Welcome to the new year, where everyone is suddenly very conscious of the 15 lbs they put on over the holidays. The number one resolution every year is fitness. Last year I made a resolution to learn how to love myself. Part of loving myself was becoming okay with my life and okay with my body. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I needed to figure it out, or I wouldn’t survive another year. Last year was monumental for me and I started this new year off with a big move and the decision to settle down.

So with Drill Weekend rapidly approaching, I barely felt any anxiety, as I was too busy loving a life I have learned to love. It was a great feeling to drive to Des Moines, IA from Kansas City, MO and not feel on the verge of a panic attack or making up stories in my head about what atrocities this weekend had in store. I realized that though I still don’t want to be drilling, I am okay to come here and I am still in control of my life.

I still woke up late this morning, which appears to be a calling card I’m struggling to quit providing. Despite that hurdle, the day was not starting off difficult. My command opted to treat me with conscientious assistance rather than punishment. I caught up with the days tasks and was moving along looking forward to the rest of the weekend. BUT WAIT… AND THEN…

I went to lunch with a shipmate who I regularly lunched with. This was a guy I felt comfortable around and didn’t usually have to worry about things with. After we returned from lunch we walked up a flight of stairs, he was a few steps behind. As I reached the landing he loudly proclaims “Hey Young, you need to check that ass. It’s getting way too large.”

I was frozen in my steps. Where once upon a time I would have laughed it off, because that’s what I’d been trained to do in the navy, but now I don’t believe that is right or fair to myself. I wanted to put a stop to it, stand up for myself… BUT the part of me that found his statement truthful took over.

Thoughts raced through my mind… Why would he say that? Can he tell how self conscious I feel in my too-tight uniform post the holiday feasts? Am I a less appealing friend because I’m less sexually desirable? This hurts, oh, god, my ass is so huge I can’t even hide it. If he sees it and feels he can say something, then what is everyone else thinking that they aren’t stupid enough to say? Why can’t I just be skinny? Why am I such a failure at meeting the standards of the navy and others when it comes to my weight? And the thoughts tumbled on and on.

So what was my response? He proclaimed this statement and strolled past me with a cocky air about him, chuckling slightly. I called him back, saying “why don’t you come say that to my face!” As he turned and came back towards me I failed at my resolve to not make this a joke and pretended to knee him in the jewels. I told him he was a fucking ass hole with a slight chuckle in my own voice, trying to not let out that his words had mortally wounded who I am, who I want to be.

This week I have been discussing how we project ourselves on to other people and vice versa. What may have seemed like a stupid joke to him was morally offensive to me. This is because I struggle with body issues, as so many women in this country do. That despite the fact I try to love my whole self for what it is, I still suffer from the social injustice of body fat standards and the beliefs we hold in regards to them. I sit here still, 10 hours later and want to run at him, scream, kick, and punch him to a hideous pulp.

That would make me no better than him, right? I can’t control that he broke rule number 1 (Don’t be a dick). I can however process why I felt that way, but responded differently. I am like a captive who has to relearn how to live a few life because Stockholm Syndrome set in years ago. I feel under their spell, I acclimated to the very unbalanced hyper masculine world of the military. They know no mercy, nor any balance most of the time.

Once upon I time, you acclimated or you fell out. I don’t know that it is much different now, even if they teach new things in boot camp, the navy is still full of old salty sailors who prefer a harsh word over a kind one and train this in to their juniors.

Prior to this weekend, I had subconsciously decided that if anyone approached me in a manner which I did not find humane or respectful I would tell them so. I did so well everywhere else today, but not at this. This shook my sense of self, and will unfortunately place a black mark on an otherwise valuable lesson… Or is this the valuable lesson?

Here’s the thing, life is full of struggles, they will appear in the moments that things feel they are finally going well. This is our reality. We can’t run from them, hang our head in shame, and honestly joining it is not often the right answer.

So what do we do? We are mindful and practice the things we have learned from wandering on our journey.

I AM NOT THE FOOLISH RUDE STATEMENT OF A SINGLE PERSON. I am also not the potential assumed thoughts of those who say nothing. I am not the size of my ass or the tightness of my clothes. I will not be defined this way, and hopefully next time I will be able to say this to the person who so rudely interrupts my peace with the world.

