The Fallout

"People are people and sometimes it doesn't work out, nothing we say is gonna save us from the fallout."  -Taylor Swift, "Breathe"

Seeing the Marine in Vegas was a total shock to my system.  My mind was running laps at 100 mph and my heart had come to an almost halt.  I wasn’t prepared to see him again.  I wasn’t prepared to finally address the feelings I locked away so long ago.  But the minute I saw him, the minute he walked up to me in that Casino, I was lost.  When I looked into his eyes and saw a genuine smile, and when I reached out to grab his hand and there was no hesitation on his end, I was cracking into the safe in which I had locked away the feelings I had for him, and even kept that little part of myself.  And with each moment I knew I was opening a book that I would not be able to close, but had never meant to open again.

When I got home, I made the biggest effort yet, to get to a good place in my marriage.  I reminded myself that this was what I wanted, and that I was very lucky to have a good husband who loved and provided for our daughter and myself.  And yet I knew, somewhere deep in the back of my mind, that the chance was gone.  No matter how much I wanted to make my family work, no matter what my husband did from this point forward, there was no chance for us.  It was gone.  

And ‘it’ seems to be the hardest thing to describe in this whole crazy story.  How do you explain ‘it?’  Other than “what I don’t have.”  The Soldier was trying hard to be the man I wanted.  But he couldn’t be, because the man I wanted was no longer him.

I never imagined that I would involve myself in any kind of “emotional affair.”  I never thought it would be possible to be that kind of person, that kind of wife.  But without even realizing what I was doing, I became attached to the Marine again.  I didn’t mean to, I never woke up one morning and thought, “today I’m going to completely cross the line of what is appropriate in my marriage.”  But soon, the casual little texts had evolved from “hey, how’s it going?” into more in depth conversations about our past, and our feelings.  I came to realize that I couldn’t give him up.  Even when I tried to limit our contact after a request from the Soldier, I could never completely cut ties.  And it became increasingly difficult to watch the Soldier, make these gestures and attempts to show me how much he was committed to our relationship and our family.  I could not help the fact that I no longer responded the same way.  Emotionally and physically I was pulling away, and he was doing everything he possibly could to keep me there.  He even agreed to let me keep contact with the Marine if that was what I needed to give our marriage another shot.  He did and said all the right things, but it was never able to get through to me.  There was no way to bring the love back.  Had I had my heart all to myself, I may have been able to pull it off, but I was already giving my heart to someone else.

Holding On

The Breakdown

(a.k.a. The Bachelorette Party)

As time goes on, I find that the time I spend with my husband becomes less relaxing and enjoyable, and increasingly awkward and stressful.  Simple things, that used to make me smile, now give me goosebumps.  Running his fingers down my arm, touching my back or holding me while we are in bed, no longer give me feelings of comfort and love.  And just as I inched away from him in bed at night, trying to get my own space, so was my heart.  It had been quite some time since I felt like I was happy right where I was.

With the approaching summer we were getting closer to the wedding of one of my best girl friends.  We were going to Vegas, without the husbands and without the babies, and we were celebrating her and the soon-to-be end of her Bachelorette-hood.  And wouldn't you know who happened to be in Vegas, the same weekend, celebrating a friend's birthday?

After getting back to the hotel after the booze-infused pool party, I was collapsed in bed and checking Facebook.  And there it was: The Marine was at MGM Grand Las Vegas.  How was this possible?  That was on the same exact street that I happened to be on at that exact moment.  He confirmed that he was in fact in Vegas and was surprised to find out that I was too.

After the first night and full day in Vegas, I wasn't feeling my best by dinner time.  The smell of food when we walked into the restaurant was almost overwhelming.  After a dinner of plain pasta with butter, I begged off the plans for a male strip show.  Me and one of the other girls cabbed it back to our hotel for some rest.  The girls would call us after the show and we would meet up with them then.  But at 1 in the morning, the Marine texted me and I still hadn't heard from the girls.  I made plans to meet up for a quick drink.  While I was getting dressed I heard from the girls who were still at the same hotel I planned to meet the Marine at.  I figured I'd go have a quick drink with him and then meet up with the girls after.

