I am only going to say this once…

As usual, it's going to take me a bit to get the point here, so bear with me. I talk, and write in a rather cyclic manner, if I seem to have gotten lost, keep reading, hopefully I'll come back to where I started.

Long years ago, I was not the person I am now. I was a scared, hurt young girl, suffering through a very violent and demeaning relationship. For two years I was a punching bag and rag doll; I learned how to cover bruises, how to explain away scrapes and cuts.

I learned to avoid crowds, the less prying eyes that saw me, the better. And finally, when it was all over, I hid because I could not stand for everyone to see all that had happened, and how far down into the deepest, darkest pit I had become. Walking into a room full of strangers was a torture I could not explain, I had the belief that everyone could see what had happened, that I was somehow less because of it.

I would stand in the mirror, and could, with a fair amount of accuracy, trace where the bruises had been, where each cut that had healed, each scrape that left a barely visible scar. I used to do it each day, a reminder of what had happened.

Carl become not just the safe harbor, but became a safe spot to hide out from the world. From behind his shoulder I could view the world, but I could always, always depend on him to step up, and let me hide. His instinctive protectiveness has worked against me, for it fostered a neediness at the same point in time it supported me. Rather than learn to stand on my own two feet, I leaned on him too heavily, never finding my own independence.

And then he left, and I found myself truly on my own.

I haven't had time to wallow in the past, to remember the old pain, to pick at wounds that need to heal. It has been months since I studied my face in the mirror, and remembered where each bruise once bloomed. Because there is no one to hide behind, I learned to go into that room full of strangers, and ask for what I needed, to make my voice heard.

Deployment has forced me, finally, to get past my past. To finally let it go, because I've been too busy to do anything else. I can't tell you where the bruises were, I have no time to care if someone might see an old scar and question it. For every moment of doubt I might have had, there are have been countless others, where I had no room for doubt. No concern for it either. While I've grown a baby, and kept our life going, done laundry, given the dog a bath, changed the sheets, figured out what I want for dinner, while I have lived, the past has faded further.

I will only say this once… deployment has been good for me, it has fostered the independent soul, dug for all my strength, forced me to not just stand on my own two feet, but to walk, it has forced me to survive, and in turn, thrive, during the hardest season.

Were it not for the hardest parts of deployment, I would have no faith in myself. The hardest lessons in life are sometimes the most painful, and here, I have learned at least one for this year.
I am no longer the scared young girl, afraid of her own shadow.
I am the one who lived through it, and is no longer terrified of the past. I am the survivor.

~Jennifer