I guess you could call it a vacation....

Vacation is over rated. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a stress-free get away, but I have yet to ever actually experience it. Just last Wednesday I had to initiate Operation Pre-Vacation-Get-The-Kids-To-Grandmas which involved a prearranged drop off at a random shell gas station right smack in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. My parents were going to pick up the kids, give me a hug, and wish me luck on the “crazy-ass race” (dad’s words, not mine). Of course, I still had to work all morning, and then pick up the kids (which included: their three suitcases, the dog, and the guinea pig), find the shell gas station, and hustle back to San Antonio so I could, yep you guessed it, work some more. They all came downstairs carrying enough luggage to clothe a third world nation, and stared at me blankly when I asked (while I wiped the sweat off my brow), “So, you remembered to pack the snow suits right?” I instructed all of them to exhale, and on the count of three to throw their little bodies into their car seats. They fit. Barely. I left out a giant huff of air and laid the ground rules, “First person to poke Anna has to sit with the dog on their lap.”…. and I have the kind of dog that is old, smelly, and farts continuously on road trips. Note to self: I should travel with that dog more often.

(The Honda Civic.... or as I like to call it, Birth Control)

I returned home safely, speeding ticket free, and flew back to work… where I stayed until 7:00 PM. In my mind, it was all ok. In a few short hours, I was about to have an Army Wife vacation to Seattle…. So what that I had to wake up at 3:00 AM. That just means more time in Seattle, right?

Wrong. All THAT means is that finding a Starbucks becomes a hell of a lot higher priority than remembering where you parked your car in long term parking. Which by the way, nobody managed to notate. Yes, we all chimed, “Remember section Something-or-other.”…. but neither of us managed to write it down, text it, or even care. Why would we? We were running late.

Which leads us to Vacation Over-rated point #1: Getting to the airport on time has got to be more stressful than giving birth (and I am talking about the kind of delivery where your husband is skyped in from Afghanistan).

Did we make the plane? YES (Fist pump!). Were we the last ones on the plane? YES! We managed to run up to the gate as they were finishing boarding (with Starbucks in tow), and totally did the happy-spaz dance due to our impeccable timing. ‘No wait,’ we told ourselves. “And with coffee,” we announced to each other proudly…. And it wasn’t until we were on our connecting flight that we happened to remember that my car was parked SOMEWHERE in long term parking.

And that takes us to Vacation is Over-rated Point #2: Coffee, although delicious and hands-down one of the best discoveries of the universe, only leads to one outcome when consumed in excessive quantities before a long flight.

Approximately fifteen minutes after the fasten seatbelt sign was turned off, my pigeon bladder threatened to explode. I closed my laptop, monkeyed my way over Monica AND ‘the person who really should have paid for two seats’ (karma loves to antagonize us skinny bitches) , and ran to first class to wait in the mile long line for the lavatory.

Thankfully, I am a pretty social person, and within minutes I struck up a conversation with a family (who was also waiting for the bathroom). We talked about everything—the weather, kids, his baldness, my hot pink toe nail polish—when it finally dawned on us that whomever was in the bathroom was taking a LONG time. I mean, minutes had gone by, and we were both still standing there. The man looked at me, and said in a very sincere voice, “Boy, that lady has sure been in there a while. Maybe you should check on her.” He paused for a second, and glanced at his now equally concerned wife and said, “Do you think she is ok?”

I smiled an impish grin, chuckled quietly and patted him on the back, “I think we can safely say that whomever is in that bathroom is DEFINITELY not ok.”

Four bathroom trips later, and about a dozen new facebook friends, the plane finally landed, and I am proud to say the vacation (to run an endurance race) OFFICIALLY started. Was it relaxing? Ummm… not at all. Waking up at 0400 to run with 30,000 people is probably performed only by the criminally insane (and stressed out Army Wives). Was it worth it? Hell yeah! The course was beautiful, the temperature perfect (especially after training on the surface of the sun back in San Antonio), and the experience life changing.

