and after living in my home for a year, I am used to the sound of the house fan when it’s on during hot evenings.  I am also a big fan of blackout curtains; the darker the room, the easier it is for me to stay asleep.  There are other things I can do like moderating my consumption of coffee and alcohol that also help reduce the frequency of my chest pains.  (I know I drank far too much coffee on this vacation, nearly 3-4 cups a day, but I was pretty good about keeping my alcohol consumption in check.)

In spite of my continuing battle with anxiety induced chest pains, the vacation was successful.  I think one of the things we need to keep at the forefront of conversation about anxiety and coping is resiliency.  I’ve had these annoying things for 12 years–and it’s really only in the last few that good medical professionals have worked with me to control this condition so it doesn’t destroy my quality of life.  Occasionally, they have to remind me not to pass up opportunities because I know they may or will exacerbate the stress I already have in my life. They also remind me I’ve been through the worst so the things that bother me are triggers (fireworks, sudden loud noises, people walking behind me surpising me suddently, etc.) and not actually life threatening events.   The fact that I had four chest pains on this trip is a sign I do need to plan better for my vacations.  I am still learning to say ‘no’ and I think because I’m in my 30’s I still feel silly to say I go to bed so early and in many cases, need the additional sleep.  Not everyone understands this issue and unlike my peer group, I find it harder to forgo time with family and do not wish to come across as being rude.  Next time, I’ll also work on cutting back on coffee.  I’m sure it’s not bad to have a day or two with that much coffee but the others I should probably stick to two or less cups.

I’m only taking you on a partial journey of the trip but below are some of the wonderful things I photographed during my weeklong visit.  If you want to see more things from the trip, feel free to check out my Instagram, she_wears_dogtags.

Like always, thanks for stopping in to visit.

~Cheryl

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The view behind our hotel room

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One of the flowers in my husband’s grandmother’s garden

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My grandmother-in-law has this sign from her late husband’s job working for telephone companies.

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My readers know suicide prevention is important to me and I love how this sign is integrated into community spaces.   

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I got to see inside a home built in 1905 and it had all this gorgeous mahogany on the walls and stairs. 

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I enjoyed sharing a flight of beers at Black Tooth Brewing Company. (I also learned IPA’s are not my thing.)

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My beer of choice at Black Tooth Brewing Company is the seasonal blonde ale.

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I’m a sucker for architecture and I’m glad my husband took me to the old post office in Sheridan to check out the marble staircase.

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I didn’t get donuts from this little place only because it wasn’t open when we walked by.

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This JC Penney’s is where I got clothes after returning stateside from deployment #2 as the only civilian clothes I had were the ones I was wearing.  It was surprising to see the store is closing.

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Clearmont, Wyoming

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The potato oles were one of my favorite foods when we lived in Cody, WY and they are still as good.  I just eat less of them now.

 

 

 

 

 

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Starting New Chapters: Personal Expression and Confidence

Good morning, everyone.

I was quite eager to do a “2007 versus 2017” series post and I had the fun surprise of looking back into my old journal entries only to discover I didn’t write a single post in June 2007!

I will give you a comparable 2007 versus 2017 substitute.

I have a good entry from May 2007 about my feelings regarding leaving the Marine Corps.  The timing works well because I started my new position in higher education.  I still work serving a military affiliated student population but I made the dramatic shift from being student facing to a non student facing opportunity.  Last week was my first week in my new role and I am just floored by the welcoming company culture.  As a veteran, I do find I get somewhat skittish that I’ll be judged for my visible tattoo (although I frequently wear long sleeves since office environments tend to be colder than I like), my preference for ponytails versus fully done up hair, and my sporadic use of makeup.

Society judges women heavily and it hasn’t seemed to matter at what age or in what industry.  The rules are written and unwritten.  The looks for stepping outside those “norms” feel the same.  Any time I’ve changed my working environment I question what will my peer treatment look like, what will my supervisor’s rules look like, and what infringement will the company place on my personal expression.  My desire to be more myself was a key part of leaving the Marine Corps.  Over the years, I’ve come to see pushing and prodding to adhere to desired female beauty standards and thankfully last week I was rewarded by the visual confirmation my new company permits a lot of personal expression.  Some female peers have full sleeve tattoos, others enjoy wearing shorts and jeans (as permitted by their departments), and makeup is worn from the slight touch of lip color and mascara to a fully done face with false lashes.

I feel more at home than I expected I would as a new employee.  I am quite happy and I feel once I get the hang of my work responsibilities this happiness will only magnify.  I don’t feel like the lost person I felt I was in May 2007.

