Her First 9/11

A year ago, on September 11, 2013, I wrote a 9/11 post in anticipation of my daughter being born a couple of months later.  Today, it seems only fitting that I should write a new one.  Today was her first 9/11.

Thirteen years ago at 8:46 am, I was seventeen years old.  I was getting ready for class in my dorm room at 11th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.  I heard it on the news before I saw it for myself.  Then I walked outside, and nothing was ever the same again.  This year at 8:46 am, I was feeding my 9-month-old daughter.  The two of us sat together in silence for one minute - she, content in her mother's arms, and me, silently awash with every emotion I can think of.  Today I felt the need to be somewhere meaningful, and here in DC, I knew where that was.  I have never done anything particularly "9/11" on 9/11, but after my daughter's morning nap, we loaded up in the car and headed for the Pentagon.

Pentagon Memorial - 9/11/14

Our visit to the Pentagon Memorial today - the first for both of us - was, like all of my thoughts and feelings about 9/11, many things.  It was sad.  It was difficult.  It was beautiful.  It was inspiring.  It was humbling.  But most of all, it was peaceful.  After walking the perimeter of the memorial a couple of times, my daughter and I found a shady spot and sat down on one of the benches - each represents and is marked with the name of a life lost at that site thirteen years ago today.  There were many people at the memorial today.  Traffic buzzed by on the nearby interstates, and planes constantly took off and landed at the nearby airport.  But as we sat there quietly, the most distinct noise I heard was the sound of babbling water coming from the small reflecting pools underneath each and every one of those benches.  "Isn't it peaceful?," I said to my baby daughter.  Oh how far we have come in thirteen years.  There was a time when I would never have believed that "peaceful" would describe any part of my 9/11.

As we sat there, I told her about the memorial.  I don't know how much of speech she understands at 9 1/2 months of age, but I can tell you she sat quietly and looked right at me the whole time I spoke.  She didn't drink her water or play with her doll.  For a few moments, she just looked at me and listened.  I told her that all of those benches we could see represented people who were not with us anymore.  They are people we lost right here at this place thirteen years ago.  Mommy was in New York that day, and she remembers it like it was yesterday.  It was a beautiful late summer day, a lot like today, but it was a terrible day.  All of the people whose names are on these benches are not here anymore, but we are.  We're still here.  And we have to remember them.  We always have to remember them.  And there are so many people who work inside this building - I pointed to the Pentagon, where the only marks remaining from 9/11 are a part of the facade that is newer, stronger, and somehow more proud - and who work with daddy and who work all over the world to make sure that never happens again.

It was simplistic.  But, after all, she is only 9 1/2 months old.  And it was something.  I managed to tell her something.  And yes, tears rolled down from underneath my sunglasses while I spoke.  But I wiped them away on my sleeve, and I kept talking.  My voice broke, but I cleared my throat, and I kept talking.  I told my daughter something about 9/11 today.

The Pentagon - 9/11/14

We walked quietly through the memorial a couple more times, then we started walking back toward our car.  I looked back a couple more times at the Pentagon, and I shed a couple more tears.  But this year, my tears were not all tears of sadness.  Some were.  Some always will be.  But today, some were tears of pride.  Our Pentagon looked so strong to me today; stronger, even, than it did thirteen years and a day ago, because now it has that newer piece of facade, facing the memorial and the direction from which the plane came, standing as a testament to the fact that they did not stop us.  We are still here.

1 WTC in April 2012

It made me think, of course, of One World Trade Center.  My husband and I were there in 2012 before it was completely finished.  I wasn't sure how I would feel visiting the site, but we went there anyway.  And I don't have the words to really explain it, but seeing it made my soul feel better.  I have seen a lot of things in that part of Manhattan.  I have seen the Twin Towers, an iconic part of the New York skyline that I so loved to look at when I moved there in 2001.  I have seen those towers billowing the blackest smoke against the bluest sky.  I have seen them burning.  I have felt the earth tremor when they fell.  I have seen a cloud of dust and smoke there that remained for months, illuminated each night by the bright lights of first search and rescue and then clean up.  I have long wondered if it could ever again not look empty.  To be honest, it always will look a bit empty to me.  But One World Trade Center makes me proud.  It reaches toward the sky, higher than any other building in the western hemisphere.  It too stands proud - a testament to the fact that they did not stop us. 

Actual letter - Nov. 2001

I have reflected a lot over the past year about how far I have come in the past thirteen years.  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I considered leaving school to join our nation's military.  Those of you who know me personally know that this is something I never envisioned for myself.  But it felt like it was time to fight.  Ultimately, I stayed in school.  I changed my major to International Relations.  I focused my coursework as much as possible on Islamic Studies.  I learned as much as I could.  After college, I joined Teach For America and was assigned to teach middle school social studies.  I can tell you that when I taught the unit on the Middle East, I did not teach it from the text book.  In the years since I have gone to law school; I have married a military officer; I have followed him around the country and found several volunteer roles in which I can also serve our nation's military families; I have given birth to a beautiful baby girl.  The military wars that began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were not my fight.  Those were and are my husband's fight, and that of his friends and colleagues.  But I have begun to find my own fight, and I finally feel like I am beginning to fight it.

A couple of years ago on the eve of 9/11, I wrote that my ongoing goal was to learn to live less with the guilt of seeing September 12, 2001, and more to honor those lost and to somehow leave the world more kind, more tolerant, and more just.  I have a long, long way to go, but today for the first time, watching my baby take in the water flowing, the flags flying, and the sun shining, I felt like I've made a pretty decent start.  Like I told her: We are still here.  They did not stop us.

On Music and Aviation (An Open Letter to the FAA)

Dear FAA:

People - MANY people - find it ironic that I am married to an aviator, as I myself am a terrible flyer.  Actually, I find it pretty ironic myself.  I think when my husband (then boyfriend) first heard that I was afraid to fly, he probably thought it would be cute and that he would be there to be my big strong protector and comforter during our flights together.  Of course, that was before he saw the white-knuckled, hyperventilating, real-tear-shedding, utter panic that is what I mean by "afraid to fly".  It is not cute.  But it has not always been that way.