For those that run, I know you totally understand. For those of you who don’t, maybe you should try. Running has a way of making you push past your comfort zone—whatever that may be—and forces you to face your insecurities. You may be dirty and smell worse than a 7-11 employee that has been eating onions for the past 6 meals, but life suddenly becomes crystal clear. Clarity is delivered somewhere along mile 12 when you suddenly realize…. Oh my God, I AM going to make it.

So, what soul-awakening realization did I receive from this journey? Simply, that success isn't always how fast you go, but rather the distance you traveled from where you started-- and I have covered a lot of ground the past three days. I ran a half marathon, pushed myself physically, ate like a glutton, and learned that WE are all guilty of creating out own limitations…. So stop setting them. Want to survive a marathon? Want to survive the marathon of life? Travel freely. Lean on friends. Accept that life can be painful, but the journey is worth the sting. And push past your limits.

(But just try to remember where you parked your car in the process….)

(And people aren't supposed to look like this after vacation...)

Living in the Gray

You win some and you lose some. Isn’t that the advice that every parent shares with their kiddos when life hands them the virtual half-eaten-crappy-box-of-chocolates-from-Walgreens? As adults, we learn this lesson over and over again, the only difference is the line between winning and losing isn’t as clearly defined as when we were 9 years old. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad, and suck up the pain to find the release. Sometimes the pipe bursts in the bathroom ceiling, and you just have to high five yourself because THIS time you happen to remember where the water shut off valve for the house is located. Win! Sometimes your garage becomes invaded by mice but your ingenious-probably-should-be-patented mouse trap of sticky traps, snap traps, and Cheeze-Its FINALLY managed to snag one of those little buggers. Win! Sometimes you forget to change your oil for three weeks and are stuck waiting in line at Walmart for two hours in 105 degree heat, but find yourself sitting next to a crazy old lady (who yes, wears her hair in curlers) that happens to share the most profound lessons of life with you. Win!

Our world is full of these shaded gray areas-- good news and bad news swirled together creating the all-too-familiar recipe of Life. And THAT was exactly how my crazy week ended. You see, vacation starts for me in a few short days, and I have started the packing frenzy. I fly out Thursday to Seattle with an amazing friend, Monica, to explore the city, get all glammed up for a night on the town, run a race, shop our hearts out, and eat our weight in seafood. We plan to drink mimosas on the plane, take hour long (non-kid-interrupted) showers, swear at least once a minute, and go off the grid electronically (with the exception of our close friends to whom we will send hundreds of photos with the sole purpose to make them insane with jealousy). This trip has been planned since March, and I am in shock that the calendar has flown by so quickly. It’s almost here.

But as I pack up for a weekend of debauchery and running, I can’t totally block out the pesky phrase, ‘But this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.’ I had planned to run a full marathon—and hope that I still somehow can— but I know it will be against doctors orders. A sixty day regimen of steroids designed to kick my irritating auto-immune issue into remission failed, and unfortunately that has left me out of options. All I can do at this point is manage the symptoms with drugs and various life style changes. And let me tell you, I had a headache for three weeks after I gave up caffeine… I can’t imagine what life will be like when I shut the door on martinis. The doctor warned me of the dangers of trying to run a full marathon with my body in its current condition. Am I physically fit? You had better believe it. Can my body maintain a high stress cardio output for 26 miles? I find myself biting my bottom lip, and for the first time ever, questioning my own strength. I have never been the type to back down from a challenge, but sometimes your greatest opponent is yourself—and no matter how hard you push yourself or how fast you run, you can’t escape from the one person who gazes back at you in the mirror.

Gray areas-- the obstacles placed in front of your goals mixed in with the excitement of the journey. I have accomplished a lot of good over the past two years of Army-induced-separation, and every day I am a little closer towards reaching my own personal goals. But the thing is, you can’t travel through the gray areas of life without changing and adapting. The reflection in the mirror may remain the same, but the essence of who you are is constantly growing. Since my husband left 20 months ago: my friends have varied, my job has changed, I am back in school, and our kids have collectively grown 6 inches. My hub’s clothes are pushed back into the deepest depths of the closet, I only drive his car (which now smells like a combination of perfume and a gym locker room), and the Papa John’s delivery boy is at our house so often that he now sends me Christmas AND birthday cards.

