Stress

  Words and actions have some things in common. You can't take them back. Whenever you say or do something without thinking it through people tend to get hurt. I've been under some strain the last couple of weeks. My head is filled with stress and regret and my body is hurting and it's all just starting to hit me at once. I've had a headache for a couple days, my stomach has ached for days, my wrist hurts bad enough I find it difficult to get my shoes and pants on and off. My thinking isn't as clear as it should be.
  Several days ago I had been so stressed, hot, and busy that I didn't realize I was so hungry I almost cried, by the time I finally ate and got some water in me I almost threw up. I wasn't thinking and taking care of myself and now my mind and body are still suffering the consequences. If we don't take care of ourselves then it will cause problems in all parts of our lives. While being stressed, dehydrated, and hungry I made some mistakes that caused damage to some equipment. During the recovery of that equipment 8 people got sent to the hospital. This has and me stressed and a bit depressed even more.
  This turns into problems in our relationships. I've been fairly surly ever since it happened. I've tried my best to just be left alone which has ultimately caused other people to do more work. I've been a hard person to be around lately and it all started with me not taking care of myself. Now I'm ill, injured, sore, and kind of left alone all because I let things snowball instead of simply taking care of myself.
  Now we're down another person when we were already short the people who went to the hospital. This isn't fair to everyone and could have been prevented. I have been short, rude, and downright mean over the last few days. I don't like this side of myself at all, in fact I think this guy I'm acting like right now is pretty much just a d**k. It might take me a couple days for me to get back to normal and it all could have been prevented.
  The way we treat our body is absolutely connected to every other aspect of our lives including our relationships. When you don't take care of your self you aren't just hurting you, you're taking a chance at injuring your relationships with the people around you. As usual it's the ones we love the most who get the crap end of this deal. Because they are the ones around us they get to watch us treat ourselves like crap and then get to feel hurt when we treat them no better.
  Just a few days of me not taking care of myself have had catastrophic results. I'm a work in progress but I wish my progress was a little faster. I have someone who is not only willing to listen and be a shoulder but actually wants me to talk to her about what's stressing me out and why. This is actually another way of taking care of ourselves that I personally don't do well enough.
   I don't have any scientific evidence but I'm pretty sure it's healthier to talk to someone than to hold it in. It's healthier for your relationship as well. I've always held as much in as I could because I just thought that's what you're supposed to do. I wish I was more open about what's bothering me but it's an incredibly difficult habit to break. It's important that I do though. When we love and trust each other we need to make the effort to improve our habits. We need to make the effort to lay our stresses out for our loved ones to see.
  I've always just assumed that me sharing what's bothering me would bother, burden, or stress her out and I just didn't see the point in both of us being bothered by it. I'm slowly learning that having someone to share that with will keep you healthier though. If I'm holding it in and not sharing then not only am I not taking care of myself but I'm creating stress and injury on her because she knows I'm stressed and wants to know why I'm not telling her about it. This causes physical and emotional damage not only to me but to her as well. So now I'm tired, injured, ill, stressed, angry, and in turn treating everyone around me poorly which means I'm injuring other people. This isn't fair to anyone, it's selfish as hell.

Forever

  What does it mean to promise forever? It means different things to different people. The dictionary means unending and eternal. The reality is when we are promising that in real life to another person and we truly mean it then it becomes a commitment. Not just that you'll sit there next to someone until you die.
 
  It's a commitment to be what's needed. It means feeling safe and secure. It means never being alone. It also means work. It means you've made a promise to put forth the effort to be a part of something for as long as you can, not until it's inconvenient. It means that you promise to spend your life making every effort to do your part. It's an agreement between two people to always try your hardest.

  Sometimes it doesn't work out because of many reasons. Many times one of the people break their promise and either stop putting forth the effort or begin to take advantage of the other person and take for granted that they can do anything they want "because forever." It doesn't work that way. When two people promise forever it's a serious commitment and a promise to cherish. That's a word people tend to blow by or gloss over but it's one of the most important words in a promise of forever.

  It means to protect and care for lovingly, to adore. Its a big deal to promise to protect, care for, and adore in a loving and unending manner. Too many people are giving up too soon. Sometimes you need to get out, but if both people are committed to doing those things then most everything else will fall into place.
 
  If you keep your promise to protect each other then that means being selfless and thinking about how what you do is going to affect the other person. Keeping your promise to care for another isn't just when they're injured or sick, that's actually the easiest because that's what we've been taught to do. It means to care about them and they're emotional state. It means if their family needs something you help. It means foot rubs and back rubs after long days. It means drawing the occasional bath for them. It means doing a little something extra for them from time to time without expecting something in return.
 