Me, fearless master of air travel

I traveled internationally for the first time at eight years of age.  We went to Europe, and I remember it vividly.  We went again when I was eleven.  Then, we took the most unforgettable vacation of my life to South Africa when I was in high school.  I loved to fly.  I loved when my parents took down our big, leather suitcases from the attic that could hold two weeks' worth of clothes.  I loved being at the airport.  It meant we were going on another fabulous adventure.  Flying symbolized fun and family and priceless experiences.  I felt so grown up at the airport telling the ticketing agents that I had packed my own bag and no one had asked me to carry anything onto the plane.  And no, of course I hadn't left the bag unattended.  I was a very responsible eight-year-old.  I wrote countdowns in my trip journals of the days, hours and minutes until take off.  In flight, I watched movies, slept, and carefully watched our progress on the little map on the screen.  I wrote updates in my journal about where the plane was, how fast we were going, and what the air temperature was outside.  How amazing and fantastic that we were hurtling through the sky at 30,000+ feet, safe in our aircraft from the freezing air outside, and mere hours away from Europe.  That same trip took my grandparents, father, aunts and uncles days when they immigrated to the United States.  How fortunate we were.

If I was ever concerned, my father was there to reassure me.  I don't remember him being reassuring in a coddling way, but rather in a matter-of-fact way that made me feel a million times better than a little pat on the head and an "everything's fine" would have.  My father flew almost every week for work when I was young.  [Side note: as it turns out, my mother may well be a superhero.  See my post on The Law of Deployment.  As a young mother now, it boggles my mind how many wake-ups, meals, and bedtimes she must have handled without my father.  And my father may in fact be a superhero as well.  For all his time on the road (he flew a family of 4 to Europe business class on airline miles alone), I don't recall him missing anything.  Not a piano recital, not a volleyball tournament, not a holiday, not even a birthday until I was nearly grown.  For a man who worked his tail off for us, he was also a phenomenally present father.  They should probably write a book.]  Some weeks, my dad "commuted" halfway across the country or more for work.  When we were very young, he used to bring home all of his boarding passes for us, and we used them to play flight attendant.  As a child, the song Walking in Memphis made me think of my dad because of the line: "and I boarded the plane/ touched down in the land of the Delta Blues/ in the middle of the pouring rain".  I now know what it means, but at the time Delta was just a word printed on those boarding passes he brought home. Flight after flight after flight on airplane after airplane after airplane, and there he was.  Safe and sound as ever.  And my brilliant and well traveled father could always explain what was going on with the plane in a way that made me understand that of course we were safe flying.  Everything that was happening was exactly what was meant to happen, and any worries or thoughts to the contrary were silly and needless.  And that made me feel very safe.  And I loved to fly.

And then I woke up one crisp September morning in 2001 - my freshman year at NYU, located in lower Manhattan - and I never looked at planes the same again.  It's hard to say what changed that day, and it's far beyond the scope of a blog post to explain (though sometimes, I try).  But in the year after that, I developed a paralyzing fear of planes.  I didn't have to be flying on them.  Hearing them was enough.  Seeing them was enough.  My first flashback happened during the Spring of 2002, and then they were frequent for a while.  Triggered by planes, smoke, or just a quiet moment alone with my thoughts, coming sometimes in the form of nightmares and sometimes in the form of waking flashbacks, they became part of my reality.  The airport was no longer a happy place for me.  As I approached, my stomach knotted and my throat tightened to the point it felt like I could not breathe at all.  For a while, I required anti-anxiety medication to board a plane.  It wasn't as much the flying as it was the plane.  It was a new world, and it was one in which my childhood vision of planes as a symbol of fun and adventure had been shattered.

Yep, Miss Afraid to Fly married this guy.

In the more than ten years since, those feelings have subsided.  I can see and hear planes without the acute feelings and memories they used to trigger (and that's an awfully good thing since we're generally stationed near a military air base...).  I don't have sleepless nights every time someone I love has to fly (again a good thing, since I'd probably never sleep if that was the case!).  I don't see in all planes those planes anymore.  But as my fear of planes has subsided, my fear of flying has intensified.  Dramatically.  It became, instead of something I looked forward to and enjoyed, the thing I dreaded most in this world.  The first time my husband and I flew while I was pregnant (read: could not obtain any liquid courage before the flight), it only took that one time witnessing my terror-induced panic for my husband to agree I wouldn't fly again during the pregnancy.  I won't drone on about my flying-induced panic attacks here, but suffice it to say that: It. Is. Not. Pretty.

But I can end this blog post with a very happy development.  Not too long ago, the FAA decided it was OK for commercial passengers to use electronic devices during takeoff and landing.  Ladies and gentlemen, this development has been nothing less than life changing for me.  "Gate to gate": what a beautiful phrase.

Music, for one reason or another, has always been a powerful force in my life.  Classically trained on the piano since the second grade, music has always had the ability to alter my mood.  The right kind of music can calm me, excite me, or make me feel invincible.  A song can take me to a completely different place and time.  The way some people remember sights or smells, I remember what songs were playing at various moments in my life.  And not just big moments.  I remember what song was playing, for example, when the alarm clock went off in our hotel room on my first ever trip to New York City.  And any time I hear that song, I'm back in The Plaza Hotel, falling in love with a city for the very first time.  Music can focus me or be a beautiful distraction.  In giving me my music from the time I board a plane to the time I get off that plane, the FAA has given me a gift that it can never fully appreciate.  Earlier this year, my husband bought me some of those noise canceling headphones, and I yelled at him for how much he spent on them.  Turns out, my husband also gave me a gift that he can probably never fully appreciate (because while he has seen me panic on a flight, he is so comfortable flying that I don't believe he can comprehend what it feels like).  