Now, I have no clue what the future will hold for me—next week, next year, or next war. But I do know that every step I take is leading me down a path that Karma has laid for me. I may stumble, make mistakes, and get my heart handed to me in a Ziploc bag, but as long as I keep getting up then I am still winning. Storms come and go, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop running through the rain. And that’s exactly what I will be doing next Saturday—running through the gray drizzle in downtown Seattle; reminding myself that you can’t cross a finish line unless you start moving towards it. Life can hurt. Friends can let you down. Illness strikes when we are least prepared—but you just need to get up and keep striving for that finish line. Fall down seven times; get up eight. And let the world be warned—Army Wives come up swinging.

Plan B

Every person has those special friends that just ‘get it’. The ones you share late night margaritas with —while wearing pajamas, slippers, and a ratty bathrobe—on your front porch. Or the ones whom you can 911-message when your parents show up unexpectedly, and willingly rush over to throw some of your empty wine bottles into their recycling bin. Or even the ones who understand that you are so burned out from doing everything on the homefront for the past two years that they plan an escape to Miami for a weekend of sunshine, bikinis, and strawberry daiquiris. In this department, I am blessed! My friends are my lifeline. They understand that I am hurting, and they faithfully point me home when I am lost. They have sent me flowers and fruit baskets when I am too depressed to get out of bed, and have peeled me off the bathroom floor at fallen soldiers’ memorial services when I found myself too terrified to breathe. They have whispered, “You can do this,” a thousand times—when I run, when I have to meet with the gold-star families, when I scream at the top of my lungs, “Why?”.

My world has seemed to become a series of finish lines—and the marathon has become my icon of life. Race through the deployment; live through the soccer season; finish up the masters degree; run your heart out for 26 miles of Hell. I find myself looking towards the women who have done it before me—the wives of WWII veterans, the spouses of Vietnam, the women of our generation that have spent more holidays apart then together—to give me strength on my journey. Their suffering helps soften the blows to my heart, and their pain reminds me that I am not alone. I wish I could share all of their stories—and probably someday I will since I find myself addicted to writing—but one Army Wife, in particular, has touched my soul. Her name is Ali, and she is the mother of four kids, an elementary school teacher, and an Army Wife survivor of FOUR combat tours. She has seen it all—pain, betrayal, farewells, and homecomings—and she shares with me all of her experiences. Ali is the only woman I ever believe when the words, “Oh sweets, that is totally normal,” are uttered in my direction. I watched her fall to pieces last year when her husband was in Afghanistan, and she has held me upright this year while my husband was in Iraq. She understands the paranoia that flows from the communication blackout, she identifies with insomnia, and she gets that loneliness can make you desperate. Heck, there are days when I would be willing to trade in my car for a hug—and according to Ali, that’s standard strung-out-Army-Wife-behavior-normal.

And that is precisely why I am asking Ali to run the Army Ten Miler with me next spring. The race starts at the Pentagon, and takes us past almost every office where the fate of our Army families is decided upon. Did the Secretary of the Army realize the impact that the ongoing war would have on my babies? Did he ever picture the women like me, like Ali, -- young, smart, educated—become crippled with anxiety? Did he ever once think about our pain? About our husband’s PTSD? Could he feel it now, if just looked out the window and saw us running by? Would he be able to understand that we are desperate for peace; desperate to try to salvage what’s left of our broken families; desperate to bring our soldiers home alive, unchanged, and healed?

A few months back, Ali called me in a panic and asked the very same questions to me. She was crying on the phone, giant gulps burying her words, but she asked, “Why don’t they see us? How can they keep sending them away?” My response was typical Amy, “Honey, we could lay naked in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the President still wouldn’t notice the Army Wives of the world.” And just like that, a brilliant idea was conceived. We would make the world notice us. Bit by bit—through writing, running, and speaking—our stories would get out there. No, I am not going to lay naked in front of the Oval Office—although, to be honest, it does sound like something that I would do. But I will make sure that next May—when I run by the White House, adorned with every fallen soldier’s name that has served under my husband, that someone will notice. They will hear our stories and feel our heartache. Washington D.C. will be ready for Ali and I, and someone will grieve with us over all we have willingly lost in this war.

