Never Arrive: A Memoir

Everyone wants a success story. Celebrities publish memoirs every day, it seems, detailing some period of time in their lives when they worked hard and achieved something. They arrived.

I was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, as any reader who has been with me over the life of my blog will know. When I think of success-story memoirs, and of success stories in general, the words of my Military Training Instructor (MTI) come back to me:

"Never arrive."

Staff Sergeant Massey imparted those words to us as bits of advice on our last day of Basic Military Training (BMT), as we boarded buses to go to our technical training locations. Mine was headed to Wichita Falls, Texas. Just a bus ride from where we were in San Antonio.

He had explained to us that many trainees, upon arriving at their tech school or even their permanent duty station, would feel as though they'd made it, as if they'd arrived. That feeling of arrival was their downfall - they got comfortable, and they made mistakes that proved fatal to their careers.

He told us to never arrive.

So, it never once occurred to me that I should write a memoir - least of all one that would focus on success and achievement. But now I'm in an upper-level English class and the assignment is exactly that.

And here's the thing:

I haven't arrived.

This upper-level English class is part of a program I'm in now to earn my Bachelor's Degree for Exercise, Fitness, and Nutrition Science. Still working, still studying, grinding through every obstacle in my way.

I'm forced to look back on my life. My brain is immediately flooded with the thought: "I'm not ready to write this story. I haven't reached success yet." Upon reflection, I have succeeded in multiple endeavors.

With each achievement, each accomplishment, each "success," I never once felt as though I'd reached the summit, so to speak.

For the purposes of this assignment, I'm looking back on BMT, with MTI Sgt Massey telling us never to arrive. That we should never feel as though we'd completed our journey, never get comfortable.

The advice came at the end of the most arduous and bewildering eight weeks of my life, which started late at night on December 28, 2010.

The first night, we were asked if we had ever played an instrument or had rhythm. Having played clarinet for five years, I naturally raised my hand - and, along with all others who did so, I was sorted into a band flight. There were two of us - a male flight and a female flight.

The first night, I cried when we went to bed, like so many others. I wondered what I'd really gotten myself into - if I could really handle what I'd signed up for.

Basic Military Training was an absolute nightmare in which we lived by the week - Sunday to Sunday. If you go into the military without religion, you find one to join while you're in BMT, just to get out of the barracks and be spoken to like a person rather than low-grade single-use plastic-mixed materials (garbage).

The only days in which I had any sense of bearing were Sundays. Sunday held the illusion of freedom - we had the choice to go to any religious service we wanted. Most weeks, I chose the Wiccan service, but there was one week I chose the Muslim service, and another week I added Bible Study to my week as an excuse to leave the dorm an extra time - only to be totally disappointed by it anyway.

Day-to-day operations were a mysterious fog. We marched from location to location. We went up and down the stairs as fast as possible while making sure to hold the handrail at all times, Trainee! We formed up at the bottom of the stairs outside, under an overhang large enough to conduct drill movements and PT and stay out of any rain.

We had band practice at least a couple times a week. I was assigned cymbals - an instrument I'd never played, but quickly got used to, and for which I credit my rapid improvements with push-ups. We had classes to attend and materials we needed to study.

We had time each week, if not each night, to write letters to people close to us. We had time each week to call someone close to us.

It never clicked to me what our schedule was. Hour to hour, I as clueless as to what the plan for the day was, and only knew the current activity, if not the next activity as well (if I were lucky).

Adding to my bewilderment, I was accused of having no integrity. I was accused of lying. I was berated for "having an attitude" when attempting to add input to a discussion among others in my flight.

When we met our MTI, Staff Sergeant Massey, I was petrified. The fear never went away - not even at the very end after we'd said our good-byes and gone on our ways.

He always said my name wrong. I'm not sure if he ever heard me correct him; he seemed unable to hear me any time I spoke to him, but at the time it felt as though he deliberately ignored what I tried to say - which added up in my mind as a typical experience of BMT that I should grit myself to endure.

Sgt Massey told us early on that his "worst trainees" would always write him letters to tell him how much they appreciated him, and so on.

I'm not sure how accurate my perception is, but I felt as though he disliked me the most in my flight.