As the plane taxis to the runway, I turn on one of those songs that makes me feel invincible.  I put it on repeat.  As the plane accelerates down that runway, I turn the volume up.  I close my eyes.  I don't hear the engines.  I don't hear the landing gear going up.  I don't hear the flaps changing position.  I hear my music.  I feel invincible.  I smile.  During the flight, I listen to all sorts of music.  Some takes me back to my childhood.  Sometimes I can hear my father telling me that everything is fine in a way that makes me feel absurd for thinking it might not be.  Sometimes I even laugh a little at a memory brought back by a song.  If we hit some turbulence, back comes the feeling-invincible music.  I take off those noise canceling headphones when we are back on the ground, heart rate normal, eyes and palms dry.  I have flown nine times this year so far, and I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the new electronics rules have revolutionized my flying experience.  

So thank you, FAA.  Thank you for giving me my music, through which you have given me the ability to feel calm, to feel at peace, to even feel joy.  Music has done for me what no amount of reasoning or reassurance has been able to do in the past decade.  It has stopped the panic before it starts.  So here's to air travel, to going on adventures with my family, and to maybe, one day in the future of which I dare to dream, once again associating flying with a feeling of joyful anticipation rather than one of fearful dread. 

                                                                                                    Sincerely,
                                                                                                    A Hopeful Traveler

It Could Happen to You (and Being Thankful Every Day)

This blog post is probably more for me - to vent, to think, and to get some things out of my head and onto "paper" - than anything else, but I hope that those who read it may take something from it as well.  It is long, so bear with me if you will.  

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the frequently thought, if not said aloud, idea that terrible things "don't happen here" or "couldn't happen to us."  For instance, we learn in the news of a scandalous extramarital affair involving a highly respected and decorated military official.  Some go so far as to ask whether infidelity in the military is an "epidemic."  It's true that we too are a military family.  But it couldn't happen to us.  We read every day in the news of some terrible tragedy; I don't need to put links here to prove the point.  Terrorism, crime, sickness, hunger, poverty, and tragedy strike millions around the world every day.  But surely not in our town.  Not in our neighborhood.  Not in our home.  

Members of the military, like my husband and so many of our closest friends, face dangerous situations on an unfortunately routine basis.  Last year, a fellow Navy wife somehow found the courage and the strength to put into words what she went through when the worst happened.  On this topic, I think that we as military spouses - at least I know that I as a military spouse - walk a fine line between reality and "it can't happen to us."  In the part of our minds that is driven by pragmatism and realism, we know that it could, and we prepare as best we can.  We have researched the best life insurance that does not contain exclusions for aviation and combat.  We have gone over wills before each deployment and made sure broad powers of attorney were in place.  We have sat in quiet hours and allowed ourselves for a fleeting moment to consider how we and our children would carry on if our spouse paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country.  But in the part of our minds and hearts that is driven by love and optimism and hope, I think we have to believe that it won't happen even while acknowledging that it could.  I know that I do.  I know what my husband does, and I know what the risks are, but the thought alone is almost enough to make the world stop turning.  So we put the necessary plans and pieces in place, but I do not entertain the thought that it is a real possibility.

But here's the thing.  I have friends whose marriages were destroyed by infidelity.  I know service members who survived near death experiences.  In the past few years alone, I have known multiple individuals diagnosed with grave illnesses in their 30s.  And just over a week ago, a young family that I knew was lost in a triple murder/suicide.  That last one, which claimed the lives of two small children, has been not just difficult but impossible for me to make sense of.  Though I didn't know them well, I knew them enough for the news of their deaths to shake me to the core.  Enough to sob while holding my own baby and trying to find any way to understand how someone could reach a place so desperate as to take the lives of their children before taking their own.  Enough to spend hours pouring through old photos on Facebook, still crying, seeing how happy they always looked and wondering where things went wrong.  I looked at photos from the couples' wedding and the birth of their youngest child, and I couldn't help but think that surely no one - not them and not those who knew and loved them - would have ever imagined in their worst nightmare that their story would end like it did.  

It.  Could.  Happen.  Not just on the other side of the world or to strangers or on the news.  In my town.  To my friends.  To my family.  To any of us.  I have not been able to shake this truth the past couple of weeks, and quite frankly, I don't think I should.  Because it is the truth.  So the question really is how to respond to and live with that truth.  I am no psychologist, and I am not overly religious, though my faith is strong.  I will not pretend to tell others how they should process tragedy, and I encourage anyone whose life has been affected by it to seek out any and all help that is available.  What I will do, however, is share what I have resolved to do as I have contemplated tragedy, sadness, and truth in recent days.

I'm going to be thankful every day.  Not just on social media.  Not just on this blog.  Not just in November, when it's trendy to do 30 days of thankfulness.  Not just for 100 days during a hashtag campaign.  Every.  Day.  

Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with social media campaigns like the ones I mentioned, and I'm generally a fan of anything that encourages people (like me) to consciously stop and appreciate what they have.  But, for me, I think it has become important to do it every single day.  Even in the daily tasks that can wear us down, surely we can find things to be thankful for.  So when I am washing and folding the 1,000th load of my husband's uniforms and PT gear, I will remember how I cried doing my first load of laundry during his first deployment, realizing nothing of his was in there.  And I will be thankful that he is home, safe and serving his country, which is why I have that laundry to wash.  And when my baby cries and I feel my frustration rise, I will remember how her first cries when she was born were the single most wonderful sound I have ever heard.  And I will be thankful that she is healthy, happy, and growing every day.  When I worry about my husband's safety, I will remember how well trained he is and how much he wants to come home to us.  And I will be thankful that I have a husband who I love so dearly that I cannot fathom my world without him.  And when I put stress or pressure on myself because I am not working full time... well you know what?  This one deserves its own paragraph.

