My March Madness

I could care less about basketball, but I've had a pretty mad March - both in the crazy and the angry sense. Lots of ups and downs and lots of emotions going on. This has been a tough month. It's felt like it's gone on forever and there is still one more day. However, not all was bad so I should focus on those good things that happened this month. Here are some tidbits:

• Positive: Army Wives is back! It feels like so long between seasons and I'm happy to have new episodes on. However, the shows brings out a lot of emotions during this deployment.
• Negative: I'm afraid potholes are going to eat my car alive. MN can't decide if it wants to be winter or spring and the roads are not liking it. Seems that road crews are doing pretty well staying on top of patching this year though.
• Positive:  My husband got better internet access finally so I get to talk to him online most days now. Hopefully we'll get to use Skype one of these days since I have not seen his face or heard his voice since January. He also got his promotable status which means he can be promoted to Sergeant soon.
• Negative/Positive: I have been struggling with work more and more. Having so  much responsibility in a fast-paced growing company is stressful for me on top of everything else going on in my life. I have had a lot of moody and angry days and I hate feeling that way. I have been having anxiety issues often and knowing that I am leaving and needed to find a good replacement and train them was a lot of pressure on top of a lot of regular stress. Luckily, we hired someone last week and she is great. Definitely an answered prayer. I'll be done with work after next week, then on a cruise, and then hopefully enjoying some less anxious time at home before moving away.
• Positive: Baby Lucy was born on March 11! I can't believe my best friend/"wife" is a mom now. I was blessed to be there for Lucy's birth. Although I am terrified of the birthing process, it was a much more positive experience than I expected. Megan was tough and once the drugs kicked in it was all smiles and laughs and excitement. The baby came over two weeks early but was healthy and beautiful. Now we have a sweet little bundle of joy in our apartment. I have not heard a peep out of her during the nights so so far so good. She has a very sweet disposition and even lets mommy and daddy get some sleep at night.

(Photos by Devotion Photography)

Book Blog: The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford

I just finished this book this morning, and it was a great read. I had a little trouble getting into to it at first as it was another that switches between time periods, but I loved it in the end. It was heart breaking and heart warming at the same time. Henry, the main character, is a young Chinese boy living in San Francisco and is attending an all white school. He soon is joined by a Japanese American girl and they become good friends while working in the school kitchen together. Not long after, tensions rose between the US and Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Japanese families were sent away to internment camps, much to the satisfaction of Henry's father.

This is the part of World War II that I, and a lot of others I'm sure, tend to forget about. The fact that over 100,000 Japanese American people (and also German and Italian) were removed from their homes and sent to live inland in large camps fit for prisoners is just unimaginable to me. While many of the people were second generation Americans (like Keiko in the book), they were still feared to be spies or in cooperation with the Japanese. It is interesting to me that studies on racism and discrimination are typically centered on African Americans in the South, but as seen through this story, there are many other groups that have historically been discriminated against within the US, and other instances of clashing cultures, and today I am proud to live in a country where a person of any race, color, or religion can be respected as an American. I know we still have a long way to go, but I pray nothing like this would ever happen again in this country. It almost seems silly that anything like this could happen now, but at the same time that I say that, discriminatory events of a similar nature are still happening around the world.

The Japanese internment separates Henry from his best friend Keiko for much longer than they had thought. Henry has to learn to deal with the distance, only occasional letters, and learn to live as the one left behind where everyone else's lives seem to go on as usual...sounds like a familiar life to mine right now. Reading this, I related to the heartache, the uncertainty, the fear that Henry was going through, but it also made me thankful for the superior circumstances of my own separation. The one I love was not taken from me practically unannounced and for no apparent reason, he is not being treated like a prisoner, I hear from him at least every few days, and I know when he will return. These are the simple positive things that I need to remind myself when I'm struggling with the deployment. It's a daily struggle, but there are still things to be thankful for, things to learn, and I know that my husband is serving our country and protecting the freedoms we are lucky to have.