I was nervous.  I'm still not sure why, but I was nervous to see him.  It would only be the second time since we had split up that we would actually see each other.  I sat at a slot machine while I waited for him.  I sensed him before I actually saw him.  I must have felt that someone was coming in to my close proximity and I knew instantly that it was him.  I smiled.  I smiled a big huge smile when I saw him.  And we walked, and we talked, and we sat down for a drink and I lost track of time.  I had been casually ignoring texts from sisters, intending that I would be leaving in "just a minute" and I would call then and go find them.  Until finally one of them called me, and was less than pleased that I didn't join them at the show, and that instead of getting together immediately, I was sitting at a bar with someone else.  I couldn't even blame her.  I completely understood.  And yet I still couldn't leave.  Even though it was obvious that I wasn't, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.  We sat above the casino, people watching and talking for hours.  Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks somewhere around 5 am.  Or maybe it was 6.  I honestly can't remember.  But, the gentleman that he is, he drove me to my hotel and dropped me off.  When he came around to my side of the car and gave me a hug, I found myself clinging to him.  I was suddenly consumed by the feeling that I needed him, and that I couldn't let go.  When my breathing got shaky, he held me tighter and said softly, "I know.  It hurts me too."  I quickly kissed him and headed off to my room.  I made it to the elevators before I really started crying.

The next day the whole thing seemed to be a blip on the bachelorette party radar, but nothing more.  No one was mad, and we tried to sort out the details of the night over some room service breakfast.  The Marine and I texted through the morning.  He was driving back that day and we agreed to grab some coffee before he hit the road.  When he finally came by the hotel the girls and I were at the pool, so I told him to bring his swim trunks.  I'm not sure why it didn't seem weird to me.  I didn't even hesitate to bring him around my sisters and girlfriends.  It never occurred that it might be awkward to bring an ex-boyfriend to hang out with the girls on a bachelorette party weekend.  My girls don't judge.  I guess I'm pretty lucky that way.

When the pool was closing, most of the girls had already gone back to the room, so my sister left to join them and the Marine and I walked around to get some coffee.  We carried it to the outer staircase of the hotel parking garage.  And we talked, and I cried and he held me.  I told him how I felt like I was losing him again.  How I was so confused, because I couldn't understand how I could love my husband, but love and miss my Marine so much.  He comforted me.  After all the pain that I had put him through, he was trying to ease MY pain!  It was like I had woken up from a dream.  A dream in which I pretended that I hadn't hurt him when I left, and that we were both happy and fulfilled without each other.  But the reality was that we both missed each other, and I finally had to admit it.  I could no longer deny that we both still had feeling for each other.  And it startled me to think that my feelings for him could be stronger than my feelings for my husband.

When he finally left I walked back to the room and crawled into bed.  My sisters were watching a movie and left me alone to nap.  I was trying to rest before we got ready to go out for our last night.  And as I laid there in the darkness, in the semi-conciousness of drifting between awake and asleep, I knew that I had opened a door that I couldn't simply close and walk away from.  I knew that I had just created a complication with no easy solution.  And I had no idea how it was going to play out.


Holding On

The Move

For most, home is where the heart is.  For the wife of a Soldier, home is where the Army sends us.

Everything seemed to happen so fast.  We got married in the courthouse, again in front of our family and friends, the Soldier graduated from his school, my family threw me a baby shower and we packed up all our combined belongings and moved 864 miles away.  We got to our new duty station and only had to wait a few weeks before housing became available.  The Soldier started with his new unit and I started searching and shopping for all the things we'd need to turn our house into a home.

I also got into a fight with his brother, felt like I was an afterthought in his mind and struggled to feel like this was were I was meant to be.  It never felt right.  It was always something.  It was a constant battle to try and make ourselves happy, and we never seemed to win.  And I tried to ignore how unhappy I was.  I tried to tell myself that being newlyweds, expecting our first baby and moving away together, were all really difficult things on their own, and that we were doing them all at once!  So of course there was going to be more stress at first.  We had a lot of learning and adjusting to do.  But sometimes I would get a nagging feeling that it wasn’t going to get better.  That we were somehow unmatched for each other.  Too different and too similar in all the wrong ways.  There were actually several times late at night, when I would sit in the tub with the shower running and the lights off, and I would cry.  It was the one place I could be alone, without feeling alone.  

I always found an excuse.  Or he did.  Together we always managed to do just enough damage to hurt our relationship without doing enough to break it.  I kept waiting and looking forward to the day when it would get easier.  When some magical button would get pushed and we would start to understand each other better, and how to make the other person happy.

I’m still waiting.