I do put stress and pressure on myself sometimes because I am not working full time.  Some weeks I work 10-15 hours now, and some weeks I do not work at all.  Some months I work as an attorney, and some months I do work that does not require the law degree I worked so hard to get.  I make less than a quarter of what my salary was when I did work full time.  At times I feel guilty for not using my legal degree and skills more, for not bringing the kind of money into my family that I could, and for taking what may well be a step back in my career.  But here are the things I should remember.  The only other time I was unemployed was for about 2 1/2 months when I first got married and relocated to Florida.  I was looking for work and was constantly stressed about money because I wasn't bringing in a paycheck.  I got headaches and stomach aches worrying about money.  The truth?  We were fine.  We paid our bills, we lived comfortably, and we still went out and had fun.  My husband made enough money to support us.  And looking back, I wish I had enjoyed every minute of all that free time that disappeared once I found the great job.  Sometimes I still stress about money, but if I look around: we are fine.  We pay all our bills.  We pay off loans early and contribute to savings.  Our baby has more than she needs, and we go out rarely, but that's a product of being new parents, not of lacking funds.  We have less money than we did when I was working full time, but my husband still makes enough to support us.  For that, I am thankful.  And my baby will never be a baby again.  I will never again have the opportunity to watch her discover literally everything for the first time.  The law, my degree, and work will be there in a year or two or five.  But my baby will not be a baby anymore.  For the opportunity to have this precious time with her, I am thankful.  And since work occupies so much less of my time, I have recently taken on significant volunteer obligations; and for the ability and time to volunteer, I am thankful.  So when I put stress or pressure on myself because I am not working full time, I will remember how much I will look back and miss these days, and I will be thankful that my life has brought me to exactly this point.

There are countless things to appreciate in daily life - family, friends, faith, health, opportunity, security - I could go on for pages and days.  Just in writing this blog post, I have felt myself relax and have caught myself smiling.  What a testament to focusing on the positive.  What began as venting my emotions on tragedies and misfortunes touching my life and the lives of those I care about has ended as an exercise in relaxation and rejoicing as I think of all that I have to appreciate.  So for anyone who has read this far, please join me.  

Join me first in the jolting realization that all of those things that you file under "not here, not now, not me" could, in fact, happen here, today, to you.  Then join me in taking away from that not fear or dismay, but genuine appreciation for all of the people, events, opportunities, places, experiences, and things that make your "here, now, and you" a place so wonderful that you cannot imagine tragedy befalling it.

On Appreciation and Being a Military Spouse

Last week was Military Spouse Appreciation Day.  And of course that got me thinking and reflecting.  And of course thinking and reflecting often leads me to blogging, so here we are.

Copyright Jim Frawley Photography

When I first got married almost four years ago, I bristled at the idea of being called a "Navy wife."  In fact, bristled probably isn't strong enough.  I was downright opposed to it.  You see, I was nervous enough leaving the state where I had gone to school, and passed the Bar, and walking away from two major law firm job offers to move in with my husband of three months in a state I viewed as Place To Which I Have No Ties and Where I Will Never Get a Job.  Please don't get me wrong: I was unbelievably excited to FINALLY live with my husband and stop saying goodbye every Sunday afternoon.  I was downright giddy as I drove from Atlanta to Florida that September day in 2010.  But, I was also nervous.  I was awaiting Florida Bar Exam results and had no job prospects in sight.  While I was searching for a job and had plenty of "settling in" to do, I was essentially going to be a housewife for some period of time, and that felt like losing a piece of my hard earned identity.  And I thought, after all I've worked for and accomplished, I'll be damned if MY identity is going to become defined by HIS job.  I think I even scoffed a bit at the idea that there was a Military Spouse Appreciation Day and a Military Spouse of the Year.  My mind was filled with a fierce independence, and while I loved (still do!) my husband with all of my heart, the military just happened to be his job - it didn't define ME to an extent that I felt I deserved recognition of any sort.

Fast forward a bit.  I passed the Florida Bar, and lo and behold I did find a job.  I actually found an amazing job, and I'd be honored if my readers here would take a look at that journey separately sometime here.  It is worthy of its own post.  As my husband deployed and I quickly learned more about being a "military spouse," I was equally quickly gaining experience and confidence in my own career.  I often said that if I was going to be referred to as a "Navy wife," my husband should have to be known as a "lawyer husband."  (Truthfully, he probably should get some sort of recognition for that.  It certainly comes with its own set of challenges.)  The first year of our marriage went by, and I was more focused on my fast paced work environment than on my role as "Navy wife," though I did send plenty of care packages to the Middle East that year.  

But then, I started branching out and becoming increasingly involved with the Officers Spouses Club (OSC) for my husband's squadron.  Through it, I met some pretty amazing military spouses.   And you know what?  I ended up serving two terms on the Board of that OSC and making some of my best friends there.  It turns out I kind of liked this military spouse gig!

And there is something to this whole "being a military spouse" thing.  While I often say, and wholeheartedly believe, that many, many civilian spouses deal with a frequently absent spouse and have to balance their own careers, child care, etc., with a hard working spouse on the road, it's not exactly the same.  The challenges are unique.  I have filled out powers of attorney and gone over my husband's will with him before he leaves on a deployment.  I have sat up at 3:00 in the morning, trying to look away, but eyes glued to CNN or the BBC while the world fell apart where I knew my husband was.  I have felt my heart stop beating for a moment when I heard that he had been involved in an "incident" - even though I heard it from him and knew it couldn't be *that* bad, it was a startling reminder that what he does is not safe.  Not always at least.  And sometimes not by a long shot.  I have celebrated most of my wedding anniversaries so far alone, along with birthdays, other holidays, friends' weddings - you name it.  I have assembled care packages, cards, letters, and emails galore while months ticked by that I didn't see my husband.

But before you feel too sorry for me, the rewards are also unique.  I have spent long months looking forward to my husband's return.  I have decorated my house and yard with dozens of American flags when the day arrived.  I have watched a plane pull in, flag flying, bringing him home at last.  

