Day 125: Wading the Poop River

I’m not in the mood to write tonight, but I don’t really have a choice, do I? Even so, I’m going to cheat a little and defer to the words of my husband. He wrote me this letter two days ago about a project he spearheaded in Iraq. In the 10 months he’s been deployed he mentioned a place called Oubaidy to me many times. His comments were usually about how bad it was there and that they had to wade through what we jokingly referred to as a “poop river” every time he visited. Midway through his tour, a military publication called Stars and Stripes did an article on their work there and created a slideshow with photos and narration by Jeff. I am attaching that slideshow so that you can see what it was like as they started to make changes.

So often, we think of the war as simply warfare. We expect guns and bombs and death, what we fail to acknowledge is the efforts put forth in the community to make a real difference to those people. My husband has never been a big fan of the war, but he is a professional and believes in his job so he will wage war and shoot and be shot at, but he found a way to try to make a difference. Please take a moment to read his letter and learn about some of the amazing changes we effected in the course of warfare. It’s not all shooting people . . . apparently. I couldn’t be more proud of the work Jeff is doing. I guess even pacifists can find a way to appreciate our military – I’m living proof. Here is the link for the short slide show, Jeff is in the second photo with the oranges: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61293. This is his letter:

Hi baby,

I wanted to tell you about the great day I had yesterday. Ever since we first got here I have been heavily involved in the Oubaidy Market project. I think you might remember that - it was in the Stars and Stripes with the a picture of me 30 second clip an interview they did with me while we walked through the area. Anyway, it has been something of a laor of love for me. Oubaidy was a spot that was pretty damn bad when we got here. We got hit with an IED there on our very first day in Iraq and getting shot at, rock throwing, and just general dirty looks were pretty much the norm.

The services there were abysmal. I had a special pair of boots I only wore when I patrolled in Oubaidy because we routinely had to walk through 8-12 inches of raw sewage on the streets. It had a post-apocalyptic feel to it at times. There is a mental hospital in the northwest corner of the area that used to provide retarded women as suicide bombers. One of the doctors was an al-Qaeda sympathizer and would sell them for use as bombers. In short, it was not a great area.

When we came in we did some analysis and came up with a mix of increased security measures, tribal and civic engagement with community leaders and a significant investment in the roads and market to try to stimulate business and a program of individual micro grants to get people off the ground and incentivize legitimate market stalls. Basically this market was horrible. It was trash ridden, smelled god awful, and was so full of illegal "squatter" stands that you could barely move through it.

We were able to push through almost 2 million dollars in projects and microgrants. It involved dozens of trips there and even more meetings to wade through the Iraqi bureaucracy - one of the great ironies here is just how hard it is to help the Iraqi Government. Giving away money is a near herculean task. It is a whole other email to describe the byzantine process of getting this stuff approved and why it is so tough, but I assure you this was no small task. To make things even better, often times we would get shot at coming and/or going from these market trips to talk with locals or leaders, check on projects, etc...

Once we had everything lined up we did a series of major raids and arrested dozens of people we and the Iraqi Federal Police (FP) unit we work with had been tracking there. We cleared out a bunch of weapons caches and then came in with the FPs and helped establish better checkpoints, handed out cards with tip line phone numbers and put up wanted posters of troublemakers to discourage their return. We handed out blankets, water purification units, school bags, toys and food bags because it is hard to get excited about a road when you have no clean water to drink. We wanted to show these people that if they participated in their own security by reporting on the militias that they could help better their own lot. I left to my current job shortly after this phase so although I knew things were on track, I did lose sight of how it was coming along. They recently finished up almost all but a few of the many projects We worked so hard for.

Last night I went out on a patrol there and what I saw was amazing. The roads were paved except for a few that were still in progress. The solar lights we had lobbied so hard for we're about 75% complete and were lighting up the neighborhood which had been a no-man's land at night as the militias would use that time to extort money and silence from the people. People were out drinking tea and watching soccer on TVs, kids were playing in the street, we were actually cheered as we drove through. It made me feel pretty damn good.

It is easy to lose sight over here of why we are here. All the political drama in the background, the massive economic costs of this war, the fact that often times the media and the American public seem far more interested in the pedestrian happenings of the star-du-jour sometimes makes the most committed of us question the worth of what we are doing. I am not naive nor am I particularly idealistic. I get that a few small successes like this do not a grand strategy make. All I know is that today I feel pretty good about what we did over here.

I just wanted to share that with you.

Day 124: Falling in Love Again

Can you fall in love with someone for the second time? I do not mean to infer that I ever fell out of love with my husband, but at some point in a relationship some of that magic dissipates and becomes companionship. You are teammates well versed in one another’s strengths and weaknesses and you know when the other needs a little back up. This is a lovely, comfortable, trusting phase of a relationship and it is inevitable, should your relationship last long enough, that you will at some point settle in to this well-worn, comfy couch of a love. What I am asking, is if it is possible to regain a piece of that passion and intensity and yes, magic, that you once had even after lying on the comfy couch for several years. I think it is and I think I have that.

