In air

So I'm sitting on the first plane, about an hour from St Louis where I have a 3 hour layover (ummm fuck!!) this flight went pretty quick I took sleep meds and motion sickness meds as soon as I got on and just woke up

I stayed up really late the last few nights to try and get myself onto WA time so I am not as jetlagged when I get there so I was pretty tired and ready for a nap when I got to the airport

Josh had told me to take the sleep meds when I got on the 2nd flight (the one into SeaTac) but I decided against it because I'm renting a car when I get there and I don't wanna risk being tired

I'm really excited about the next few days with my friends I miss them so much but I keep reminding myself it's not going to be what I remember people change, bases change, and most of all people pcs

In my memory all the people I love are still there but in reality they're not...

I have made Fort Lewis into this almost fantasy place in my head where my heart lives where everyone I love is where I learned about who I am, found love and true friendships I've built it up so much in my head since we moved that I'm almost scared that going back is going to ruin my memories

I will always love that little house in Evergreen that I had, 2 blocks from Roxie, about a mile from Lori, at the bottom of the hill from Alicia...

But they're not there anymore and neither am I... New families have moved into those homes and I hope they love them as much as I did...

I remember Josh waking me up early in the morning with a call from Afghanistan and I would be too happy to fall back to sleep so I would go to the Donut shop on Bridgeport Ave and get breakfast for Alicia and I then go eat with her... Sitting at her breakfast bar while she baked... Laughing and sharing our joy and our fears...

I remember Josh being on Mids or CQ or in the early days of the deployment or hell any random Tues! Lori would call and say she's picking me up an We'd go to EQ in Tacoma... Lori is my best friend the closest thing to a sister I could ever ask for she is my true other half and an amazing woman... When Josh left for K9 school, leaving me alone in WA for the first time I called Lori and asked her if she wanted to do something... She said no she was busy and hung up quickly the next thing I knew there was a knock at the door she was already there with wine and Ben and Jerry's... That was the night she became my best friend... We had a sleep over at her house that night drinking wine Til we passed out laughing Til the sun came up

I remember having an awful day everything going wrong and knowing I could run to Roxie... Her back door was always open and her freezer was always stocked with tequila... I spent many days and nights with her drinking margaritas and laughing she was my friend true friend I've known her longer then I've known Josh the fact that I happened to marry a soldier who was stationed at Ft Lewis was fate saying she was meant to be in my life :)

But now Alicia is in OR and Lori is in WI... I'm staying with Roxie when I get to WA but she's no longer in the big house in Discovery Village...

Plane is landing, time to turn off the phone hehe :)

Kick in the teeth

So I was watching this special on Netflix and found out that there are over 7,000 active duty service members who are HIV positive ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

After watching this I started goggling and found that its true! If a soldier (or whatever branch) tests positive, they are not kicked out just moved to a non-deployable job/duty station and noone is allowed to know except the persons dr and CO because it falls under the ADA...

My question is: why the FUCK would they be willing to do this for someone with an illness that they CAUSES THEMSELVES but won't do this for my husband who is a combat wounded soldier?! Why can they just be put as non deployable but Josh can't? Josh isn't a serious health risk to everyone around him he is a decorated combat vet but is treated like shit

Why is that under ADA but PTSD isn't?! Why is it ok for everyone to know about Josh? For NCOs to go around talking about his health issues and treatment options? Why the fuck should someone with HIV have privacy but Josh shouldn't?

I'm really sick of the fucking bullshit the military pulls and this is like the last straw for me... By allowing these fucks to stay active duty they are putting so many people at risk everyday!

I'm like REALLY pissed about this! But on the bright side, I'm not freakin out about the flight anymore HAHAHAHA

Fear of Flying

So it's 10:08pm on Sunday night and I'm freaking out.

I'm trying to keep my breathing level, trying to stay calm so as to not let Josh know how I'm ready to explode on the inside...

Were laying in bed watching Homeland (it's my new guilty pleasure I can't get enough of it!!)

But yeah I'm freaking out about going to WA...

I have no idea why I'm freaking out it makes ZERO sense at all! I've been waiting for this for months counting down the days Til I can see my friends again Til I can be back in the place that I feel safe the city I Love

But here I lay anyway inches from a panic attack because I'm scared of leaving Guinness home lol

I told Josh a few hours ago how I feel and he told me to take some deep breathes that everything is gonna be ok and I want to believe him

I know I'm doing the right thing by going I need to be with my real friends for a few days I need to be away front this place to clear my head

I wonder sometimes if Josh and I should take the settlement from the car accident law suit, fix up the house and sell the fucker... Sell it and just move somewhere totally new where all the memories of what has happened are gone...