I have twice felt my husband hold me so tight that I couldn't breathe.  They've been the two greatest hugs of my life.

In my still relatively young military marriage, I have known dread and eager anticipation, loneliness and longing, fear and joy, pride and love, all in degrees I could not have imagined before I lived it.  My husband and I have not said our last goodbyes in our marriage.  We have not had our last frustrating, constantly-dropping Skype conversation.  We have not exchanged our last letters.  We have not endured our last deployment.  

But we also haven't enjoyed our last homecoming.  We haven't felt our last breathtakingly wonderful embrace after months apart.  I haven't shed my last tears of pure pride when a flag waves or the National Anthem plays and I stop to think about what my husband and his colleagues do for us all every day.  And for that, I am glad.

And at the end of the day, I love it.  I really do.  It's all worth it.  In my years married to my husband, I have had the honor and the privilege to meet, befriend, and work with some outstanding military spouses.  I have met several nominees for that Military Spouse of the Year award I once scoffed at, including this year's Army Spouse of the Year.  Let me tell you, these individuals and that award are nothing to scoff at.  They do incredible work on behalf of military families (like mine), all while balancing the same demands as professionals, parents, military spouses - the list goes on and on.  They deserve every ounce of recognition that has come their way. 

And maybe, though it's sometimes still hard to admit, I do too.  I still believe that there are COUNTLESS people - military and civilian alike - who deserve recognition for the sacrifices they make every day, be those sacrifices for family, for country, for faith, or for something else entirely.  And yes, being a military spouse is something I chose, so I don't want your pity.  But although it is one I'm proud to walk, it is not always an easy road.  And I have finally come to realize that pity and appreciation are not the same thing in this context.  And that there is nothing wrong with appreciating someone for something they chose to do.  And so, though I've had a wide range of mixed emotions about Military Spouse Appreciation Day, looking not at myself, but at the military spouses I've been fortunate enough to meet along the way, has shown me what a phenomenal group of people they are.  I am immensely proud to be among their ranks and to stand with them every day, through every challenge.  

So to those who did thank me last week: you're welcome.  And thank YOU for recognizing and appreciating a role that took me a while to embrace but that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

The Law of Deployment: It's Not Just for Military Wives

The Law of Deployment is basically just a variation of Murphy's Law that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  Except all those things that can go wrong will go wrong just as soon as your spouse leaves on deployment.  I (and all of my military spouse friends) know it well.  

For example, during my husband's first seven-month deployment - just a few months after we got married - I was bedridden with a serious back injury for weeks, our refrigerator leaked, the hot water heater broke, and the garage door stopped working.  During his next deployment I managed to lock myself completely out of the house without even my cell phone on me, and I found a snake in our yard.  (For those that don't know me, I do not do snakes.)  Thankfully, the houses we lived in at that time were rentals so the landlords remedied most of the house issues, my neighbors helped me break in when I was locked out, and our yard guys at least made it such that I could avoid potential encounters with snakes for the rest of deployment.  But you get the picture.

Now, my husband is on his shore tour.  In Navy life, this is a tour that follows a "sea tour" or two during which deployments are frequent.  During shore tour, my husband (in theory) does not deploy and basically works a job with "regular hours".  But, he has had to take quite a few business trips in the year that we've been on shore tour.  Some have been short, domestic trips, and others have been international trips of anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks.  Most recently, he was gone for just three days.  Compared to those seven-month deployments, three days is nothing, right?  Right.  Except now we have a baby.  And while I take care of the baby full time during the day, it turns out that job is at least twice as hard when my husband isn't home in the evenings and early mornings to help.  So I dread those business trips.  And then came the real fun.   How dare the Law of Deployment strike during shore tour?!

My husband left town on a Tuesday.  We had started our cat on some new medicine the prior Sunday, but the cat waited until Tuesday to have a reaction to said medicine.  And that reaction involved generally refusing to eat or drink anything, which concerned me for obvious reasons.  But whenever I could persuade him to eat anything at all - even a tiny bite, even a literal single pellet of food - it resulted in incredible amounts of vomit that he would only leave on the carpet, never on a surface that would actually be easy to clean.  This continued for over 24 hours, and clearly a trip to the vet was in order.  

Normally, this is no big deal.  My husband works very near our vet.  He will drop the cat off on the way to work, and pick him up on the way home.  But no such luck during Vomit Fest 2014.  So, I load up my baby and my cat.  Fortunately my baby is a great traveler, but my cat more than makes up for it with his pure, unadulterated hatred for being in his carrier and in the car.  And it didn't help that despite being "Spring," the windchill was in the 20s with bands of heavy snow moving through the area.  I drive to the vet and somehow manage to carry both baby in infant carrier and cat (who is heavier than baby) in cat carrier into the vet.  I talk to the vet, drop off the cat, and rush - now late - to my new moms group meeting.  After the meeting, my daughter and I have to cut lunch with the ladies short, as we need to run to Target before she needs to eat again.  Why, you ask?  Because of course we had run out of carpet cleaner - both kinds - that morning while trying to clean up the approximately 654th pile of vomit that week.  So we run to Target, get more carpet cleaner, run home, scrub the carpet, Skype with the family for a bit, and feed the baby.  The vet calls, and the cat is ready.  So we repeat the exercise of transporting baby and cat in sub-freezing temperatures and finally return home for the day.

Perhaps you've seen this image before.  It circulates frequently among military spouses on social media.  But it's wrong.  I'm a military wife, and I'd like to go on record today as saying it is hard.  Or at least, it can be.  The Law of Deployment: it's not just for military wives!

Also, just for the record, our cat has fully recovered, and my husband did steam clean the carpets once he returned home.  Peace has returned to our home.