And if not? There will always be plan B… Ali and I naked on the White House front lawn. Letting go of our fears, forcing doors open to change, and probably getting a wicked sunburn on our butt. Changing the world, one pair of panties at a time, before the world completely changes us. That’s what strong Army Wives do-- they follow their own crazy ass code, drink more wine then the Irish at communion, and never give up. After all, it’s about damn time that someone took notice. In the words of the most notorious Army Wife, “The Army is the wife and we are the mistresses. I am sick of that bitch getting all of that attention."

Rewriting the rules

Six months ago I was running in the early morning hours—just like I do most every day—when I fainted. I hit the sidewalk, had to have my head glued shut above my ear, and was told that I needed to have a blood test—the ER doctor thought I was probably anemic. I half nodded in response, totally pissed about the chunk of hair they had to cut off, and reluctantly agreed to see my primary care doctor. I’ll be honest, I had a nagging hunch that something was wrong long before I faceplanted in downtown Cibolo: I was struggling to maintain my weight, I required an IV drip of caffeine to get me through the day, my stomach was always giving me issues, and I seemed to bruise everywhere. Stress was my diagnosis. The doctor didn’t seem to agree.

I was told I needed exploratory surgery, a spinal tap, and a possible bone marrow biopsy. The doctor grabbed my hand, gave me a squeeze of encouragement, and said, “Amy you need to prepare yourself. We could be dealing with leukemia. Do you have someone at home who can help you during these tests?” I lied, and told him yes.

In fact, I lied to everyone. I told only two friends the entire
truth, and took neither with me through the bulk of the testing-- Rule #1 of being an Army Wife: Never show your weaknesses. Unfortunately it was Rule #2 that crippled me : Keep problems on the home front out of the war zone. For those that aren’t fluent in army-ese, this translates to ‘don’t tell your husband’. Yes, he knew I was seeing various specialists. Yes, he knew I was having test after test to get a diagnosis. But I downplayed everything. Phrases like, “It’s no big deal.” “Routine stuff” and “and I think the doctor just wants to give me anesthesia so he can check out my ass.” became the norm for me. Was I scared? Yes. But I was a hell of lot more angry than anything else. I was angry with my body. I was pissed off at Jim because he couldn’t be there for me. I was infuriated with the army for twelve months of hell. But most of all, I was angry that I was alone.

The thing about anger is that once you let into your soul, it
festers and grows and threatens to consume you long before any form of cancer ever could. Jim was stuck in the ultimate catch 22. I wanted to scream at him, “WHY AREN’T YOU HERE WHEN I NEED YOU?” but how could I when I was the one who chose to leave him in the dark. I took the tests, ran, waited, and tried to convince myself that only the strong could carry that burden alone. But that’s the thing about darkness, it’s misleading. It invites you in, surrounds you, and before you know it you are lost. Anger has the power to give you strength when every other emotion has left you exhausted, but it comes at a price.

As I waited for the test results, I made a promise to myself that whatever was revealed, I would find a way to accept the truth. Yes, cancer was the one battle that I hoped to never face, but losing myself—my faith in others, my ability to love, the power to forgive—seemed infinitely more frightening. Strength isn’t always about how far you can push yourself until you break—but rather confronting the darkest part of your soul and banishing it with illumination.

It took four weeks for the testing to be completed, and I am thankful beyond words to say that no, I do not have cancer. I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, and although it probably will never kill me, I am still learning daily how to accept, challenge, and push past limitations. In three weeks I hope to run my first full marathon. I know it will be grueling and miserable, and I promised my doc that I would run with a heart monitor-- but I also know that I will run with a burdened that is shared. My close friends know. My family knows. My husband knows. Step by step I am learning to re-write the rules for deployment, and the crazy thing is they apply to life as well. Revised Army Wife Rule #1— It takes more courage to reveal insecurities then to hide them. Share. Communicate. Support each other. And then meet your fear head on… and punch it in the face.