Asters & Dandelions

The full story:

So I’ve tried this blog thing before. I really enjoyed it but felt a little too vulnerable sharing some of my life’s darkest moments for all of the internet. I considered revisiting my old blog and trying to revive it (If you’re interested, here is the link to mom guilt & breast milk: https://momguiltandbreastmilk.wordpress.com/ ). I decided against it because I am in such a very different place in my life. I’ll try my best to recap the last eight crazy years and why I’ve got so much to say. 

The Basics:

My name is Chelsea. I am a 27 year old soldier in the US Army. I am married to my husband, Germain who is also in the US Army. We have three children: our oldest, Riley, a 6 year old, is the sweetest first grader you’ll ever meet and we also have our twin girls, Maddy and Gabby who are 3 year old balls of energy and sass.

The Love Story:

I met my best friend when I was fourteen. We worked at McDonald’s together and we have been best friends ever since. He left and joined the army immediately after high school. We stayed in touch, skyped (pre facetime era) through deployments and remained best friends through all the changes and distance. Meanwhile I was barely conquering the bills of my one room I rented in a friend’s house serving beers and cheddar bay biscuits at the local Red Lobster. Five years had passed since we’d actually seen each other in person. He was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas and PCS’ed to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Of course we took the opportunity to catch up and he came home to visit. Little did I know, this was the start of something great. He visited every weekend thereafter and we were married before the end of the year.

From newlyweds to the Nelson family:

We spent our newlywed bliss (& by bliss I mean all of that messy fighting, throwing things, and coming to the realization that no matter how close you are to someone, you do not, I repeat, do not, truly know someone until you share a bathroom with them) at Fort Bragg. We welcomed our son Riley at Womack Army Medical Center in July of 2013. We then set out on what would become one of our most difficult adventures yet: an OCONUS PCS to Camp Humphreys Korea. We conceived our twins before our household goods could even make it off the boat and things continued to get more interesting for the remainder of our time there. My twin pregnancy was filled with high risk, problematic Korean healthcare, a shortening cervix, a long eight months of bedrest, and ultimately a premature delivery of two tiny, perfect divas, Maddy and Gabby. If you want to know more on that adventure, I suggest you revisit mom guilt & breast milk. After what seemed to be the longest two years yet, we finally moved on to our next journey at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. It was a (literal) breath of fresh air to get off the plane at SeaTac and be surrounded by like minded crunchies and beautiful mountains and evergreens. 

When everything began to change:

We had been there about a year when I hit a major crossroad in my life: the realization that while I had succeeded in being the best mother to my children and wife to my husband that I knew how to, I had been failing myself as a woman; slowly extinguishing all the wild flames that once burned within me yearning for greatness. I looked in the mirror one day and saw a stay at mom who felt more like a trapped at home mom, a woman nearly 100 pounds overweight, what felt like 100 years of wasted potential, and very little drive for anything that was solely for me. Since that day, I decided I never wanted to see that woman in the mirror again; and I didn’t. The next 8 months were filled with food journaling, 6 days of gym work a week, 5 days of the night shift at work, and sprinkled in lunch dates with the kids, weekend day dates at Pike Place, and lots of squeezed in cuddles and kisses in the folds of the day that I could steal those moments amongst the uprising of self awareness and growth. 

Applebee’s to Army:

One day, as my husband was in the shower and I was standing by our bathroom window, smoking a joint as my kids napped, he just mentioned ‘Remember when we first got married and you wanted to join the army too? You ever still think about that?’. In that moment, the thought had not once crossed my mind. I had given up so many dreams I had once had in lieu of bedtime routines and potty training woes. The next day I went into a recruiting office and sent that ball rolling down the hill. Turns out this hill may have been more like a vast plane; at times the ball barely moving forward. A dual military waiver here, a medical waiver there, a tattoo removal some where in there as well. The process of me joining the army had not been an easy one but after almost a year of pushing that ball along, I left for basic April of 2019. We found out midway through my basic training that my husband was deploying late 2019. My worst nightmares had come true. Yes, you ‘know what you signed up for’. Yes you create a family care plan in the event of something like this happening. But you never think you’ll actually have to use it; especially less than 3 months into your military career. I had basically only made that family care plan in the event of a zombie apocalypse yet here I was a dirty, most of the time stinky, fuzzy private, finalizing family care plans and power of attorneys amongst shaping my beret and learning what the heck a firing pin was. I graduated basic in June of last year, went home to 10 days of bliss with my beautiful family, and moved on to my next phase of training. ’16 weeks of training’ the mos summary said on the army website. Here I am pushing into my tenth month. I graduated in January, stayed longer than expected due to the new Army Combat Fitness Test (still struggling, working, and yes, some days crying towards the dreaded leg tuck). Then a couple weeks ago, I was allowed to take the original Army Physical Fitness Test and passed! I was so happy. After months of a very limiting profile due to a back injury, falling out of my required fitness as a soldier, and having to look that woman in the mirror and redefine her yet again, had pushed my way back up to a landing place where I can continue to grow stronger. I sat here, impatiently awaiting my orders back to the Pacific Northwest. Dreaming of the looks on my kids faces when I can finally tell them they’re coming home after setting dates and failing to meet them time and time again. After all the tear filled facetimes of  ‘mommy we miss you’s and ‘when do we get to come home’s. It felt like a real win. Then something so unexpected happened: the coronavirus. And here I sit, at Fort Huachuca. In Tradoc purgatory awaiting my American Airlines chariot that will take me one step closer to having my home and my children back, one step closer to being at that plane when it lands bringing my husband home again, one step closer to being a mother again. As I sit and dwell on all of the mishaps, chaos, success, and failures while I await my orders, now seems as good a time as any to fall back into love with my writing and attempt once more to share my life with the world.