Two years ago, I embarked on a journey. A journey not unlike most Soldiers go through in their time in the military. I left the place where I was born, the place and the people I called home, and I left them, and I journeyed alone, with people I didn’t know. To a place I didn’t know. To a future that was terrifying, unknown, and most of all, away from my support system, away from the foundation to my existence.
If you want to hear more about what that experience was like, you can feel free to read a blogpost I wrote earlier this year reflecting on the return from my deployment. It is the rawest form of writing I’ve done on my experience, and encompasses everything I went through there.
But this post is different. This post is not only a follow-up to that blog post, but it is a redemption of the person I had to be while I was deployed. I am still in the process of redeeming myself, finding myself, loving myself despite all the things I did to survive, and the things I continue to do to survive even though I’m no longer in that space. My traumas follow me, my traumas continue to haunt me.
Two years ago, I embarked on a journey. That journey was not only traumatic for me, but traumatic for all of those who were on that deployment, and the people that we left behind.
For me, my brothers took the brunt of the heaviness. This year has not been forgiving for anyone, with training exercises back to back, every single month. My brother asks me “I see you in two weeks?” and “you not go airplane right?” Because the last memory he has of me boarding a plane, I was gone for 11 months. He says “I cried” and “you were gone long time.”
My year has been as difficult as anyone else’s and I’m not interested nor wish to compare the pain we continue to hold as we grapple with an uncertain present and future of pandemics, politics, rights, and reckoning with violent pasts (our own, and systems’).
But this year, I’ve been given so much to smile and laugh about. I felt so empty and broken when returning (and there are many days I still feel that) and I had colleagues, friends, and family pour into me when I was able and willing to accept their love. There were many instances where I shut people out, where I protected the core of who I was above anything and anyone else. I still do this.
I also learned what it meant to let go of people in my life that I had gotten used to but could not love completely or fully. I was able to be fully myself as I navigated my healing journey with my loved ones, with my brothers, and with myself. I learned about what it meant to be a better listener, advocate/activist, sibling, forgiver, and lover, grounded in love, compassion, radical love/hope/forgiveness.
I received my official certification to be a Sexual Assault Victim Advocate in the military, paving the way for me to engage in the work I do now, working alongside series of heroes who save people everyday, on their worst days.
I graduated from my Student Affairs Administration program. I left with such a sour taste of higher ed in my mouth, but I will always love the potential that it could’ve been. I hope that higher education becomes everything that they wish they could be, but are not right now.
Most importantly, I learned from everyone around me, what it meant to give up things that no longer serve us. I saw co-wokers and colleagues burn themselves up to keep institutions of oppression warm and then cut themselves off completely from systems that took more than they gave. I saw true heroes, paving the way for me to think about where I wanted to be, who I wanted with me, and who deserved my energy. These people, by showing me that leaving is not quitting, that loving yourself enough to walk away is necessary to preserve the core of our being, they taught me what radical love and hope can do. I am forever indebted to 1) my Campus Climate family: Amanda, AJ, Matt, Myxee, Laura, Garrett and 2) my Introverts Unite family – I especially cannot thank enough the students who were there for me and with me along my journey. You have all touched me, loved me, held my brokenness and wholeness and sometimes a-lot-ness with love, care, and grace. You are and will always be my community. I will always show up for you in every capacity I can, in the way you have saved me on the days I could not get up.
These people listed above (and
more), helped me gain my confidence, my self-love, my energy, and my passion
again. For so long, I was on auto-pilot. I felt trapped inside my own body on
days, and they coaxed the old me and the new me out with love and care, and
never cast judgment. I’m sure I was not the best coworker or friend or neighbor
on many occasions, and yet I know these people opened up their hearts to me in
ways I can never repay you. This may be a love note to myself, but it is will
always be a love note to the pieces of me that you helped me plant, water, and cultivate.
It has always been a collective effort; I am a beautiful collage of all the
potential you saw in me and invested in.
It’s because of the support and love that I received, that I was able to survive this long. That I was able to venture outside of my field to something I am so truly invested in (and that I might be good at ?? idk yet, imposter syndrome says nah).
But most importantly, I’ve been able to hear my voice again and love it, fucking clap to it, say it with conviction and heart and passion and love and the echoing of all my loved ones’ spirits behind me. I feel less alone when I speak my truth, because it was taken so violently from me during the course of my deployment, and even when I returned.
For the first time ever, I read out loud a portion of a fiction story I’ve been writing. I would’ve never done that without truly believing in the power of my words and the beauty it captures.