Never in my life have I humiliated myself or been humiliated the way I was during BMT. These are details I won't share today because they are still humiliating to air.

Ultimately, I vowed never to be the kind of trainee to write back to my MTI. No, thank you.

I was fired from two important jobs I had been given - and these were humiliating revocations of responsibility. They were things that I had a knack for, and for which I did not fall in line enough when doing. I was even given an opportunity to use my greatest talent and skill - my art - and I fucked it up.

It's amazing I made it through at all.

It's a goddamn miracle I didn't get recycled.

Recycling happened when someone was held back for a week. Essentially, while the rest of their flight would move on to the next week of studies, practices, etc., a trainee would be held back in the same week, if not a previous week, and join another flight at that week's level of training. Some people were recycled two weeks back or more.

I held on. That's it. I held on, and I did my best to keep up and stay on track.

Through sheer grit and perseverance, I made it through. I earned my Airman's coin.

Prior to enlisting in the Air Force, and in fact, prior to high school, I practiced mixed martial arts. It was there that I learned about perseverance and the indomitable spirit. That was what I carried with me to sustain me in BMT. My MTI review at the end was upsetting to me, but I never got sent backwards in training.

My MTI's words stuck with me in tech school and even when I went to my permanent duty station in Germany. "Never arrive." Never get comfortable. It's what had me hitting the ground running, ready to move forward and excel as an Airman.

It's what has me continuing my education and continuing to seek a meaningful and impactful career that will bring me joy as well as enough wealth to thrive.

There is no arrival. There are only stepping stones.

Thanksgiving 2018: Gratitude for Pain

The holiday season is in full swing in America. Christmas items have been in stores since before Halloween, but I haven’t seen much of them because I haven’t done much shopping. In fact, I don’t know what kind of money I may or may not have for Christmas. I might not have anything at all to spend.

            We’re fast approaching Thanksgiving, an extremely American holiday dedicated to feasting, or, as it’s rather commonly imagined, absolutely stuffing your face until your stomach screams in protest and you pass out in a food coma. Naturally, this is followed by Black Friday, which has essentially become a holiday all its own, arguably more American than Thanksgiving itself. Black Friday is a true ode to consumerism, and ever so American as people literally assault one another just to spend less money for products they don’t really need, than they would have spent otherwise.

            At this time of year, the paradox is this: We give thanks for what we have, only to wake up the very next morning and buy more things. It seems quite contradictory to me, and that’s why I don’t participate in Black Friday. I don’t participate in Cyber Monday, either, although the idea is rather brilliant for targeting people like me who would rather die of suffocation or drowning than ever be caught in a Black Friday crowd at an outlet store.

I’d like to dedicate this entry to gratitude.

            Often, people who have been through trauma as I have find that this is an exceptionally difficult holiday. Family dysfunction throughout our lives throws a cog in the gears of attempted joy on a day dedicated to, well, food. That’s why I think it’s important that I talk about my past as I say what I’m grateful for.

My father has never hosted an event for Thanksgiving.

            He’s seldom had his own residence, but more than that, I have no memory in my life of my father hosting Thanksgiving, with or without roommates. He always sees his mother, my grandmother, for the holidays. This isn’t a bad thing until one realizes he wasn’t there for a lot of Thanksgivings. He broke a lot of promises and made me feel very small when he would see me. He’s been one of the most dismissive people in my life of my dreams, my desires, my goals, and my personality—my own essence of being.

I’m thankful for my dad.

            The abuse and neglect have taught me a lot about forgiveness and human nature. No, it’s not human nature to be the way he was, but given his own background, the explanations exist. The reasons are there, and they have nothing to do with me. I’m not convinced my dad loves me the way a father’s supposed to love his daughter, and there’s no way to go back in time to give him another chance to be my dad. But he’s doing better with his new kid than he did with me, and even if he doesn’t contact me very often, it seems he’d like to have a relationship with me. Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

            He’s my father. I respect him for his experiences and wisdom, for what they’re worth.

Thanksgiving with my mother is never a great time.