I am who I want to be, and daily I work on more clearly defining who that is. Today I know that I am not these things others place on me. I love my ass, yeah, we could work on some things, but Damn it… It’s me. If you don’t love me, then at least keep your mouth shut and check for a log in your own eye.

I accomplished so much today and it really was a great day, but often great days don’t come with remimders and lessons such as this. So I an thank for my struggle, and desire to move on from it.

If I need time to process it out of my system, so be it, but it won’t control me. You are not what your body looks like to other people… You are what it feels like to you. Make sure to love it, in all its imperfections, we all have room for growth (or shrinkage as some may think).

Signingoff, Des Moines, IA.

I journeyed to Des Moines for drill earlier this week. The game plan was to kill two Navy Reserve weekends in one week. I have certainly killed them. Drilling in Des Moines is nothing like drilling when I was in Denver. In Denver I was able to work alongside the full time staff. I felt beneficial and worth something. So not only do I not feel useful on my drill weekends, but I felt extremely not useful this week. I sat there staring a computer wondering if this trap would ever end. It is a complete 180 from being on the road, I feel there that I am flying, here I feel like a duck that’s been shot down. I really hate feeling this way. I am constantly full of fear and anxiety. I never know when the other shoe will drop. I really have very little faith left. I am appreciative that they let me reschedule as my weekends tend to be busy with veteran activities. It also means I don’t have to sit around on drill weekends and feel completely useless where people can judge me. Instead I can do it in the silent hum of the empty computer lab.

I have found that this week was good for introspection and planning. Did I mention I am leaving from here to go east? I have never gone east before, by car, to just explore, and without much of a plan at that. Mainly, I know I want to see the cities that I haven’t seen. I have many friends through TR that are willing to put me up, all it took was a facebook status requesting places to crash. I am super excited, but extremely anxious about what this looks like. I was able to use some free time to start detailing this road trip. I now have a plan set up for the next week that is flexible, but is set enough so I can comfortably take off on this trip.

As I have wandered I have gone much by the seat of my pants. There are a few issues with this. The people who I visit are average working adults, so they don’t have drop of a pin flexibility. This causes me to disrupt their schedule when my is altered. I feel shame over this and it makes me question what I am doing. The second issue is that I fear what I do not know, so if I have no plan, I may turn back, or just go in a circle between Iowa and Colorado. Though this could be fine, I would not actually burst my bubble to journey in search of my life. So now I go with a plan that has a reasonable layout, but the expectations are open and flexibility is expected.

So here I sit at the end of the day waiting for it to hit four so I can head out on the road. I am stopping back through Cedar Rapids for the night and then on to Chicago. I am still anxious, and no idea what this will look like, but I am probably more excited than I have ever been, and I have journeyed to many new places and experiences by myself over the years. This time however, it feels completely different and my wild woman is dancing with joy in my soul.

Signing off Des Moines, IA.

Dear wanderers, it is very easy to hide from the world while wandering. I failed to meditate when I needed to and it left me anxious and hiding. This is not how it should be, as a wanderer you may be aimless, and lost, but the goal is that you are moving, trying, discovering.

Yesterday ended very stressful for me, this led to a restless night’s sleep followed by a delayed awakening this morning. My give a Damn was broken, a term I have not felt the need to use in months. I was defeated by what I felt were my own failures, so I let that keep holding me back. I encourage you, when you feel self defeat, to use that as a rallying point to tackle the task at hand. Accept that you were not happy with your choice, and focus on learning to improve and no matter what continue moving forward. It took me a little while to reach that point today.

Often when I feel I’ve failed myself I take it out on myself. Thus creating more failures and adding to the painful list. It’s the mentality that if I am going to fail at life I better fail big. This is silly, because when the ultimate goal in life is happiness, why do we insist upon compiling a list of failures when there are already enough bumps in the road to happiness? Granted, not every person does this, but I know many who, like me, tend to make their own road bumpier.

So how do we not do this? I would suggest abstaining from the things that cause bumps in your life. Sometimes you find that once your are not practicing self mutilating actions that the world you reside in improves. You may get the occasional hunger for the dark and messy, but that momentary feeling will pass on with time, if you can just stand away from the temptation. The hunger for self made failures can be a hard one to get over.