  To adore someone is to give the utmost respect, esteem, and honor. Keeping that promise means to be absolutely proud to be with them. To show them that you are proud that they have chosen you. It means holding doors and hands. It means smiling at them in public. It means TELLING THEM that they are beautiful and intelligent human beings and SHOWING THEM that you mean it. That means not cursing at them. I hear way too many young men calling their ladies a bitch. That is unacceptable. No man should want to call a woman he loves that and no woman should let any man call her that. Even if from time to time you really want to call someone that, it's not how you treat the one you love. Honoring them means knowing what's right and wrong to do when they aren't around. When you are out in the world you are a representation of each other. How you act is reflected upon them. To honor them means not to act in a way that would make them not want to be standing beside you. All of these promises reside in that one little word "cherish." So promising to cherish someone forever is not something to take lightly, it's a serious commitment to spend the rest of your life thinking about that other person and how the things you say and do reflect on them.

Words

  We need to be careful with our words. They're very powerful weapons. Not just what we say but how we say it. It's so important to make sure that our tone or verbiage with someone we care about (or anyone else I guess) is coming from a place of love. I'm very guilty of allowing myself to speak from a place of agitation and most often it's misplaced on those I love and care most about instead of me dealing with the frustrating situation all on it's own and not bringing it into my relationships with people.

  It's one of my least favorite qualities in myself. I'm not a patient person as much as I wish I was. I recently spoke in misplaced frustration to someone very dear to me.

  Many times we (mostly men) don't even realize that the way we say things is often more important than the things we say. Tone will determine interpretation and we can hurt the people we love. It takes 21 days of constant trying for something to become a habit. Over the next three weeks I'm going to try very hard to increase my patience level as well as my awareness of how I am speaking to people.

  I already know I curse too much and I've been working on that. It's odd how now that I've been making the attempt to curtail my swearing I notice other people doing it so often. I've even found myself becoming a little offended by it from time to time when I used to be the worst about it.

  My hope is not just that I become more patient but also that I'm capable of showing the people I love more of the respect they deserve from me. If you say you love someone doesn't that denote that they deserve the best of you? I realize that the people we love will be around for our darkest moments but they are there because it's where they want to be. That kind of respect has to be reciprocated.

  Our words have the most power over the ones who love us the most, therefore we need to be the most cautious with them. It's sad that they're often the ones we are least careful with. I think it's because we take forgiveness for granted.

  I believe that we become so used to forgiving each other that we relax and take for granted the idea that our transgressions will be forgiven. We decide that the things we say are no big deal to the ones we love when in fact those are the ones that think it is.

  I sat down and thought about just how selfish I am. When I make a mistake I apologize and I truly mean it. The selfishness comes in that I should think ahead more about the feelings of my loved ones and try not to say things or do things that I have to apologize for. None of us will ever be perfect but the people we love the most deserve our best efforts. We should try to spend our energy being our best for our loved ones instead of using all of our energy on the people who won't be there in our times of need.

Adrenaline

People in the military and other dangerous jobs tend to live life faster. They fall in love faster, get bad habits faster, make decisions faster. They tend to care less about social acceptance or social consequences. Mostly perhaps due to the very real threat of a shortened life span. Many of the men and women I know have had not one but several friends die far too young. Seeing people your age or younger die on a regular basis tends to activate a certain sense of responsibility to live life as fully as possible. We develop a why wait attitude. If there is something we want to have or do and we are capable then we tend to make our best efforts to accomplish this regardless of social convention or what we will be thought of. This isn't because we don't care what we are thought of, quite the opposite. We want people to know that we lived life, that we enjoyed it and made it our own adventure. We are not okay with believing life is a ride. That would suggest that we have no control. We idealize our lives. We indulge in happiness. We move forward after setbacks and we get make every effort to get up when we fall. You see, when we are gone we hope that we are remembered not simply as someone who enjoyed life. We want to be remembered as someone who struggled with life, someone who fought life, someone who turned life into a grand adventure and conquered as much life as was ours to have. We want to be remembered for helping others live life, helping the people of this world enjoy not just our lives but their own. We may be called adrenaline junkies, crazy, weird, insane, dangerous, or many other names by people who simply don't understand the importance of living an adventure. The adventure is more important than money, class, clothes, or any other superficial artifact that average people recognize immediately as something of substance. The thing is this world with the most substance has no actual physical presence. Joy, pure joy. It's a thing that's found in the eyes of lovers looking at each other. It's found in people with passion. Without passion life will be simply life. It's a word I find boring by itself. When it's called the adventure of life it sounds like something I want to experience. That's how it should be seen, as something to experience not something to simply do. Find a partner and live an adventure with passion. It's not a secret but it only seems obvious to very few. The people who risk their lives are the ones who cherish them the most. The people who live an adventure are the ones who know most what they have to lose and that's what makes it exciting. You don't have to go to war, BASE jump, or cliff dive to have passion and excitement but you do have to have passion and excitement to know what life has to offer. Don't live a boring life; travel at every opportunity, try new things, eat strange foods, love someone more than you love yourself.