Below is one of two entries I wrote for May 23, 2007.  I am not sharing the earlier one as I  included some personally identifying information for family friends and I don’t want to worry about anyone having that person’s address.  (By the way, anyone who knows how I feel about fireworks might laugh that back then I still thought I’d enjoy them!)

Take care and have a great weekend.

2007 Entry

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America In Times of Conflict: Creating Peace From Conflict

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Yesterday, I volunteered with a handful of other veterans to be part of a local community collaboration sharing our stories interwoven with pieces of The Odyssey for Odyssey Home: A Veteran Performance.  The Chandler Public Library held this event called Creating Peace From Conflict at the Chandler Center For the Arts in partnership with Arizona State University and Veterans For Peace.  We also had Veteran Vision Project photos on site for attendance goers to see along with the individual narratives associated with each photograph.  Once the footage is available, I’ll provide the link.

This collaboration starting off with group drumming and continued with our storytelling mixed with selections from The Odyssey.  A few musical pieces were played by Guitars for Vets and another veteran, Ahmad Daniels was there as a representative for Veterans For Peace, also sharing his story.  I know the event was scheduled to conclude with audience engagement, sort of a Q&A opportunity.  I only stayed for the Odyssey performance as I had another engagement in the afternoon and with today being my daughter’s birthday, I wanted to make headway Saturday on some other issues I’ve currently slacked on.

The theme of the performance was homecoming and I am quite thankful the event started with the group drumming.  While I did not choose to drum (I am embarrassed by my lack of rhythm) the sounds that filled the room reminded me of the wonderful performance given by citizens of Sao Vicente when I visited Cape Verde in high school.  My peers, teachers, and I landed to a beautiful musical performance at the airport that reminds me still music is a thread shared globally; we may not always understand each other’s words and actions but music binds us in such a spiritual way.

I loved being reminded of a place that was my home for a short period of my life.  Three weeks may not be an eternity but it’s sufficient time to be welcomed as a stranger, treated like a daughter, and remembered as a friend.  I am forever grateful for that experience and everyone who welcomed us into their country, their homes, and let us savor their culture that we might never have experienced in our lives had our paths not crossed.

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The airport in Sao Vicente

I think I was better able to embrace my role as a participant yesterday feeling like I was welcomed to this group much like how I was welcomed into Cape Verdean life.

My cohort of veterans included an ASU professor, my close friend and fellow ASU student, and a future student.  For our individual tales, we provided the audience a better glimpse of ‘homecoming’ as experiences shaped by individual perception and built a bridge that homecoming is not exactly a single finite moment in time, but a process.  I focused on the more immediate aspects of coming home to family tragedies and feeling like I did not fit into my life stateside.

I think a vital part of the construction of this storytelling was how well Robin Rio and her students shaped the music performance.  I met Robin back in the fall of 2014 when I started my graduate degree at ASU.  She is an Associate Professor with the School of Music and the Director of ASU’s Music Therapy Clinic.  I interviewed her to gain a better understanding of ASU’s chapter of Guitars for Vets.

Looking back, I did not ask great interview questions, but I think we all have moments like that in our lives where our place as students does not necessarily provide us a sufficient lenses to see and understand the larger context of our community because we are also shortsighted about more immediate concerns like passing a class, juggling work, and testing our fit with fellow students.  Seeing Guitars for Vets on campus though did inspire me to get out of my comfort zone about trying a musical instrument.  I purchased a Taylor guitar awhile back and now, with my reduced commute, can commit more to my goal of learning the acoustic guitar.  (Maybe I’ll be able to play a song before the year ends!)

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This talented bunch just wow me; there’s so much musical talent in this group. I cannot wait to share the performance so you can understand how beautifully they play.

 

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America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War

Good afternoon, everyone.  The video for the Chandler Public Library’s America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War panel I served on March 11th is now posted.  I consider myself still somewhat of a beginner when it comes to public speaking and as such, have not watched the video yet.  I think if I do and see how nervous I was, I might not be willing to share it with you all today.  (I love written storytelling but I am dipping my toe into the territory of oral histories.)

I agreed to be a panelist to show support for my dear friend, Nancy Dallett.  She is the Assistant Director of the Office of Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University and she is quite passionate about oral histories.  She knew a past misstep with another oral history project left me somewhat reluctant to take on another but the way this project was shaped is what changed my opinion on the matter.  What I do like about a panel is the interpretative distance the moderator plays with the panelists.  She directs the conversation and keeps it in check, but her influence on what is stated via certain questions is tempered by the panelists.