Strength in Numbers

I know the old saying is "safety in numbers," but lately the concept of strength, comfort, and even joy in numbers has been on my mind.  Last week, my infant daughter and I went to a new moms (and babies) group for the first time.  The group is led by a nurse and meets at a local hospital, and it provides new moms an opportunity to get out of the house with their babies and ask questions of other new moms and a medical professional.  There were questions ranging from sleep patterns to starting solid food, and I listened to all the other moms and the nurse out of one ear, while I also entertained my curious 3-month-old during the meeting.  But those words of advice were not the most valuable part of the meeting for me.  The most valuable piece for me was meeting other moms of babies.  Imagine that!  Other moms!  Just like me!  And right here in my local area!  Maybe it shouldn't have been, but it sure was a revelation for me.

Moving day 2013

My husband and I moved to Virginia just over a year ago.  Shortly thereafter, we found out I was pregnant.  While the end result of that pregnancy was and is the greatest blessing of our lives, it was not the world's easiest pregnancy.  And for the first time in my life I was not working, looking for work, or going to school.  I was just home, often alone, and often in pain.  And, for the first time in our marriage, my husband was not attached to a squadron, so there was no spouses group, no ready-made social network to welcome us when we arrived.  It was, in many ways, one of the most joyous and eventful years of my life.  But, it was also a lonely one on a lot of days.  

Once my daughter was born, both the joy and the loneliness intensified.  I feel incredibly lucky to be able to stay home with her in these her first months of her life.  And I was beyond blessed to have my parents be able to travel to stay with us when my daughter was first born and when my husband has had to be away for extended periods of time.  But, when they left and the house was empty, I must admit there were some very lonely moments.  With an infant daughter, we did not get out to meet our handful of friends in the area for dinner anymore.  With that infant daughter being born in the winter and the middle of flu season, we really didn't get out much at all.  She and I spent basically all of our time in the four walls of our house, alone except for the occasional friend dropping by and in the evenings when my husband would return home to be bombarded with my requests for him to help with the baby and to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to me!

So this new moms group really was like a revelation to me.  Not only are there other new moms living mere minutes from me with their new babies, but they too are eager to get out of their houses, talk to other adults, and find "playmates" for their children!  In the one (1) week since our first meeting, my daughter and I have met up with other moms and babies twice already.  We have walked, talked, and bonded over this period in life that we are all experiencing for the first time.  And because of that I have smiled more, laughed more, relaxed more.  There is indeed strength in numbers and joy in knowing we are not alone.

Initially, I thought this would be the end of this blog post: a nice little anecdote about how my daughter and I are making new friends and I am settling in to life as a new mom.  Everyone smiles and proceeds with their day.  End of story.  But then I thought about how often in life this is true - especially in military family life.  

My husband and I moved here in 2013 from Jacksonville, Florida, where he had been stationed since before we married and where I had lived since 2010.  I look back on our time in Jacksonville very fondly.  I had a job that I loved most days with coworkers I enjoyed every day (which, incidentally, is a big part of enjoying one's job).  We had a great network of friends in my husband's squadron, and I was thrilled and honored to serve twice on the board of the Officers' Spouses Club (OSC) there.  We had many favorite dinner and date night spots, and we loved our neighborhood.  Even my husband's last deployment is a time I look back on fondly - I was incredibly busy and thriving at work, enjoyed several visits with my family, supported and was supported by my fellow Navy spouses and my coworkers, and counted down to my husband's return.

Homecoming 2011

What I seem to have forgotten in all this lovely nostalgia is my husband's previous deployment. The one that happened when I moved to Jacksonville from Atlanta (where I had lived for five years), and he deployed 2 1/2 months later.  The one where I knew next to no one in town besides my husband and a few people he introduced me to, and then he left for seven months.  The one where I started a brand new high stress job literally the day after he left; a job from which I came home at night to an empty house with no one to talk to about the struggles (and occasional triumphs).  If we're going to be completely honest here, I cried every single night for at least the first two months of that deployment.  Even though I saw plenty of people at work every day, I was profoundly lonely during that first deployment of our marriage.  But during the second half of the deployment, things got drastically better.  I had gained some confidence at work and bonded with some coworkers; the job became less stressful and more fun.  I started making true friends with some of the other Navy wives in our squadron (several of whom I now count among my closest friends), and suddenly I did have someone to grab a drink with after work and vent about the struggles (and share the now more frequent triumphs).  By the time my husband came home, I was all smiles - and not only because he was home, though that surely was a big part of it.  There is strength in numbers and joy in knowing we are not alone.

Help studying for my 2nd Bar Exam

Similarly, as I became better integrated into the fabric of my husband's squadron and the OSC in Jacksonville, it often felt like no one quite understood the unique pressures that my job added to my life.  I enjoyed the job, but it was stressful; and it was stressful in the I-want-other-junior-associates-to-commiserate-with kind of way.  (As an aside, I was the most junior associate in my office by four years, and no one else was hired in my year; so, I was really lacking commiseration!)  Plus, there was the added stress of knowing that the reality of our military life meant we would leave Florida at some point.  I had already taken two bar exams in two years at a cost of pushing $10,000 for the exam registration, background checks, review courses, travel, and hotel accommodations.  Would I have to take a third?  Would I have to sacrifice my career for my husband's?  Would my employer be understanding when the time came?  Would I ever be able to maintain a legal career with the inevitable résumé gaps down the road?  That too was a lonely feeling.  But then a law school classmate introduced me online to the Military Spouse JD Network (MSJDN).  Wow.  Not only was I not the only person going through this, there are pushing 1,000 other military spouse attorneys who know exactly how I feel.  Again, revelation.  Since moving to the DC area, I have been able to meet more and more MSJDN members in person (some of whom are among my closest friends here) and become more and more involved with the organization.  That too has been an immeasurable blessing as I navigate the uncharted waters of being a stay-at-home mom and spouse for the first time.  There is strength in numbers and joy in knowing we are not alone.