The baby came and things moved along, swiftly if not smoothly.  We fought about Thanksgiving.  We fought about Christmas.  On New Year’s Eve we promised to do better, to try harder.  Then we fought while planning our baby’s first birthday party. We fought when his dad came to visit.  We fought while we were in Disneyland.  We fought the day of our daughter’s party.  We always apologized and admitted our wrongs, but nothing ever changed.  We continued to fight.  And for months I told him I was tired.  For months I cried, and said I didn’t want to do it anymore.  And for months, the happiness was slowly replaced with numbness.  I found happiness in my little girl, but I found sadness that didn’t go away.  I just kind of existed.  And I longed for feeling.  I longed for something so powerful and so deep, that it doesn’t just fill you up, but it breaths life into you.  I thought I could remember a time when I felt that.  But it seemed to have been so long ago.  And I needed so desperately to remember.  Little did I know the surprise that was in store for me.

Holding On

The Soldier

And I will always do my duty, no matter what the price,
I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrifice,
Oh, and I don't want to die for you, But if dying's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with honor, 'Cause freedom don't come free.
I'm an American Soldier, an American.

My sister married a Soldier.  I stood as her bridesmaid at the beginning of the summer, and at the end of the summer, I held her hand at his deployment ceremony.  A couple months after he left, I packed up my belongings and moved 341 miles away.  She opened her home to me.  It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever been able to share with one of my sisters.

One night while working at my bar, I met two soldiers who were out celebrating.  Drunk people seem to forget that the cocktail waitress serving their drinks is usually (and I stress the word "usually") sober when they are not.  I'm actually pretty arrogant about my internet stalking abilities.  When I ran into Soldier #2 a couple weeks later, he exclaimed his indignation at my having found and messaged Soldier #1, but not himself.  We became friends on Facebook.  It seemed to appease him, and I was a social butterfly.  Soldier #2 lived with Soldier #3 who was best friends with My Soldier.  We met at a party at the house of his best friend.  Are you keeping up with me so far?

They called me "the Facebook Stalker."  I'm still not sure why this doesn't bother me, other than the fact that it is based on nothing but truth.

While chatting one night My Soldier invited me to share dinner, dinner consisting of Gummi Bears and Dorritos.  Being the one-woman-USO that I was, I invited him to dinner with me at a friends house.  By the time we had solidified plans and agreed on a meeting place, my friends had already eaten dinner and were texting me, wondering where I was.  I made a slight adjustment to our plans and promised him a delicious home-cooked meal by yours truly instead.  He agreed.  Four nights later we went to the fair, bouncing back and forth between his group of friends who we had dined with that night, and my group of friends who were also enjoying free Military Appreciation admission.  After that we seemed to just find ourselves in each others company without even trying.  I was happy.  I felt loved.  And I loved having someone who didn't seem to think of me as disposable.

About a month later we attended my friends wedding.  Ok, I attended, he was dragged along.  But that night while dancing on the dance floor, he said to me "I guess you're officially my girlfriend now."  When I asked why he said, "because everyone at our table is calling you my girlfriend."  It seemed like a good enough reason to me.  I happily danced the night away in his arms, and when he passed out on my couch I did my girlfriend duties in tending to him.  It never even struck me as odd that it had taken me well over an hour to finish one shot of whiskey, that normally would have been downed and chased by a second within half that time.  The next day I went to my cousins baby shower and finally had to admit that I was feeling off.  I didn't want cake!!!  It was unheard of for me to turn down sweets!  The next morning I woke up and still felt nauseous.  It was not until that day, that I realized it...I was "late."

Three pregnancy tests could not lie.  I was pregnant.  And I was scared to death.

He took the news better than I had expected.  We drove to the beach and sat on top of a dune and I cried.  And I talked about my past, and my future and ours.  I offered him an out, and I wasn't positive that he wouldn't take it.  It was the next night that we were lying in bed, and he told me that he would be there.  He didn't want to be a "Birthday Card Dad" and he wanted me to come with him.  He said that we could go to city hall and make me "Mrs. My Soldier" and make this a lot easier.

I misunderstood.

We did get married.  And the first time was at City Hall.  But we planned a "real" wedding and we invited our family and friends and I bought a dress.  And I married the man I saw as my Hero.  The man who didn't run away, but stood up and said he would be there, for me and for our baby.  We toasted, and we cut cake and we tossed a bouquet and garter.  And I danced with my mom and dad, and my sisters and my girlfriends.  And when the time came for the last dance, I looked around and couldn't find my husband.  And I realized I hadn't really seen him since his last "required appearance."

We said "I do."  We thought we would beat the odds.  We told ourselves things like "this was meant to be" and "everything happens for a reason."  We knew that marriage wasn't easy, but we were convinced that we were capable of making it work.  We never stopped to consider that we were just "reacting."  But instead of thriving in a healthy and happy relationship, we seem to be just skidding from one catastrophe to the next.  And right now, it seems we're running out of momentum.