I swear I have never loved my husband more than I do at this moment. I feel joyous and happy at having him in my life in a way I have not felt in a while. At some point, you just get so used to having that partner supporting you, that you no longer turn to make sure they are still there. For me, not only do I keep catching myself remembering how lucky I am that he is there, I am also surprised and delighted by it each time. I hate that he has been gone for the last 10 months, but I do believe that it give us back something we were in danger of losing: each other.

I have always loved Jeff. I loved him the night we met and I have fallen in love with him a little bit over and over again at different phases in our life together. The first time I saw him ironing; the day in the rough waters off the coast of Delaware that he held onto me when I got crushed and tumbled by a huge wave; the time I had food poisoning and fainted in his arms in the hallway only to awaken back in bed with his worried face hovering over mine. This man has earned my love repeatedly and yet our life has been difficult these last two years. We moved three times, I couldn’t get a job, we both missed our home in NYC, we didn’t have friends, and sometimes it felt like we didn’t have each other.

That’s the problem with old, comfortable and companionable love, you still love one another, but you lose the essence of that person in the day to day. I certainly wouldn’t want to suffer through a year-long deployment every time we started to take one another for granted, but in many ways this time apart has been a gift, because it gave me back the man I love so much it’s hard to keep from smiling for no reason. I don’t believe that another person can be responsible for your happiness, but even so, I know that without Jeff I was not happy. These days, as I count down the last seven weeks of our separation each thought of him brings a smile and an overwhelming feeling of love, happiness and something more. I feel anticipation. When was the last time you couldn’t wait to see your partner’s face when you wake up in the morning or come home in the evening? Well, I feel like that every day, so I guess in some ways 18 months of misery and a year of war was exactly what I needed to fall in love all over again.

Day 123: Patriotism Means I can Care More About the Beach, Than the Tsunami

I consider myself a fairly intelligent and educated person. True, my expertise is anthropology and literature, but I think any amount of advanced education or worldliness aides in our overall intelligence. I read extensively. I pay attention to politics, global events and news outside of that presented on E! Yet when the tsunami hit the America Samoas the other day and I was watching the coverage of the tragic wreckage, I had to ask myself and Google, “Where the hell are the American Samoas?”

Geography is widely known to be one of our most sorely lacking subjects in the U.S. school system. We learn American geography, all the states and capitals, where they’re located and if you’re an honors student, maybe even a bit about Central and South America, but that’s pretty much it. So what about the rest of the world? Especially today, in a world increasingly more akin to a global community, we shouldn’t just focus on reading about what’s happening in other places, we might want to take a minute to learn where those places are.

Why is it okay for us to not even be able to pick out the United Kingdom on a map? For that matter, how people actually don’t know that the UK isn’t just England, but in fact is made up of four countries. I laugh as loudly as anyone during those segments on Jay Leno or Conan where they ask people to point things out on a map, and they are so egregiously wrong it’s embarrassing, but funny. When I am the one who cannot pick out Iraq or the Sudan on a map, however, it hits home. Now, it’s not just other people that are stupid, I’m stupid.

So I did research the American Samoas and found out it is a group of islands in the Pacific, but then I did something that really showed that I am an American. Instead of going back to the coverage of the tsunami, I started looking to see if it was cheaper to vacation there because they are US territories. I understood it might take a year to get the beaches and vacay hotspots back in order, but I’m looking for next year anyway. This makes me a bad person right? Horrified by the destruction I research the islands, then when I realize they are pacific islands I stop caring about the lives lost and start planning my next trip to the beach. Being an American is fun, we don’t have to care about stuff we don’t know about and we don’t really know all that much.

Day 122: Dear Dead Stepfather

Dear Dead Stepfather,

I have been looking forward to this day since I was eight years old. I can still smell the scent of the grape Bubbleyum and the warm, smooth surface of the quarter you gave me the first day Mom introduced you to us. Bribery of children is an age-old custom, but even at eight I knew that you were not a nice man and a quarter was not enough. That was the only time you tried to ingratiate yourself with me and my brother. After that, you did not care if we liked you or if we were happy. In fact, you made sure that my childhood was not a happy one. You stole so many years from me and your presence in our lives was a perpetual source of negativity and tension. You are the only person I have ever managed to truly hate. Now that you are dead I wonder what will become of all that malice.