All of these are lessons I have tried to take with me.  During my husband's second deployment, I tried to be especially mindful of spouses who were new to the military and/or to Jacksonville when the squadron deployed, and I tried to support them in many small ways as the months went by.  But I am sure I could have done better.  When associates more junior than me started at the Firm (yes!  the day did come when I was no longer the most junior attorney there!), I tried to support them too in any way I could.  But surely I could have done more.  As my involvement with MSJDN increases, I hope that I am helping support fellow military spouse attorneys and paving the way for both less professional barriers to career mobility and less personal loneliness in figuring out the process.  But I would like to do more.

As for being a new mom, I'm still learning as I go.  But I know a few things.  I know this is the best and most important job I have ever had.  I know that I love my daughter with both a fierceness and a tenderness that didn't exist in me before her.  I know that I make mistakes for which I am sorry and from which I try to learn.  I know that I worry more than I ever have before in life.  And I know that none of that is going to change.  I also know how glad I am to be meeting other new moms who are becoming new friends and confidantes as we all figure out this whole mom role.  

And I know, without a doubt, that there is strength in numbers, and joy in knowing we are not alone.

On Teaching, Mothering and Perfectionism

Bulletin board in my first classroom

Before I went to law school - what seems like a lifetime ago - I was a teacher.  Fresh out of college at the ripe old age of 20, I joined Teach For America and moved to Miami, Florida to start teaching middle school social studies.  I look back on teaching as the most challenging and most rewarding work I have ever done.  But at the beginning, the reward had not yet come.  Instead, it was pure challenge.  I remember vividly driving to the first day of school.  I had my roster already, of course.  I knew what was coming: nearly 200 (yes, that's right) eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-old students.  In my classroom.  Under my care and instruction.  If they failed, it would be my fault.  My stomach was in nearly as many knots as when I actually was a middle school student. 

Very, very early in my teaching career, I realized what I found most difficult about it.  It was not the classroom discipline struggles.  Sure, there were plenty of those.  Yes, there were days I cried when the door closed behind the last student of the day.  Any teacher that tells you otherwise, I'll wager is lying.  But I had been well trained by Teach For America, I had an amazing support system, and those were challenges I was able to overcome.  Likewise, it was not the content.  Sure, it had been a while since I'd had to recall secondary social studies material, but after all, I had a fancy college degree (not to mention the teacher's guides with all the answers).  Content I could learn.  It was not the lesson planning, the grading, or the frequent evaluations by my administrators and Teach For America mentors, though those were all time consuming.  For me, the most challenging thing about teaching and the thing that kept me up at night was this: there was no measure of perfection. 

I'm going to go ahead and admit what will shock no one who knows me: I am a perfectionist.  And at that time in my life, I was used to doing things where there was a measure of perfection.  I was used to school, where I could get A's; sports, where I could win; piano performances, where I could get it right and receive awards.  I was accustomed to striving to be the well-defined "best" and usually coming pretty damn close.  Even getting accepted to Teach For America had been another example of this, as it was - even at that time - more selective than my undergraduate institution. 

Note from one of my students

But teaching was a whole new ballgame.  My success as a teacher depended largely on being able to motivate this group of young people - each with their own individual personality, learning styles and difficulties, personal struggles, and attitude - to try their very best.  My very best effort wasn't going to do it this time.  I needed those kids to work with me.  And I wasn't sure I knew how to do that.  I recall very clearly thinking: "Don't these kids know that if they all got up and walked out right now, there's not a single thing I could do to stop them?"  Thankfully, they apparently hadn't thought of that.  And they did try.  And together, for the most part, we did succeed.  By all objective measures in my two years with Teach For America, I was a very successful teacher.  And that's all good and well in retrospect.  But in the moment, it was very difficult to work day after day without that measure of perfection that, if I just worked hard enough, I could attain.

After two years, I went to law school.  Ah, the familiar world of academia.  There were fellowships to win, high grades to get, law review articles to publish, interviews and BigLaw jobs to land.  Objective measures of success.  Once again, whether I succeeded or failed was in my hands.  Either I would work hard enough, be smart enough, interview well enough - or I wouldn't.  But it was in my hands.  I did pretty well in law school - well enough to then complete a clerkship, get a couple of BigLaw job offers, and go to work in private practice.  Private practice brought its own set of challenges, but again I was largely in a world where one could strive for perfection.  Or if not perfection, at least objectively measurable success.  I could write without error, research until I found the answer, and work until I was the best prepared lawyer possible.  I could help clients, please partners, and win hearings.  Of course, I didn't win all the time, and the partners weren't always pleased.  But I knew what success looked like, and I could strive for it every day. 

A year ago, I left the practice of law.  Not for good, I hope, but for now.  My husband and I relocated (as we military families often do), and I got pregnant with our first child.  I knew I wanted to stay at home with the baby for at least the first few months (or years) of her life, so I did not look for work aside from the occasional contract gig.  And now, as planned, I'm a stay at home mom to an absolutely amazing baby daughter.  She is the light of my life, and - as any parent will tell you - I love her more than can be put into words.  But as much as I love mothering, it is also deeply challenging, even though I've only been at it a few months.  And when I really reflect on it, I think it is for the same reason that teaching challenged me so.  There is, again, no measure of perfection. 

Success will ultimately be measured by the type of daughter my husband and I raise - whether she is smart and kind and polite and happy and all those things we hope our children will be.  And someday, looking back, I hope to know whether we succeeded.  But that day is a long way off (truthfully, I wonder sometimes whether my own parents - with children ages 27 and 30 - believe they have reached that day).  Right now, I question everything I do.  And I mean everything.  Does she sleep enough?  Does she sleep too much?  Am I feeding her enough?  Should I feed her more often?  Is she reaching her milestones on time?  Do we talk to her and read to her enough?  Should we give her more independent play time?  Do we interact with her enough?  I have quickly discovered that one can drive oneself insane reading books and articles on the Internet about how one "should" be parenting and what one's baby "should" be doing.  And I am trying not to drive myself insane in that manner, but it's hard.  Because part of me (a big part of me!) always wants to look in those books and articles for objective measures of success. 