            I’m sure she’s hosted Thanksgiving in my lifetime. I’m almost sure I have refused to attend them if she’s hosted. More often, she would take us to her uncle Ken’s house, with her mother. These days, Uncle Ken doesn’t seem like much of an option. He seems to be losing his marbles much the way his late mother did (dementia is a beast), so my mother told me the celebration this year would be like last year: hosted at her mother’s house.

            The problem is, it’s always awkward. The good news is, it’s only awkward, now. The reasons for the awkwardness aren’t great, though, as my mother was a terrible parent. I can’t speak for how she parents now, but I have a hunch it’s only marginally better. She makes a lot of poor choices, and has for most if not all of her life. She’s certainly made poor choices and poor judgment for the entirety of my life.

I’m thankful for my mom.

            Let’s be real. No matter how much of a fuck-up my mother may be, she still gave me this life. With the trials, tribulations, and exposure to opposing and coexistent worlds, I wouldn’t be here without her. It’s a hell of a trip, living life. It’s not easy, nobody gives you any shortcuts or manuals, and anyone who gets those things is only lucky to those who do not know better. The truth is, even the silver spoons and life manuals only do so much, and nothing beats the hard, hands-on experience that comes from bumbling through life without instructions.

            My mom’s been through trauma at least as much as I have, if not more. She didn’t have the best mother in the world, either, and she didn’t have the best father. I would never speak ill of the dead, much less the grandfather I never knew. I met some of his family and they never spoke badly about him, but I know what my mother and uncle have told me. While I’m thankful for my mother giving birth to me, I’m more thankful to her for letting me go when she did. I’ve often wished I could go back in time and take away the two years I spent with her. I’ve thought, I wouldn’t have developed such anxiety, or I wouldn’t have developed an adjustment disorder, if only she’d never had custody of me.

            Even so, if I hadn’t lived with her, I wouldn’t know what it’s like to live in poverty. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have an abusive, dysfunctional household. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to be yelled and screamed at instead of spoken to, or what it’s like to beaten with a wooden spoon. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to have lice, to be outcast and treated like shit for things you have no control over.

Thanksgiving with my grandparents is a wholesome family experience.

            Throughout everything, I remain most thankful to my grandparents. They took me in, gave me shelter, provided me with everything I needed: food, drink, education, clothing, healthcare, and even vacations. Thanksgivings and Christmases with my grandparents is almost always a great time. Still, it’s occasionally been something like your typical American family Thanksgiving: awkwardness and some fighting.

            Year before last, when I was married, I didn’t enjoy Thanksgiving with my grandparents. Part of it was that my ex-husband had ruined my daughter’s and his own appetite before we arrived.

I’m thankful for my grandparents.

            They’ve always had my back. They’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to repay them, and that’s okay, because I’ve learned throughout my life thus far that it’s more important to pay it forward than to pay it back. I didn’t learn that from my grandparents, or my mother or father. I learned that through the myriad of experiences I’ve had, and it’s something that’s confirmed every now and then as I continue living.

            If it weren’t for the time I had with my grandparents, I wouldn’t know that it’s possible to improve my station in life. I wouldn’t know anything about the possibility of a person to overcome their past, their heritage, their own culture. If it weren’t for my grandparents, I’d never have joined the military, and if it weren’t for the military, I wouldn’t have as open a mind as I do.

            A lot of fear remains. I’m not married anymore, and I’m grateful to no longer be in an unhealthy and toxic relationship. I’m grateful for my daughter, who wouldn’t be here if not for my ex-husband. I’m grateful for the lessons I gleaned from my relationship with him, the character wisdom I gained.

Life is a journey whose end you can’t see, and whose beginning varies in meaning and importance.

            I’m in a better place than my parents have done. I’m relatively stable, with every opportunity to keep what I have and continue to improve. It’s overwhelming, and difficult. I can’t survive on a single income, unless I manage to increase my VA disability to 100%. I believe I qualify for such a rating, but it’s not something that’s been high on my list of priorities because I’d rather push myself to do better. I don’t want to lie around doing nothing, collecting a check just for having a pulse.

            Life is about the struggle. It’s about the journey, the ups and the downs. It may be true that we don’t have a choice to have it any other way, and showing gratitude is a great way to cope.