If things go really well in WA I think that's what we may do...

The hotel

It's like a space ship! Pictures don't do it justice!!!

Hotel Yotel in NYC this is where I spent my writing retreat with Wounded Warrior Project and where ill be going back to in April :)

100!

So I made it! 100 posts since I started this blog!

It's amazing how far I've come since I started this... When I started I was so angry I could barely think straight... I was stressed, scared, heartbroken...

I could barely say what happened to me out loud let alone handle sitting and writing it down... I couldn't even stomach to look at his psych records...

Just seeing the green folder that houses them would send me into orbit...

But in the past few days I've been able to tell so much more, I can say it out loud now without panic, and tomorrow my goal is to sit down and read Te Belvoir Records without having a panic attack.

I need to do it I have to get past it and the only way to do that is to read it and write it and say it until it doesn't hurt anymore Til I don't want to scream and cry anymore

I know what's in those records is untrue I know his dr lied... It's been a year if Josh was making that up he would have told me by now he wouldn't let me stress like this for no reason

Tomorrow I'm gonna take one final look back and then that's it the past will be just that the past and we will only look forward to our new lives without the army

CO and the lies they told

This part of the story is VERY hard for me... By this point I was already pretty far into the center of the worst of it

Josh told me to meet him at Rader Clinic on Ft Myer, so I did.

I did everything I was told just like I was told to do it. Josh showed up kissed me told me he loved me and then he was called back into his dr appt he motioned for me to join him but his dr refused so I sat in the lobby and waited

And waited and waited and waited for hours... We're talking like 5 hours went by and noone would tell me anything noone would let me talk to Josh

The MPs showed up at about 4:30 and told me Josh's CO wanted to see me so I was like uhhhh ok??

And that's when hell broke loose.

I remember being called into his commander's office and him looking at me saying "your making me do things I don't want to do" and I all I could think was "well then don't"

He wouldn't tell me where Josh was he wouldn't tell me anything at all he told me that he was putting an MPO between us because Josh's illness was my fault... Um WTF?! I sat in shock as he told me I made up Josh's deployments and how his dr thought it would be better for him if I left and never came back

I dunno about you but I don't know who the fuck that asshole thought he was! How could he sit there and tell me to leave my hospitalized husband

Who the fuck was he to act like he had any idea what was going on in our lives?! He had no idea how bad things were how I begged for help how Josh begged for help

Josh out right TOLD his dr he was gonna kill himself and she did nothing but somehow it's my fault? Somehow I caused all this... Not the army, not the war, not that dr all me

I left Ft Myer in a panic I didn't know where to go or what to do the thought of going back to our house was too much to bare the thought of driving to NJ was overwhelming I had no friends to run to so I sat in the truck at the Pentagon City Mall parking lot for hours sobbing unable to move, unable to think, unable to pull myself together

That was it, the lowest point of my whole life... That my friends was rock bottom...

Fight friend

You know the kinda friend I'm talking about the one you call when your pissed who feeds into your most god awful ideas who just makes you even madder then you were before

I had a friend like that... Lets call her Nikki lol

Nikki was one of my best friends I told her everything I talked to her 24/7 when we weren't on the phone we were together she was quickly becoming one of those friends who are family

But she had this bad habit of making Josh and I fight like cats and dogs she would spin me up when Josh was at work just to watch me go nuts when he got home

This was after the hospital and Josh kept telling me I needed to drop her as a friend or we were gonna end up as bad as we were before the hospital

I didn't wanna give her up I loved her like a sister she was there for me when Josh was being a nut when everyone else said I was crazy she stood up for me

Then something really bad happened at Ft Myer (I don't wanna get into it here for OPSEC reasons) and I was forced to call IG to fix the issue (it was fixed in like 5 mins flat) but Nikki thought I did something else and instead of hearing me out she told me she hated me and that we were no longer friends

It broke my heart... That was in Aug and now it's Feb and I miss every so much I know Josh and I are 100 times better with her gone but not a day goes by that I don't miss that friendship

I've thought about calling her but I'm scared of what she would say...

It's sad when someone who was once your best friend is now just someone you used to know...