Truthfully, I think the only book I should be reading is a journal I received at my baby shower that now sits next to my bed.  In it, all of the wonderful women who attended my shower wrote their words of advice to me.  Though they each wrote individually, on separate pages, without consulting one another, a theme emerges from their writing: "Do what works for you and your family;" "Relax and enjoy;" "Try not to read too many books.  There are so many different opinions! Remember to listen to your heart;" "Love unconditionally - the rest will fall into place;" "You know what is best. Don't listen to others;" "Just remember not to listen to what all your friends say and go with your mommy gut, only you know what your baby needs."  All of those words were written by mothers.  Great mothers.  One, in fact, is both a mother and a doctor!   

That is the book I should read every day, because those are really the answers.  There is nothing objective, I am quickly learning, about raising a baby.  She cannot - or at least she should not - be measured by some standard in a book or against someone else's child.  Rather, she is my beautiful, smiling, babbling, one-of-a-kind baby.  Who I love.  Unconditionally.  Here's to letting the rest fall into place.

My Sober 9/11

I know it is currently 2/28, but I wanted to share this as one of my first posts.  I wrote this on 9/11/2013 and shared it on Facebook.  This note is one of the things that lead several people to encourage me to start a blog.  So now it will indeed live on in the blogosphere, rather than simply on Facebook.  Here is that post, unedited, as it appeared last year:

Today has been my first sober 9/11 in twelve years.  Don't get me wrong: That is not to say that I've been drunk for the past twelve 9/11's, but today is the first one I have spent wholly unassisted by a glass of wine, a strong cocktail, or some sort of (legally prescribed to me, as the lawyer in me must tell you) prescription medication.  Those who know me well, or who have observed my demeanor (or Facebook statuses) on this day over the years, know that I have never said much in a public forum about this day or my experiences on it twelve years ago.  I have told the story privately many times, but not on a public forum.  And I'm not going to tell it all here today.  But I have had one overwhelming thought today, and that one I felt the need to share.


9/11, for me - as I imagine for most other people - is a complicated memory.  It is a series of snapshot images seared forever into my memory such that when people hash tag #NeverForget, I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment but always wonder how it is even possible and what it would be like to just for one day be able to forget.  It is a million mixed emotions that are too much for this particular forum.  Some days, they are too much simply to feel.  It is a day on which incredible bonds were formed - bonds with friends and classmates, bonds with a City, and bonds with a Nation - that will never, never be broken.  I remember it all very well. 

And I also remember having the distinct thought on 9/12 that there were children being born that very day who never experienced 9/11.  Would never experience 9/11.  Would never have to have those memories.  Just one day after the horrific loss of life that I watched with my fellow New Yorkers, new life entered the world that never knew that day.  It was, for me, a powerful thought that recurred to me a lot over those next few days.

This year, in a couple of months, my child is due to be born.  And for her, 9/11 will be something that happened in the history books.  It will be something that she will ask her father and me about the way that we asked our parents about the Kennedy assassination or our grandparents about Pearl Harbor.  Where were we?  What was it like?  How do we remember it?  An event that changed my world so drastically will, for my daughter, be an historical event; one she will read about but never live, never have to recall.  And it is among my greatest prayers for her that she never does live a day like that one.

But when she asks me about it, I hope that I will find the strength to tell her the story.  She will have seen pictures, of course.  She will have read about it, no doubt.  And I hope I will be able to share with her (most of) the pictures I still see in my memory.  I will spare her the worst details, as I will spare them here; there were sights and sounds and smells that I will never forget and that she is blessed to need not know.  But I hope that when she asks where I was, I can tell her about my day in lower Manhattan. 

And in addition to the historical facts and the journalistic who, what, when and where, I hope that I tell her about the guy on Washington Square who stood there all day giving out free hugs.  I hope I tell her how when someone managed to get a call through on the pay phone, the lucky caller took names and numbers from people standing farther back in line to give to whoever we had managed to reach so that someone somewhere else in the country (with a better chance of getting a call through) could call all of those people to let them know their loved ones in New York were OK.  Her grandmother called perfect strangers who were the parents of those behind me in that line.  I hope I tell her how so many people donated blood, they had to turn donors away.  I hope I tell her how we all searched for something - anything - we could do to help. 

After another recent tragedy in our Nation, this Fred Rogers quote was widely circulated in the media and social media: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."  I hope I tell my daughter that in my New York City world on 9/11, you did not have to look far.  The helpers were everywhere. 

I hope I tell her how, when there was nothing we could do to help but stay out of the way and heed the advice of local and federal officials, we did that.  Together.  Friends who had only known each other a few weeks (because you see, we were college freshman - 17 or 18 years old and mere weeks out of our parents' homes) became friends who would last a lifetime in those hours and days.  My daughter will meet those people in my life, because those people are like family now. 

I hope that I take her to New York to show her my most beloved City.  I hope I take her there often.  I hope I tell her how when people back home asked if I was planning to transfer colleges and leave New York in the wake of 9/11, I must have looked at them as though they had two heads.  Leave New York?  But I was already a New Yorker.  I will always be a New Yorker.

And at the end of it all, I hope I share with her the quote that I share as my Facebook status every 9/11.  One year later, on 9/11/02, the President of NYU said at a Ceremony of Remembrance: "Never miss an opportunity to love another human being."  I hope my daughter takes that lesson away from the history books.  I hope that she doesn't learn to hate or fear a group of people because of a few individuals who perpetrated horrific acts.  I hope that she does learn that her Nation is resilient.  Determined.  Proud.  Strong.  And that none of us should ever miss an opportunity to love another human being.

And finally, I'm thankful that if, when my daughter asks all these questions, I have a hard time answering them, I married an American hero... who will tell her his own story, and mine.  And who will show her every day what we can, should, and do stand and fight for.