Tug of War

Tug of War was always a fun game that I and almost everyone used to play as a child. I never thought it could be used for emotions, a situation or really anything. I find it to be a game you play with the dog or with a young child, not a 21 year old marine. I feel that this deployment is a tug of war game. I feel all I do is fight against what I feel is right. I'm bashing my head against something bigger then me. I feel like I'm trying to pull the rope away from something 100x bigger then me. I know I shouldn't be pulling away when he "is going to need me more then ever" but what about what I need. I need the reassurance that I'm needed in his life and I don't get any of that. I feel that the real thing that happening right now is my ex. A guy proposed to me earlier this year, well technically at the beginning of 2009. I said no, because I thought it was a bullshit... It really wasn't as much bullshit as I thought. He is still crazy in love with me and not afraid to tell me. It's hard as hell to deal with honestly. I don't want to be involved with him.. I love my marine but all I want to do is push against him to try and have him show me that he cares but everytime I push it goes nowhere. I'm supposed to see my marine this weekend and I don't think I can bring myself to do it honestly. I really don't think I can see him and then have to say goodbye again. It feels like all I'm ever doing is tugging against everything in my life and I hate it. I'm pushing away someone I care about because of god knows what. I just feel so ehh about everything. I can't even put my feelings into words anymore. There isn't anything to say. This day could also just be a really really bad day and I'm just reacting to it in a way that I shouldn't be. It may also be the fact that nobody I know has been supportive of my relationship with my marine. I feel that I'm always tugging against another person to see my relationship for what it is. I love my lance corporal and I can't imagine not spending the rest of my life with him, but my mother, my father to some degree, all of my friends except for the one's who have seen my relationship with him blossom. My mother hates the fact that he's a marine, my dad says, after I explained how much money would be involved if my boyfriend and I decided to get married, that I should marry him before he leaves and divorce him when he gets back (yeah my dads got a fucked up sense of love). My friends don't understand how I can love someone whose abandoning me to fight for a bullshit war. They also keep stating that he could die and why would he want to risk his life when he has me, and my marine says I'm a anxious alice. I know their trying to protect me from something they can't possibly understand, because they've never dealt with it. I've become a Marine, well a Marine Girlfriend, and it's changed me for the better. I've become a person I could have never seen myself becoming and it's all because I met someone who lived a completely and totally different life. I found a family who respects and loves no matter what skin color or background.

Rude New Yorker

Some of the first words that come to mind when thinking of a New Yorker are:

rude

arrogant

self-indulgent

snobby

bitchy

highly opinionated

ignorant

phony

fake

rich

Its funny coming back to the city I've spent all my life in. I feel like an outsider, even in my own home. I feel that Philadelphia has opened my eyes to the life I was living and the life I live now. I spent 6 years in a private school in manhattan, to some degree its a lot of peoples dream to live in the city that never sleeps. Before I left for Philadelphia, I felt that New York was the place to be to meet people, to have friends, to live your life, but now my entire idea has changed and to be frank my mother does not agree with me. I grew up with a therapist and shrink, yeah I must be pretty fucked up haha. I believe that because I grew up with this background for parents, I tried to keep an open mind to things that I didn't understand. I have always tried to be the odd one out, not for the reason to being different but for the reason of trying not to be labeled as the "New Yorker". I didn't make friends with people because I knew I was different; I just never knew what it was. After going to college and meeting people from all over I realized that my open mind has sort of shot me in the foot. I look at New Yorkers as a breed of people that I don't relate to, even though I was born in New York and have lived my entire life here. College has changed me for the better but everyone looks at me like I am some freak of nature. What's the problem with drinking a whiskey and coke or liking country music. Am I already deemed a hick? What about my friends who all love country music and love any type of whiskey who only live an hour away from New York in South Jersey. Shouldn't New Yorker's be more open then anyone considering it's one of the biggest places of tourism? It seems not. Already being home for a week, I've realized how different I am, especially after all my friends have mentioned that the new me is not what they expected when they said they wanted to see me again. I've grown up and it seems that nobody else has. For example my mother. It seems that as a teenager every person has problems with their mother, but it seems that the only type of relationship I can have with her is either happy and friendly or at odds. Finally after years of hating who I was because I didn't have friends and I couldn't figure out why, I'm happy and love who I am, yet my mother is so critical of who I've become. I'm now somebody who:

has friends

has confidence in myself

is intelligent and can show it

is in love with a marine

is more aware of other people

is happy to be myself

accepts all of myself

Do any of these qualities seem negative?? So why should my parent who claims to love me be upset when I come home and don't fit in anywhere except with my friends back in Philly? Why is it so hard to accept that I am different and that the qualities that I have are special at my age. How many girls have confidence in themselves? or actually accept who they are at 18? How many girls can honestly say that they found love and feel cared for? How many can be proud of themselves? I can't count that many, I know maybe two or three who have maybe one or two of these qualities. I feel that college is the place where you learn about yourself. Well I've learned over the last year that I am: a strong individual who loves life, loves my friends, loves myself. I have learned that I'm not so different, and what I think makes me different makes me special to people that I know now. Nobody I know in Philadelphia looks at me and says I'm some snotty, snobby, uptight, bitchy, or rude New Yorker and that's how I want to keep it! *Sempre Fi* *I mean no offense to ANY New Yorkers reading my posts, I am myself a born and raised New Yorker; These are just opinions and venting about what I have dealt with since moving back to New York*

3 Weeks

3 weeks but 46 left to go!

As of three weeks ago my marine left for his predeployment training. I realize I haven't been writing but I don't know what to say. I feel as though I am falling apart as he is getting more prepared. When he moved in to his room at Cherry Hill, I explained that I felt like it was final, that it hadn't hit me until he left that he was really going to Iraq. He told me he knew it was happening and he was prepared. Well I wish he had prepared me better for the very little communication that I have with him whenever he has a second to talk. I wish he told me that it was going to be hard but that he believed I could do it.

I feel so alone. College is done for the summer so I'm home, my family is completely against me staying with him while he deploys to fight some godawful war that really nobody believes we should be in. I've put so much faith and work into this relationship, I'm so worried it won't remain as strong as it is now. I know it is possible to be even better and that is the outcome I am looking for, but as many of you know, it hurts to be left alone for so long with nothing but the hope that your man comes back alive and still loves you.

I am so proud of him for everything he has done. I know I haven't exactly been the best girlfriend while he'e preparing to go but what can you do except hold them close and tell them you love them. I pushed him away and he never pulled back so our last few days together were miserable. That is my fault and I fully admit to that and apologize for it.

Its been 3 weeks and I have a lot longer til he's even deployed and I feel as though I am falling apart. I have been very lucky to have had 6 months with my marine rather than a month or a week or any time in between. The 6 months have shown me that I am strong enough to stand by a marine's side and be happy. God made me to fall for him and stay with him through this.

To all the women starting to deal with their boyfriends, husbands, fiancees, and even friends leaving for their tour of duty, remember they are protecting and fighting for us. We should only be so lucky to have had the time we did with our marines. They are amazing men and each one of them has someone here thinking about them. Love them, respect them, miss them!

I miss my marine every morning when I wake up without him next to me, every meal Ieat, I remember when he used to sit next to me, every afternoon when he would come to relax after a long day of classes with me, being on the motorcycle with him going 140 mph and above all I miss him the most at night, where he used to sleep next to me every night for 6 months. I am just beginning to deal with the pain of a deployment but I feel that my feelings are the same as many of you are dealing with.

If anyone would like to talk or communicate with me, you are more then welcome to email me here or at laceyduaneselman@gmail.com. SEMPRE FI!