A Deadly Mistake

The worst mistake man ever made was to speed everything up. As the old man in The Shawshank Redemption said before hanging himself: “The world went and got itself into a big damn hurry.” While at that time he referred to the abundance of automobiles and the sudden speed with which business was being done, today that speed has accelerated even more.

            Today, we live in what appears to be an instant world. Instant food, instant communication; the only thing that’s not instant is our transportation, and even then we’ve managed to speed it up in many ways and for many purposes, though our freeways remain jam-packed at rush hour and stand completely still any time a collision occurs. The Internet, it has been argued, has had many benefits, but perhaps if we step back and examine the evidence to these “benefits,” we will find that they are only beneficial in the context of a fast, instant world wherein any task can be done instantaneously as long as it can be done digitally. In fact, I would argue the Internet has done more harm than good, for despite the speed with which processes can be completed, people feel more like they have no time to do things—to create a coherent thought, to research a point as completely as it can be researched—even to relax and take a break from all the pressures that have resulted from the breakneck speed to which we have developed. The more we connect in the virtual world, the more we demand immediate results, the less we connect in real life and the more alienated we feel from our peers.

            Relationships build over time. They are a natural process like the rest of life. The Internet, in many ways, is destroying the very foundation of a relationship. No longer do people take time to get to know one another. They group together online and share things, but often times when someone shows a point of view that disagrees with the group, the person holding the opposing position is ousted from the group itself. The more connected we feel in the virtual, instant world, the less connected we feel to and within real life. People don’t touch each other as much anymore; their fingers are too busy swiping and tapping screens, pressing keys, clicking mice; their eyes are too occupied by a screen; their ears are so preoccupied with electronics that they fail to pick up sound waves that emanate next to them from partners, family members, friends, colleagues, etc.

            Naturally, one might ask me, “If that’s your argument, why do you use the Internet?” The answer is simple: I grew up with its development. I began using computers in 2001, at the age of 9. I played the hell out of The Sims and I spent more time online than I did talking to my family, every chance I got. Suddenly, the world seems so much bigger for the addition of the World Wide Web, and so much smaller when we remain rooted in reality. My experience in the military expanded the world greatly for me, and also showed me that as big as it gets, it is only so big. The thing is, I think that’s okay.

            Our population on this planet is such that there is no way any one person can meet every single other person on the planet. Still, I think that our goal in life should be to make connections, to communicate, to learn and grow from one another. Our purpose should not be to drive a sales bargain, to find the bottom line of a deal, to cheat and swindle our way to the top of an imaginary ladder or the front of an imaginary race. The Internet has done me much good in my life, it is true, but to connect this to what I said before, I would wager that the benefits I have experienced have been a direct result of the desire in our society for immediate results. Research papers are due in just enough time to find as many sources as possible, and most of those sources today come from the Internet rather than a library. Printed books are going out of style in favour of digital copies that can instantly be downloaded, eliminating the need for people to get out in public and interact with other bookworms in shops, or shopkeepers themselves.

            Pokémon GO was the best technological advancement in gaming since Ingress. It got more people outside than did Ingress, and even now, as it continues to update, people can come together within the game, make friends, and trade Pokémon. These are new developments and while I can talk all day long against technology, I can also talk all day long in support of it, because this kind of development is just what we need to get people outside and interacting with one another in real life again. Further advancements must be made, however. We cannot allow ourselves to be limited to these games to explore the outside world and meet people face-to-face. The problem still exists that everything in this world today is moving too fast.

            People today are literally working themselves to death. This phenomenon has been reported by Forbes in this article, and Time covered it in their own article. It seems that overwork is most common in Japan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the cardiology-related deaths in America are caused by the stresses of overworking.

            It’s time to slow down. The Internet may have many uses, but it’s so large it’s literally uncontrollable. There are proxies and workarounds for the most censored nations. Truly, unless a person lacks a connection, the Internet is nigh unavoidable in today’s age. Still, I think its development was in many ways a mistake and I wonder how we might be able to change it so that it could be used more primarily for research purposes, or more accurately, how we might slow down the frantic rat race of our society while maintaining the use of the Internet for all the good it does us.