And for the first time since I can remember, I’ve pushed back at the military. It’s such a jarring experience to be treated like shit for 11 months straight and to come back with a spark for a tongue that speaks oceans into existence.
I have always been afraid to be my true, authentic self in the military. (LOL I WONDER WHYYY???!!!) And instead of folding into myself, I made myself bigger, less easy to consume. Not because I wasn’t doing it before, but because I wasn’t sure of the backlash if I did. Realizing that no matter what I do, it will never be good enough for the military, I decided to make it worth my while. To make it less draining on me, to make it more authentic of an experience for myself and everyone around me. And it has been a life affirming change. It has allowed me to engage in the real lives of my soldiers, the realities of the military industrial complex, break generational curses that the military deems as tradition, and love myself enough to draw boundaries that I would have never dared to do before.
I brought “Critical Race Theory” to my training because I knew someone in my section called it “extremist.”
I leave when I’m done with work, I no longer wait for people
to tell me when I can leave. (sometimes lololol)
I talk to my soldiers like humans, not subordinate beings to “do my bidding”
I am less anxious saying “I’ve never done that before” and then asking people to show me how to do things. I am so much less ashamed of saying this. I am so much more empowered to say I don’t know something, rather than saying nothing and suffering.
I am a FUCKING HARD CHARGING, LOUD AS FUCK advocate for my soldiers to not be treated like shit. To have their boundaries and wishes honored in the best way possible, to do the extra work to make sure their voice is heard when it seems to conveniently get stopped at a certain level. I fucking skip chain of command and that bureaucracy, I talk to people of other ranks because deep, meaningful conversations don’t end when we look at rank.
And I’ve enjoyed my time so much more in the military now that I’ve done these things. I have Soldiers who trust me, those who have stated they want to be a leader like me, stated that they look up to me. I have only ever wanted to leave a positive imprint on this world, and this is my way of doing it,. I am doing it for myself and the secondary effects are just as fulfilling too.
When I am met with resistance, the survival part of me wants to say “ok” and be passive, to let people walk over me, to let people use me, in the same way I let others who “know more” or “have been in longer” linger over my actions. I am no longer interested in continuing traditions that place “the mission first” and “people always” when we all know THAT’S A DAMN CONTRADICTION.
I’ve gotten so much better at overcoming the intertia for me to say “I’m going to do it this way, and if I fail *shrugs*” or “oh well” or “I guess we’ll find out” or “that’s really fucked up” or “yikes” or “I’m not interested in debating critical race theory because there’s nothing to debate” or “I’m leaving” or “I’m gonna take ten minutes to nap”
Never would I ever imagine myself saying these things in a military environment. Never would I imagine myself standing up to people directly, or indirectly going behind their backs to make sure people are taken care of, and loudly proclaiming my dissent for decisions. I became the person I always needed for my younger self in the military.
And this is when I started crying when I initially wrote this piece (lolol still crying as I edit it even….)
If I could go back to myself two years ago, if I could just meet her in passing before she got on that airplane, I would tell her that she would be proud of the person I was today. That everything she has ever wanted to be, everything she thought was too far out of reach, is everything that she is now. I would tell her:
“I am so proud of you. I can’t wait for you to see what I’ve seen, for you to accomplish what I’ve seen you accomplish. You do not have to be strong on this next part of your journey, you just have to survive. You just have to make it to this next part. I promise you this next part is worth living for, that the next part is right at the cusp of the horizon you will cry at in Ukraine. Remember those moments, because they will get you through these moments to where I am now.
I promise you that you will love this part, and that you will struggle through it, and you will also find joy, happiness, and love in the next part. You will meet so many people who will push you towards being the person you have always wanted to be, to challenge you into becoming who you are meant to be. But you have to be alive to enjoy it. I’ll see you soon again, further down the line, and with more love for you than you can handle. And guess what? The person who will hold you in their arms will do the same, show you love like you've never witnessed. You'll think you don't deserve it, but one day, you'll realize you do, and I promise you it won't be too late.
Please take care of yourself until then, I love you so much more than I ever have before; I have enough love for the both of us to sustain you on this journey. And you are the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“Thov kom tu neeg koj mus yog tom ntej no zoo tshaj tus neeg koj ib txwm yog.” - Maa Vue, Tsab Ntawv
“If you stick around, you’ll find yourself in the embrace of
someone who waited their entire lives to embrace you, whose path you will
beautifully alter with your presence.” - John Pavlovitz, If you stick around (a letter to those wanting to leave)