Good Reasons

I don't know who decided you have to do things for yourself. The idea that you have to be the reason you improve is simple and asinine. A woman can and sometimes should be the reason a man does things. Sometimes it's the only reason and that's fine. It's how it should be. That's like saying a father or mother shouldn't change their behavior because they became a parent. They'll all tell you you're crazy. If a person is in love with another person then they're going to make changes in their life and personality. It's a natural occurrence and all these shitty self help books have made it a bad thing. A single man is going to act much differently than a man in a relationship. A man in a relationship is going to change many of his behaviors. It's out of respect and anyone who isn't willing to change for the person they love is selfish and probably not in love. If you believe that the only reason a person should quit drugs or some other destructive behavior is for themselves and not because they're in love with someone who it's hurting then you've bought into this ridiculous idea. Changing and bettering yourself for someone you love isn't depending on them, it's not being so weak and dependent that you can't do it on your own, it's showing that the other person is important to you. If you can't do it on your own then having someone as a reason important enough is good. Changing for a spouse, children, or other loved one isn't weakness, it's finding where your strength is. It upsets me that people have come to believe the lie that it's bad to need someone. We are built to need each other. Humans are communal creatures and naturally inclined to love and be faithful. Despite what you might see or hear on NatGeo men aren't built to be promiscuous that's why it eats at a man's soul when he is. We are meant to have a woman we love and that woman is our reason for many of our behaviors. We need to have a reason for the things we do and we need to have a reason to change the things we do. Whatever crackpot started the theory that this is bad has ruined many men. I'm either unwilling or unable to change my behaviors on my own. I act a certain way because it's what I'm used to and when I have a reason to act differently then my behavior will change. Men and women please take note, if you are the reason a person improves themselves then you are loved and needed. Don't pressure yourselves, it's about love and it's a good thing despite what we've been told by self help gurus.

A lesson about the princess.

Princesses are the beginning of a relationship but not the final goal.  A princess is not allowed to make decisions, a princess does not demand equality, a princess does not require the level of commitment that a queen does. The image of a princess brings forth the thoughts of a woman trapped and waiting on a prince to save her. When a man begins a relationship with a woman he should most definitely treat her like a princess.  He should rescue her from whatever life she was living and show her that he can give her a better one.  A man should be the prince that rescues the princess.  At some point along the way though the man should begin to realize that he should begin to act like a king instead of a prince and as such treat the woman he loves as a queen instead of a princess.  A man can’t truly believe that the woman he loves is helpless and in need of rescuing forever. You should begin to realize that you are on a journey together and should treat your significant other as such. A queen is expected to make decisions, to contribute, to be a pillar of support, to be a partner. In contrast a princess isn’t required or expected to be any of these things. A princess is only asked to be present and be grateful. If this is what you expect for too long a period then the whole relationship is doomed. While many men are programmed to be the prince there aren’t many men who have been taught how to be a king.  Our society could be much better served if men were taught how to be the king with a queen by their side rather than just the prince rescuing the princess.  Yes, the prince is an important step in the process but if the prince doesn’t have the ability to grow into the king then the princess will be stifled without the ability to grow into a queen.  Without the ability to become a partner in the relationship the woman will eventually begin to resent the man for holding her back.  This is why I say you can’t keep treating a woman like a princess. Girls are princesses, women are queens.  The difference may seem small but it’s actually quite large.