Dearest Dead Stepfather, hating someone takes tremendous energy. Is it possible that hating you and wishing you dead all these years has taken away a part of myself I could have been channeling toward something more positive? So what now? With your departure from the earth, will the energy I put into hating you transition to a sudden upswing in motivation? Perhaps I will finally have the discipline to write my book, or the focus to successfully hunt down my perfect career. Maybe once I let go of all the pain and anger your presence in my life built up over the years I will be free to find and to live out the happiness I missed. They say the best revenge is living well, I think maybe I’m about to find out.

Dearest Dead Stepfather, I still have nightmares about you. I’ve never told anyone that. The damage you did to my family lives on in my dreams, but now that you are dead maybe I can finally rest. I am sorry that I am the kind of person that has hated and wished another dead, but sometimes the seeds of our destructive behavior toward another take root. I am the seedling you planted, so in a way you nurtured and fostered my hate and now I’m free.

Dearest Dead Stepfather, thank you for finally doing one unselfish thing in your miserable life. Thank you for leaving this world and all the people whose lives you touched with your spite, bitterness and pettiness. Thank you for giving us this gift. This is one of the happiest days of my life, and I owe it all to you.

Day 121: Can You ReGift Democray?

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Day 120: If We're All Having Mid-life Crises in Our 30's Does That Mean We'll Die Young?

Either my generation is going to die sooner than those previous, or we’re now having third–year crises as opposed to the traditional mid-life variety. Lately, it seems I am not the only one of my age group who is rethinking her life and the choices made. We are examining who we’ve become, how we got here and why we made the choices that brought us here.

So why this sudden stumbling block in our paths to our real mid-life meltdown? At 36 or 37 years old it seems untimely to be second guessing all of our choices. Your children are still in grade school can you actually be wondering what your life would be like without them? Similarly, can same age childless couples really fret over a life without children when they are still able to conceive? Aren’t we just a little young to be racing down this path of regret?

I am the last person to lecture on not having self-doubt. The argument could be made that I am, in fact, the poster child for self-examination and narcissistic obsession with my own life and circumstances. The reason for my blog is this very pursuit. Who am I? How did I get to be this person and should I be someone else? These might be the most ironic discussion I’ve had with my laptop. I am mired in self-reflection and questions of “what if” and yet here I am asking about the validity of that very pursuit.

Maybe we are just a generation of over analyzers. We’re not the boomers, we’re not the clueless and over-entitled Gen Y, we’re the aging Gen Xers and it’s become practically our job to think about every nuance of our lives. Why do we succeed, why do we fail, why do we ask why? We’re not going through a premature mid-life crisis, we’re just fulfilling our own need to focus on us. Our parents got married young, had kids young, had a mortgage, jobs and focused all their energy on making the lives of their children better than theirs was. Success. Our lives are so comfy that our biggest worries are those we create for ourselves. You have kids, enjoy them and move it along. You don’t have kids, enjoy the silence and extra cash in your wallet and get over it. One day we will be mid-life and we’re going to need to leave some stones unturned so we have something real to rebel against when that day comes.

Day 119: Life is Like Football, Sometimes you Lose

It’s my favorite time of the year and I can’t get into it. Football is in the third week of regular season play and it’s just not happening for me. The weather is beautiful, my team is playing well (or will be once the kicker and defense get their acts together), my fantasy teams are good and all I can think about is what’s not here. I have loved football my entire life, but it just doesn’t feel the same without the husband. Sometimes things become so associated with a specific person that when that person is gone, so is the enjoyment.

Jeff is football to me. The excitement of gearing up for the season, scouting out which bar we’ll watch in, doing fantasy research together, football is our thing. True, football, Jeff and our marriage all still exist, but the fact that I cannot enjoy them together ruins it. A piece of my life is missing and I don’t think I can separate which piece. Missing Jeff is nothing new, I have missed him for going on 11 months. The surprise is that I cannot seem to enjoy our favorite sport without him here.

It’s funny to me that the things most people would struggle with do not phase me, but things conventional wisdom holds as less important leave me with an almost physical emptiness. I don’t need the day to day presence, nor do I need elaborately planned evenings out. I need the love of my life to watch a fucking football game with me. I need him to kiss the back of my neck. I need him to open a bottle wine with me. I can, and have, gotten through the rest. In fact, when he comes home we will still be living two hours apart, commuting on weekends to see one another. This is a foreign concept to my friends, they cannot fathom this being acceptable or normal. For the husband and I, this is merely a blip, the real factor is that we will have weekends together for brunch, for errands, and yes for football.

Sometimes the things you think you need in your life aren’t really the big ticket items. I don’t need my love to be here 24/7 or even for the holidays. I need him here for neck rubs, and wine tastings and football. It doesn’t mean we don’t love one another as much as other couples, it just means that we’ve had to separate out what it is that makes us a couple. It’s not the time spent together, it’s how we spend that time.