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By Alyssa, January 26, 2011 10:57 pm

The beginning is here.

I know I sounded like a super whiner in my last edition of this horrifically drawn out story of me.  Give me a little break, though.  Every minute of my life my junior year from 5 a.m. to way too late was packed with physical challenges, loads of schoolwork, and R.A. duties.  Instead of trying to reword all of the drama I recorded in my journal that year, I decided I would give you a little taste of it.  Prepare yourself as I wrote this never intending anyone but myself to read it again:

10/17/99, Idaho on Fall Break: Haus, before I got on the plane Friday, told me that someday he thought he would marry me.  He said it, not to scare me or forewarn me that he would be proposing, but rather to tell me exactly how he was feeling about me… I’m scared, but don’t want him to slip away.

10/21/99, College dorm room: I’ve come to realize that genuine people will talk to me like I have civilian clothes on when I’m in uniform and others react just the opposite… I will have people salute me (extrememly annoying on campus when you’ve had 50 people do this in about an hour, each person thinking they’ve been creative), call me “Killer”, “Army Chic”, “G.I. Jane”, ask how many people I’ve killed, how many push-ups I can do, or assume I know everything about guns and tanks… It’s amazing how many false assumptions are hooked to this outfit.

10/22/99, College dorm room: The one thing you don’t want in the Army is to stand out.  It’s a hard thing for girls as we automatically stand out.  No matter what we do we are the minority… This is hard.  As a girl in ROTC, I know that I have to push myself.  I get mad at myself for not running as fast as the guys even though it isn’t naturally very possible.  I get frustrated by little mistakes because I don’t want to set myself lower.  I feel like I’m not being clear… I struggle so much with perfectionism and being in the Army as a female doesn’t help.  I hold myself at a higher standard then they ever could.  I’m so hard on myself.

10/23/99, College dorm room: Haus helped ease my stress.  He’s pretty much consistently giving my situation to me straight out.  I need his calm to cancel out my crazy.

11/12/99, During American Lit class: I haven’t had a break in I don’t know how long.  I feel rushed, depressed, horrible… Having ten less hours in the day than I need, always having things to do, never having free time EVER, always feeling rushed, waiting for that next surge of energy… ROTC is killing me.  They say they put school first, but that’s a lie.  They don’t care what your work load is, it will make you stronger right? Being a Resident Assistant is horrible. I can’t tell if my girls think I’m awful or if they never see me or what. School is rough… of those three things I feel like if I concentrate on one, the other two fall.  I feel like everyone around me is doing fine, excelling, and I’m alone.

11/22/99, College dorm lounge: It’s still so hard to have my best friend gone.  Didn’t she deserve to go, be with her boyfriend after a two year long-distance thing?  Can’t imagine how miserable that was.  But, she’s the only best friend I’ve ever had.  I tell her everything.  She’s my accountability, my moral support, my sister, and I am still brokenhearted.

12/23/99, Idaho on Christmas break: Well, one semester down, sort of.  The reason I’m not completely done is because I got the flu during finals week.  Had a cough that led to a fever that led to the night from HELL! My suite mates decided to have a party next to my room and I warned them to shut-up but was really groggy as they kind of laughed at me.  By midnight, I had 104 degree fever, stumbled out to rant rave and yell GET OUT, then fell asleep till 1 a.m.  Got sick, pulled the bathroom door over my foot and ended up pulling 3/4 of my toenail off.  Went to bed so tired, bleeding, got sick again.  RD ended up helping me get dressed and got checked out for a possible appendicitis.  Embarrassing as it was just the flu.  Found out later after missing a few finals that one of my professors announced to the entire class that I was in surgery.  So that was finals week.

1/31/00, College dorm room: Happy New Year!  Contrary to many predictions, nothing happened at midnight this New Year’s Eve… Haus is amazing.  Brought me long stemmed roses for no reason… thought about what it would be like if I waited to be together until I was out of the Army.  Then he left for the weekend and couldn’t stand a day without him.

To be continued…

Special thanks to Linda Lawrence Hunt, for requiring me to document my junior year in a journal.

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By Alyssa, December 10, 2009 11:20 pm

If you missed the first segment of “My Story” read this post first.

College.  Oh, wonderful, amazing, exhilarating college.  I counted down my high school days on the cover of a three-ring binder for almost a year vying to make it to that first day of college.  All three siblings and my parents drove me to Spokane, Washington for the drop-off.  My stomach knotted with excitement almost all seven hours of the trip.  Fresh off of the forty-acre farm, Spokane appeared to be a metropolis.  Whitworth College, a relatively small liberal arts campus tucked into the wooded north end of the city, seemed huge to me.  I spent my first few days on campus gaping at everything I saw, looming pine trees, stately brick buildings, people… so many people.

I remember it all happening so fast.  I piled my stuff into a cinder-block dorm room, met my fantastic freshman roommate, and toured the campus in almost a single breath. Before I knew it, I was hugging my brothers and sister and waving to my parents as they headed back home.  I’ll admit my confidence vanished watching their maroon-striped suburban leave the parking lot.  My eyes flooded with tears and I barely made it back to my new room before breaking down.  Why was I so determined to get out of Idaho and leave small-town life behind?  I blotted my puffy cheeks reminding myself that at least my boyfriend settled in the building.  Mr. Hometown lived three floors up in the same dorm.

Freshman initiation began as I pushed the homesickness aside and humiliated myself wearing pigtails and a men’s necktie around campus, a Whitworth tradition.  Mr. Hometown and I saw little of each other as we prepared for classes and met new friends.  I had almost forgotten about my Army scholarship in the initiation chaos and, a week after settling in, made my first drive down to Gonzaga University for uniforms and inprocessing. Although I attended Whitworth, their ROTC students fulfill scholarships by attending classes on the main Gonzaga campus.  Little did I know how many times I would soon make that fifteen minute drive south to the impressive College Hall, one of Gonzaga’s oldest buildings.

After my uniform fitting, I rushed back to the dorm to model the camo outfit for my new dorm girlfriends. “You have to show your boyfriend!” they exclaimed as I clumsily attached every Army gadget I’d recently acquired onto my body.  Striding up the three stories, I knocked firmly at Mr. Hometown’s room. “SURPRISE!” I yelled as he swung open the door.  Then it happened.  He looked at me and I searched his face as my smile slowly faded.  ”Wow” he said, trying to appear enthusiastic.  ”Yeah,” I stuttered softly, “I, uh, just got the uniforms and wanted to show you. Gotta start going to physical training early in the morning too.” He avoided eye contact as I muttered a few things before drifted back down to my room.  ”Well?” the girls asked expectantly in the hall when I returned. I smiled shyly and headed for my door, “He likes it I think, but, uh… I better change.”

It only took a week or two before Mr. Hometown and I were through.  He said that he wanted to be with me and that we could make it work, but it was in that moment, his first glance at my camouflaged fatigues, that I knew otherwise.  We had discussed my Army commitment and talked about the possibilities, but I don’t think it was real for either of us until I stood before him in uniform.  I broke-up with my first love and realized then that being in the Army might not be as easy for me as I thought it would be.

To be continued…