Remembering during the holidays

Today is Christmas, today is a day to remember why we are here.  We are here to celebrate our loved ones.  I’ve missed many holidays over the years but I’ve somehow only missed one Christmas in 2004.  I’ve been very fortunate and so I spend holidays with family but then I think of all the people who can’t make it home for the holidays and one thing I love is getting together with people who can’t be around their families and having dinner.  I’m always a little sad because I can’t remember a Christmas in the last 10 years when I didn’t know someone who was overseas away from their families.  I know they are with loved ones and celebrating the best they can.  We see a lot of attention pouring into our efforts to make sure they are remembered but I wish we would remember all the veterans who came home but never really came home.  These men and women often have such a difficulty assimilating into society and refuse to get help.  They often wind up homeless and helpless.  It’s a disturbing thing to know that so many of our nation’s heroes just don’t have the ability to get themselves the help they need. Our nation loves a hero when they need one; we put them on pedestals and turn our men and women in the armed forces into something we can’t live up to.  As members of the military, especially combat arms, we find out what the power of ruling over life and death is.  We find out what it feels like to be thought of as a hero and it makes us uncomfortable.  We often times have trouble dealing with the things we’ve done in the name of good.  It’s not an easy thing to reconcile and causes a serious case of cognitive dissonance when you have to do bad things in the name of good.  We come home and have all the power taken away from us; we are left with our adrenaline addiction and hero complex but no way to satisfy the urges.  We are made sad every day by the things we see with no way to fix them.  We can’t let go of the idea that we had the ability to truly change the world and remove evil.  This causes us to feel isolated and to believe that our loved ones can never understand.  We feel sad for the people who actually can understand because that means they have seen the same horrible things.  As a society we need to be more open to the people we see on street corners, less judgmental and more loving.  That person may not be able to function in a society that doesn’t need them as heroes.  They may feel worthless and useless; they may believe that living that way is all they deserve.  While we remember our heroes abroad during the holidays I would like us all to remember the ones we have here who may never be able to stop fighting the battles in their hearts and minds.

Tomorrow

            Tomorrow is the Marine Corps birthday; it also marks the 11 year mark in my dedication to servicing the needs of the country. In my time in service I have deployed in support of hurricane relief, deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, as well as traveling to many other countries.  I have been blessed to meet many quality people who have shaped my views, morals, and ethics.

            I look back at the opportunities I’ve had and the thing that strikes me most is not what has been taken but what has been given to me.  Because of my service I certainly have lost many things but when I look back I don’t see those things. What I see are great memories; I see traveling through Europe with friends, I see sitting on the beach at the Black Sea drinking a beer with my close friends, I see all the pranks we used to play on each other, mostly though I see a group of friends who even if we don’t see each other often would kill for each other to this day.

            Today is the Veterans’ Salute at MTSU’s football game.  This whole weekend is full of things like free meals, parades, celebrations, and many people giving thanks to our service members.  While we certainly love and appreciate all the gestures, there are many veterans who won’t go and get these free meals, some because it doesn’t feel right to take something for free, others are the ones who truly need the meals.

            There are a great many homeless veterans in and around the Murfreesboro area.  It’s an amazing thing to think about, the way many of these homeless are viewed.  So many of the truly homeless you won’t see.  They will stay out of the public eye for the most part.  You won’t see the majority of homeless veterans on the street corner in the middle of the day.  How can so many veterans be homeless?  PTSD takes away your ability to rationalize, it takes away your ability to be motivated, and it takes away your willingness to be a member of society.

            PTSD leads to depression which in turn leads to drinking which then worsens the depression.  It’s a vicious circle that is extremely hard to get out of.  It takes the love and support of family and friends.  It takes people willing to step in and force their love and care on you. I’ve been very lucky, I had people who were concerned and stepped in.  I was lucky enough to have someone I call my sister move in and keep watch over me, cheer me up when I was sad, and to this day remind me daily that life is good and I can be great.

            This weekend isn’t just Veteran’s Day for me.  It’s the time I get to celebrate another year of being a part of something that has given me so much more than it has taken from me.  I see the losses as the price I have to pay to be allowed to continue doing something that means so much to me.

Often times people tell me they wish they could understand what it’s like to live with PTSD.  This isn’t something we want to hear, we don’t want you to know. We want to be very selfish with it because it is our burden.  It is the cross that is born by the men and women who chose to live this life and we don’t want to share it with anyone else.  I’m glad you don’t understand because that would mean that you’ve had to live through something traumatic.  The reason I did it was so that you didn’t have to go through it. So while you want to have empathy, we don’t want you to have to live with it which is the only way to truly understand.