I used to end my days with “I need a drink”. I think I always knew that was not a smart way to cope, but it felt easy. I had a hard time releasing control over my life sober, so when I felt like I had failed at work or at life and I needed the release of control, I turned to yet more failures and bad decisions. I felt like my actions with alcohol and men made me dark and twisty, that somehow that was an attractive life-giving trait. It wasn’t, it led to cold beds and morning headaches. It pulled the stress in to my life.

And you would think I would learn after it  caused bump after bump in the road, but I was full of excuses. “Jose” was at fault (my favorite liquor), not me, I was just along for the ride. So there I was, making deals with a demon that I wouldn’t end our relationship unless he broke the three rules, 1) no pregnancies 2) no prison 3) no near death or death. So with those three rules I gave in to the release of inhibition. I’ll tell you, he broke the rules. Despite this, I continued. I’d like to say it was because I didn’t know what else to do, but I think it was more because I got off on being dark and twisty. That was more my addiction than anything else. If I was dark and twisty it would make me more interesting, life would be more of an adrenaline rush.

Part of being dark and twisty had to do with under valuing myself, not providing self care, existing between sessions at the bar where I got my fix. It matched well with my PTS and MST symptoms. Life was becoming unmanageable, which I didn’t even realize at the time. When you have to drink and do things you are not proud of to feel alive, you are no longer managing life. You may be existing, compensating, just breathing, but life is not managed, and you are not living.

So my struggle was alcohol and temptation of companionship. This may not be your struggle, but I encourage you to step back and really reflect on your life. Can you make yourself feel better and allow yourself to find happiness with out needing to fill that “void”with something which deteriorates you? Does food draw you in, or the need to buy more and more? Are your computer and video games not just for fun, but a distraction away from this world? Or any other number of options…

I started off by talking about how today I avoided my responsibilities, because the idea of them has me stressed out. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I sit here anxious anyway. I did not give in to my struggles, though I did find myself in bed all day, which was still running. Avoidance is not the answer with the day to day, or with the tools that you use to escape this life that you may or may not be managing.

So take away all the details of your life, step them from your mind, and ask yourself, without these things, do I love myself, respect myself, care for myself? Then in your mind add things back one by one and ask yourself those questions about each thing. If the answer is not yes, then try abstaining. In order to be successful, use your friends, family, tribe, let them support you in your actions. If they can’t, then let me help support you. You have the power to live your life, to make positive choices for yourself. Don’t go it alone.

Signing off Des Moines, IA

Whether I predicted my own poor sleep pattern, or it happened because that was how it was going to happen, I did not sleep well last night. That left me leaving late and feeling full of anxiety. I really don’t want to have to return to Drill. I am so tired of feeling useless and inept. I am also tired of feeling broken and having to talk to people about all the steps we are taking to fix my body.

Yesterday was nice, seeing people, ignoring what today would bring. I probably should have just left yesterday, but I didn’t want to give up plans with my people to ensure I made it in time. I have been blessed with getting to stay at my friend Mik’s parents house. By the time I decided to come, it was too late to request berthing, so I had to find a place to stay.

It was a difficult drive, where I talked to a few close friends and they reminded me that the Navy only has the control over me that I let them have. That includes my emotions and attitudes. I decided to slow my pace. I wasn’t going to allow myself to ruin my body and mind over such a trivial thing. I would get there when I would get there.

I made it to Des Moines around midnight, and still needed to go to Cedar Rapids for my uniforms. The catch is that the storage unit is locked up between 10p and 6a. So there was no reason to keep going when I was already exhausted. So I stopped here for the night and will retrieve my uniforms tomorrow and just drill Sunday.

It was a rocky day emotionally. I knew when I started this journey that it wouldn’t be easy, but maybe part of me thought it would be easier than before. Before I worked a day job, I went home at night, I went to the bars afterwards… I was stressed and unhappy, it was hard to be me, but not to be distracted. Now it is difficult because I am taking responsibility for every little action, or at least attempting to. This journey is a 24/7 job. Living my life is a career I need to be dedicated to.

Even at the end of rocky days like this I know I will sleep better. I know I will wake up tomorrow and keep going ahead. It’s just difficult because I am not distracting myself, I am focusing myself. This is the most important work I have ever done in my life, and I have saved other peoples lives before. Now I am saving mine.

Signing Off Des Moines, IA