There's something about the smell of rain, the sound of rain, the feel of a soft rain that is so relaxing and calming, not quite like the sound and feel of the ocean, but close enough. I have several blog posts started, but I think I am going to attempt to finish this one or expand on it. Even with the soft rain falling, I have cardinals at my bird feeder, and I can't help but smile and feel a small sense of hope. I've missed sitting on my porch and enjoying the mornings. But I just couldn’t bring myself to sit out here. I had no plants (except like 2 that were kind of dying), the porch was a little dirty, I just couldn’t. Thank God for my mom. The new medications have been helping tremendously, and I am starting to feel myself being somewhat normal, in regard to enjoying things again. But when mom came down, we were sitting on the porch talking and I just got up and started doing some yard work. It ended with me scrubbing my porch, front door, window, everything, including the table and chairs. Then she took me plant shopping and helped me make arrangements in my planters and replan and prune my almost dying plants. Now, my porch is "normal" again and enjoyable. She didn’t even really suggest anything, it was just her presence here. She is my biggest supporter, my motivation, my hero. Part of me does contemplate moving closer to home to be closer to her (and my nephew of course), but like we talked about, aside from that, there is nothing there for me. My village may seem small and sometimes non-existent, but I do have a village here. The kids have active and full lives here, I have, well, friends here that I love more than anything, so somewhat of a life here. The point of all that, is, I don't know what I would do without my mom. She has dropped everything to fly down and help me/us; I know a lot of people say this about their moms, and I am sure that it is true for them, but my mom is truly the best there is and I feel so blessed and lucky to call her MY MOM.
Ok, let's see if I can do this. I am going to jump right in and pick up where I left off on June 9th (below).
There are so many things that I want to say, that I want to talk about, but I am struggling to put them on "paper". I write all my blogs, journals, poems, and memoir in OneNote and have a tab designated to each. I am telling you that, because it doesn’t seem to matter what tab I am on, I am still struggling. I need to push past this fear of retaliation and continue to do what helps me, writing and publishing blogs. I've talked to our state legal officer, and I've talked to an actual attorney, and both said that what I am posting is fine. On the military side, I am not breaking any regulations, policies, or doing anything inappropriate that would hinder my career. There is nothing in my blogs that can be used against me, and if I am being retaliated against because of something I am posting, I absolutely have an ironclad EO case. On the civilian side, I am not breaking any laws and the fact that I have a privacy act statement that includes specifics about defamation and use of names and such, covers me as well, along with my disclaimer, acceptable use policy, and a terms and conditions policy; so, I am completely covered.
Looking at this paragraph, pains me a little. I shouldn't have to talk about any of that, of course I need those things because of my blogs and some of the stuff I write, and I did JUST update them the other day (it's actually a yearly requirement). The point is, my safe space is no longer my safe space and that is not good. A safe space should never be compromised, it should never be threatened, a safe space should always be just that, a safe space. I need to get that back. I need to get past this fear, this doubt, this worry, and reclaim my safe space.
A friend I have known for years, who I absolutely adore, has become such strength and validation for me. She is truly amazing, and I have always admired her, but now, I love her tremendously for simply being her. I truly cannot wait for her to move closer so we can "talk sh*t" face to face LMAO. That’s not what we do, but if she reads this, she'll laugh and get exactly what I'm saying/talking about. She has really become my rock lately and a great sounding board. I appreciate her so much. We do need to plan that beach trip though… ijs.
Then there is M.W. who is my absolute best friend. The conversations we have, the advice he gives, the outings we have, the laughs… there's no one like him. He truly helped me get through my whole evaluation debacle. That still hurts, so much, and it wasn't the fact that it was badly written, my evals are EVERYTHING to me and there was so much missing, so many incomplete thoughts, there was nothing about me with my Soldiers; reading it made me feel like I had become a sh*t bag Soldier and leader. Maybe I should have pushed harder to go over it, maybe I should have gone to 1SG immediately to help me make her sit down with me every time she said, "when I have time". But I felt so defeated and beat down, that I just gave up. That’s why I wanted to talk to my CSM about my eval. M.W. and him have sat in on promotions boards and all I wanted was for my CSM to review it and let me know how much it would hurt my chances for the upcoming promotion cycle, since I am eligible in February. Both of them said it does look kind of bad considering my past 6 have me top blocked and "exceeded standard" and this one was just "met standard". And the overall rater comments also make me look like I decided to no longer try and just do the minimum, but they both also said that competent board members will look at the past evals and look at this one and think "okay, something happened that is beyond just different writing styles" and will take that into consideration. I hope that is the case; especially since my senior rater comment is "promote with peers" when every single eval I have ever gotten says "promote immediately" or "promote ahead of peers". I guess we will see when the list comes out in October.
Ok, I am getting away from that rabbit whole, I could talk about how it is affecting me for hours and that is not what I want to do right now. I do feel better, I can tell I am getting better, I am also forcing myself to not care as much about certain things like I used too. Which is really hard for me to do, but I am working on it, and it is making a difference for me. I just need to constantly remind myself to keep doing it, which we all know is hard enough by itself, but I am going to keep doing it.
Oh! So, my little cousin, well, she's taller than me, but she is still my little cousin, is getting married in September and mom helped me pick out a dress for her wedding while she was here. What excites me about it is, first, I went with the bigger size, because of comfort and it did fit good, but was a little big at the top. It hid what it needed to around the midsection though. After we got home and over the next couple days, and me being comfortable enough to wear a bikini at the pool, we went back and exchanged the dress for a smaller size! I actually felt comfortable in it! It fit great at the top and I do have a little work to do for the midsection, but it is motivating me. I think I needed that. I really do. It felt incredible putting that smaller dress on and feeling comfortable in it. And the work I need to do, well, it's not only to look good in that dress, but it's also what I need to do.
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