I am quite proud of the types of questions asked of my fellow panelists and I.  Often times, I feel it is hard for us as women to be asked truly valuable questions outside the context of victimization.  I get stuck with questions that tiptoe around or center on the issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the military service branches and while I think it is important not to minimize those social problems, I think it is quite valuable our society continues to also see the professional opportunities for women in military service and the opportunities they can have post-servicing to enhance their lives and their family legacies.  Situations like the recent nude photo sharing being discussed in the news   can impact the willingness of women to join and/or to have their families’ support when considering service in one of our military branches.  (The ‘Marines United’ nude photo sharing scandal came up as one of the questions asked by our audience.)  As a female veteran, I want people who hear and participate in these conversations to understand any person (man, woman, or child) can be victimized at any point in his or her lifetime; it is more imperative we look for ways to make our society safer through education and awareness for everyone, not just groups of people or individual persons, and to instill appropriate punishments on the perpetrators so as to give the best measure of justice to the victim(s) of heinous deviant acts like this photo scandal.

Again, I want to reiterate the questions asked were quite considerate so as to not give you the wrong impression the panel was skewed far to the victimization spectrum of women’s issues.  General themes included our motivations for service, expectations of what Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam were prior to serving overseas, the reality of our living/working situations abroad, and concern over whether we thought our service had a positive impact in our lives.

Fair warning, the video is lengthy.  At almost two hours, you might want to set aside time to listen to it in its entirety or skip around for shorter conversations.  My daughter asked a question of me near the tail end of the audience Q& A section (proud Momma moment here!) so I hope you her piece of the presentation.  I didn’t expect she would actually have something to ask although she did ask before the panel began if it was necessary.

Take care and enjoy.

(If you have any tips on how to improve my presence as a panelist, I’d love to hear back from you.)

 

 

 

 

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2007 Versus 2017: Goals, Goals, Goals

Hello, everyone.  I know New Year’s treated you well.  I spent my three-day weekend at home and enjoyed a slight decrease (much to my appreciation) in fireworks exposure.  My new neighbors don’t seem to go quite as crazy as the ones I had in the Willows neighborhood in Gilbert.  If you like fireworks, you might enjoy a stroll through this neighborhood on the 4th of July or New Year’s Eve; I anticipate in a neighborhood of 586 houses so long as the Town of Gilbert permits fireworks, people will set up small fireworks shows just outside their front doors.  For today though, I’ll like to start my first 2007 versus 2017 post.

2007 was important for me because I completed my active duty service with the Marine Corps and started to explore what life beyond the Corps would look and feel like, my taste of adult freedom if you will.  I won’t say I made smart money moves back then so as we begin this new journey looking back and discussing my future in 2017, please know I will likely discuss money a lot.  My financial needs were met very well on active duty; my husband and I did not have any kids while I was serving and we both collected a housing allowance.  Since we both served, we received one full housing allowance and the other received a partial housing allowance.  I do apologize that I do not recall the actual monetary amounts because I understand this knowledge aids our conversation greatly.  All too often, a young service member will complain about not having sufficient pay for food, housing, etc.  but for our household size and relative expenses, we always came out ahead even after I separated until we moved to Wyoming in 2009.  Stories for another day I know, but the short version is that many of our expenses, fixed and variable, remained the same and our housing allowance decreased significantly.

In 2007, I had some lofty wedding reception ambitions.  While we never ended up having our wedding reception the reality is I spent a significant amount of time planning for a costly one-day event.  On the skinny spending side, I think we were looking at $8,000 to $10,000 for the venue, a photographer, hotel rooms, travel, food, etc.  The dream was dropped before anything was booked but not until after I purchased my wedding gown (we got married through the Justice of the Peace in 2006) and picked up some small wedding related items.

My desire to control my personal finances did not truly begin until we moved to Wyoming. Our crash course in the broke life lead us to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  Being introduced to Dave Ramsey’s program through friends and their church, we made headway towards undoing the financial damage.  It’s not fun, but without the substantial housing allowance we received in California, we had to take a serious look at our finances. Throughout the years, we’ve still struggled to stay on the Dave Ramsey path so I still refer back to the books and resources.  My in-laws also added more Dave Ramsey resources to our collection.  Additionally, I kept my Financial Planning notebook from my undergraduate studies because I want to ensure I update our financial goals (i.e. retirement planning, life insurance planning, etc.) as our family needs change over time.