Knee-jerk Reactions

It’s the holiday season again which means a lot of people going through depression.  While it’s not exactly true that there is a huge spike in suicides around this time of year it is certainly true that there are more deaths due to cold and hunger. I’m not sure why Christmas and Hanukah fall in the most depressing time of year.  Maybe it was just a little piece of genius to try and cheer everyone up?  This year is going to be especially sad for Newtown, CT and to make matters worse, we as a society have become such a conglomerated group of insensitive politicians that the bodies of those children had not even been removed from the school and people were debating gun laws.  I found it pretty disgusting on both sides; though I’m a pretty down the middle kind of person I found the liberal tactics to be a little more evil. The conservative arguments were predictable and straight forward, the liberal side made it a point to both chide conservatives for using the incident and in the same statement say that we need to start removing firearms from people.  My own personal view is that no one should have even mentioned these things until at least the children were buried.  This is a time to support, help, console, and aid that town and those people.  I have grown so tired of seeing the mad man’s face plastered all over the news.  The media has in my opinion been fairly irresponsible in the manner in which they have been putting out information.  The public has been jumping to conclusions and ultimately just using this as a way to push their own opinions on people.  Before you speak think about this, a gun ban won’t take one weapon off the streets, it will only change what is produced in the future.  There will still be literally millions of these weapons out there.  I want to know why no one in the media has mentioned how stupid and irresponsible that man’s mother was.  Call me insensitive but I’m just gonna call a spade a spade.  That idiot of a woman had a son with serious mental issues and she chose to take him to the gun range on a regular basis, she chose to have several unsecured weapons in her home, she chose to leave him alone quite often while she went to the bar (where she was described as “very popular”), she chose to let him know she was going to have him committed, and she chose to allow him to have a .22 rifle of his own.  This woman was stupid.  I want to know why people’s first reaction is to push an agenda.  I’m a Christian but I don’t feel like you have to be a Christian, or even religious, to be a good person.  I’m already tired of seeing Christians telling everyone that the only thing that could have prevented tragedy is belief in a Christian god.  I’m not aware of very many shootings in Madrasas or Mesivtas.  I really wish that as a society our first reaction would have been to push an agenda of sending help.  I really wish that I hadn't seen a political statement within the first 10 minutes after the news broke.  Lisa Ling’s first tweet, minutes after the news, was “Why are we still not seriously talking about gun control?” then a few minutes later she mentioned the families.  I think that’s a pretty good representation of both sides’ insensitivity.  I just don’t understand how or why we have become so self-centered as a society, maybe I’ll address that in the next writing.

The Only Father I'll Ever Have

The most memorable person in my life is my father; his actions shaped the path of my life. My life has taken its course due to his stories and guidance. I grew up all over the world because he was in the army. My father spent two and a half years fighting in Vietnam. He had many emotional scars I didn't understand myself until much later on. The only thing I knew as a kid was that when I ran into his bedroom in the middle of the night with a fruit basket on my head yelling words like “Di di moa!” he would roll onto the floor and I would just laugh! He never got upset about it, my mom on the other hand always got fairly mad, partly because she knew how this messed with my father and partly because I kept waking her up.

                Whenever I had questions he had answers or sage advice at the ready. It was April 15^th 1985 when we had the sex talk; our neighbors had little girls, just old enough to walk, outside naked. I ran back inside confused, I had no idea what was going on over there so I asked my dad why they didn't have what I did have. The reason I remember the date so well is because of his answer, he was always doing things at the last minute. He answered simply, “Your thing goes in it but not until you’re married now leave me alone, I’m doing taxes.”

                There were many other things about my father that leave me laughing and many things that make me proud. After he retired from the military in 1988 we didn't have very much money. My mother, father, brother, myself, and a German Shepherd all lived in a Winnebago for 4 months before moving into a motel room and then finally renting a house. My dad made $9000 that year. His dream was to teach at MTSU but the Aerospace department wasn't very big and had all the faculty they needed.  He was a pretty tenacious dude when it came to his dreams though. He wound up writing a couple new courses and they eventually got approved, he was hired on as an adjunct to teach them.  It had been a very long year of scraping by but we weren't done yet. 

My father toiled in factories and warehouses making what he could to support his family while he waited to get on full time. Eventually he was hired on full time with the university and then tenured and is still living his dream to this day. That was a powerful lesson I've always remembered throughout my life, try hard, work hard, don’t take no as long as there’s still a yes out there. Later on after my many years of poor choices (which he always stood by me and suffered with me) I decided to join the military and when I joined the National Guard he not only supported me, he swore me into service. When my brother joined the military and graduated basic training, my father was there to pin his blue cord on his shoulder showing he had joined the fraternity of infantrymen. Later on down the road my brother advanced his career and became an officer, again my father was there to commission him into the officer corps.

 Throughout mine and all my brothers’ lives he has always been supportive in all our endeavors, even if he didn't completely agree. Throughout mine and my brother’s multiple deployments he has been a constant support for my mother and our families. I honestly don’t know how they would have fared without him. He tells some of the corniest jokes known to man but he’s smiling and laughing while he tells them so you wind up laughing whether you want to or not. He has always loved us so much it was sometimes embarrassing. He always supported us growing up and he always supports us now, no matter what we do. He doesn't have an ounce of hate in his heart and he’s never met a stranger. He has four semi-screwed up sons that he thinks are absolutely perfect and we have a semi-screwed up dad that we know is absolutely perfect.