Holding On

The Marine

"Some people live an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference in the world, Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Regan

I met the Marine when I was 22.  I had barely survived my previous relationship and was trying to break free and reestablish myself as the strong, independent girl I once was.  I was spending a lot of time with my girlfriends, two in particular who were particularly supportive of improvements I was making to my life.  My friend from high school had recently returned from Okinawa and was still in the area.  He invited me to hang out and catch up as we hadn't seen each other in a couple years, since before he had joined the Marine Corps.


One of my most trusted friends was with me when I got together with my old high school friend, and that's where it starts.  Two of his Marine buddies were also along for the ride, so to speak.  We met up at one of the guys' house and relaxed by the pool.  Afterwards we decided to grab a bite to eat before going to watch one of the buddies play in his softball game.  At the end of this relaxing day, I found myself preoccupied and thinking about the guy I had just met.  A text to my high school friend was all it took and he passed along my number.


A beach bonfire, a movie in the theater, a couple dates and one thing led to another.  I was falling fast, and the date of his departure was fast approaching.  He was ETSing and moving home.  More than halfway across the country.  In our euphoria we managed to overlook this minor drawback.  Almost immediately after he left I missed him.  I moved back in with my parents and grew more and more attached.  We planned for me to visit him and meet his family.  October 22 is when we officially became a couple.  A week was not long enough, and I didn't want to leave.  My mother later told me that she was surprised that I did.  He came back to meet my family.  They fell in love with him almost as fast as I did.  We talked about me moving.  Places I could work.  Schools I could look into attending.  I was about to pick up my life and move 2,120 miles away.


I don't think I realized at the time that I was panicking.  With all the distance between us, we may have been rushing the move.  But he made me so blissfully happy.  I could not imagine wanting to be with anyone else.  And that in itself was pretty scary.  With the dangerous relationship I had barely managed to save myself from, I was afraid of making another colossal mistake.  I was with the man I wanted to be with, and I was scared to death about it.


The distance itself was another problem.  Being away from this person who made me so happy (and not realizing at the time that I was panicking about it) had me slipping back into a depression.  Not a deep dark depression, but still somewhere that I never wanted to be again.  The longer we were "together" and the longer we were apart, the sadder I got.  At some point after I had gone back down South for a job interview, I realized that I was spending more time sad and upset, than I was living at all.  I did not want to go back to that kind of life, or rather "non-life."  And I did something that was heartbreaking for both of us.  I ended it.


I spent the rest of my time down South working as much as possible.  I worked doubles, extra days, and I spent a lot of time with a friend from work.  I didn't get seriously involved with anyone else.  And I didn't ever deal with the pain of losing pushing away a great love.  I locked it away somewhere that I didn't have to think about.  I moved that summer to be with my sister while her husband was deployed.  I got a new job (two actually), I went out with my friends, I started singing and working out again.  But I still never faced my loss.  Instead I locked it with another key and let myself bounce from one meaningless guy to another.  It would still be a couple years before I realized what I had given up, and what I failed to see I was doing to myself.


Holding On

The Best of Intentions

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.

Except that's not how we did it.

We worked in reverse.  I met my Soldier, and in the middle of falling in lust, I got pregnant.  And we were both scared.  But we were happy and we cared about each other, and we thought "you know what?  We can do this!"  So we did.  We got married.  We dove in head first and knew we could take on the world.

But my idea of marriage, and his were not exactly on the same page.  Or in the same chapter.  Heck, we may have been reading entirely different books!  I thought I was saying I love you.  I thought I was saying I'll love you forever.  I thought I was saying I'll try to make you happy for the rest of my days.  He thought he was saying, I'll be there.  He thought he was saying, I'll support you.  He thought he was getting a perfect wife.

I am not a perfect wife.  I may not even be a good wife.  I am quite possibly even a bad wife.

The fights began almost immediately.  The displays of affection lessened.  And the love wavered somewhere in between here and gone.  I can't count how many times I said I wasn't happy.  I can't count how many times I told him I wanted to leave.  But he either didn't hear me, or didn't believe me.  Either way I held on to a love that was barely there.  I continued to try to make him happy.  And I worried every day that I was setting an example for my daughter that this is all love is.  That there is no Happily Ever After.  There is just forever together.

I wish that happiness was as simple as yes or no, black or white.  But no one decision means happiness.  In fact every decision comes with it's own painful ramifications.  But how do you decide between your own happiness and that of someone who you love.  And why does it have to be a choice?  Why can't happiness be an all-encomposing entity?  Once choice to suit all parties?  Unfortunately, in this situation that will never be the case.  I will have to make a choice.  And it will hurt, no matter which decision I make.

Holding On