With my husband still in school, 2017 does not wear the carefree face our lives did in 2007.  We just don’t have that same amount of money to play with on a daily basis.  Thankfully, he has one semester of Post-9/11 GI Bill® benefits to help cover expenses this semester but law school is one of those endeavors where we are bringing student loan debt into our lives.  This decision obviously strays from Dave Ramsey’s teachings.  We take steps towards self-improvement and I would prefer to not be shamed for student loan debt; I do not make enough money to fully fund law school.  We considered ASU’s Employee Reduced Tuition but the reality is 100% of that tuition reduction is taxed for graduate programs and I am already working on a tight single income, the last thing I need is more money taken out of my paycheck at this time.  Now that we have a more transparent conversation (thanks for not judging me or keeping your opinion to yourself) I would like to share personal goals for the year.

My goals are broadly categorized under personal achievements, family activities, and home improvement.  Financial planning is important to each one of these endeavors.  I am in a place to either spend money for the results or I am saving money to complete the goal.    Although I am not outlining these as SMART (specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-based) for your respective purposes as the reader, these qualities are important whenever you desire to see a goal through completion and I’m keeping these factors in mind for each goal.

In lieu of resolutions, here are my planning goals for 2017:

  1. Finish Pauline Nordine’s Butt Bible Challenge to restore fitness discipline into my life (Challenge runs January to March).
  2. Attend an adoption education event, free other than cost to get there.
  3. Add $1,000 to my daughter’s savings before the close of 2017.
  4. Pay for a one recipient’s scholarship for the Rising Stars, Desert Nights Writing Conference.
  5. Close a credit card account.
  6. Finish painting my master’s bathroom (February).
  7. Complete a family vacation (no visiting extending family).
  8. Attend a family member’s wedding.
  9. Add additional money to our emergency fund (i.e. amount will vary depending on overtime worked and additional income received this year).
  10. Finish first draft of memoir by October.
  11. Set up college fund accounts for nieces and my nephew to be born this year in lieu of gifts and clothes for Christmas.
  12. Visit family who have not seen my daughter since 2011.
  13. Set aside money for an adoption home study (approximately $1,200 to $1,800) before the end of the year. (Goal is to adopt in 2019)
  14. Replace our large bookcase with wall shelves (May/June).
  15. Purchase (1) PAX wardrobe for master bedroom (September/October).
  16. Put in Astroturf and extend patio slab (March/April).
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Writing About Your Life: Intimate Details

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I know it’s not normal for you to get an updated post from me this time of time but I am at home with my sick daughter and now that I’ve sent her off for an afternoon nap, it’s time for me to enjoy some “me time” which translates to writing.  It may not be what I do best [yet in my life] but it’s one of the best things I enjoy.

When I started this blog back in 2014, I mentioned something that probably did not come off as an intimate detail in my life.  I mentioned how, back in 2004, one of the Corporals at my unit told me not to write a book about Iraq.  Now, as a thirty-two year old, I cringe more when I think of that asinine statement.  There is not a single soul in this world that deserves to tell me what to do with my life.

I think war narratives are important, even if I haven’t liked all the ones I’ve read.  The point is not to get rich.  The point is not to be famous.  The point is to convey a slice of history that can be lost otherwise.  The point is to capture sights, sounds, people, and places that are changed in the moment and hopefully influence people to take a more nuanced approach to understanding war.

As impossible as it is to whittle down what I learned in graduate school, one of the best lessons I came away with is uncovering the extent of how society ignores, belittles, and underreports the achievements and lived experiences of women.  We are not shadows of living beings; we are living, too.  I say society in this reference in speaking specifically to American society however there are many teachings that shows us women compared to men are often given less notice.

I write to you all today to tell you I will write my book.  I will write it regardless of whether it gets published.  I will write it because there will never be another moment in time that mirrors this experience.  I will write it because there are numerous others who could gain something from this type of storytelling.  I will write because a song I heard recently made me think of this experience and the amount of emotional connection I have to that point in my life.

I will not forgo a personal achievement because another human being has such set opinions against writing war memoirs.

If you’re wondering about that song, below are the lyrics:

“Every Little Thing” (Sung by Carly Pearce)

The scent that you left on my pillow
The sound of your heart beating with mine
The look in your eyes like a window
The taste of your kiss soaked in wine

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing

Guess you forgot what you told me
Because you left my heart on the floor
Baby, your ghost still haunts me
But I don’t want to sleep with him no more

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing

They say time is the only healer
God, I hope that isn’t right
Cause right now I’d die to not remember

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Every little thing
I remember every little thing
I’m haunted by the memories of
Every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Every little thing

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