No really....I walked into a bar. It was a Sunday night. I had just ended things with a boyfriend ~ we did one of those really awesome dragged-out, disgusting, all-night, dramatic, battle-to-the-dawn, epic breakups. I was running on maybe three hours of sleep and my hair was piled on my head like a rat's nest. My friend made me go. It was karaoke night, she had whined to me over the phone. C'mon Jen. Karaoke.
So there I was. A girl in a bar.
We spotted this dude we knew and headed over to the booth he'd managed to nab. They still allowed smoking in the bars back then and through the dark haze I noticed another guy at the booth, this one unfamiliar. He was smoking and going on and on about how he was on leave from Fort Campbell, an Army base about 8 hours away.
Not exactly sure what about him irritated me. Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was the whole "ooo I'm an ARMY guy oooo!" It might've been my terrible hangover from the night before combined with breakup puffy-eye syndrome and general fatigue. Can't really put my finger on it. He annoyed the crap out of me.
"Ya know, I'm in the Army, too. 91-W series combat medic. Really not that big of a deal."
Unknown guy was surprised. "Oh yea? What unit?"
"634th FSB out of Camp Lincoln."
"Huh," he said. "That's an Army duty station? Where is that, exactly?"
Ugghhh here we go, I thought. "I'm not active duty. Army National Guard," I said, with force.
He smiled, irritatingly. "Ahhh, a weekend warrior."
I hated him. "Yea, I go to drill on the weekends. Oh and what did you say your MOS was, again? You pull triggers and pins, yes? Takes about 2 days to learn how to do that, huh? I was trained to save lives. I attended training at one of the best medical facilities in the world and am fully certified in both military and civilian medical services. Months of training, testing, and practicals in a fully-operational military hospital. So before you go spouting off about how easy we 'weekend warriors' have it, you might want to stop and consider who patches your butt up when you fall off that high horse."
He smiled again. Dammit. He liked that.
"Can I get you and your friend a drink?" he asked.
Aha! Now that's what I'm talking about. I could handle insults when free stuff was involved. No shame.
The moment he got up I grabbed my friend and shout-whispered, "HEY! You can have him! Go for it!"
"WHAT?" she shout-whispered back. "Jenny, what are you talking about! No! I'm not even looking for anything like that!"
Uggggh.
He returned with two drinks. I took my hair out of its falling rat's nest. He told me I should leave it down, it looked really pretty. I put it back up.
We'd arrived late so within an hour, the bar closed. At this point I was all amped up on caffeine and didn't want to go home. Plus I really enjoyed taking out my post-breakup man-hate on this unfamiliar guy. We'd found another friend and decided to go dancing ~ we knew a place about 45 minutes away that stayed open until 2AM. It was there, with my two friends dancing by themselves in the background, that unfamiliar guy kissed me. Eh, what the heck. I kissed back.
He became my very first one-night stand. Rebound? Absolutely. Did I like him the next day? Not really. Didn't know him, so I couldn't really form an opinion. Just keeping it classy.
And then the day came. The day. The woman day. It came and then it went. Nothing. Huh. Crazy. Broke out the stick. Two pink lines. My two dogs, Chevy and Dasani (named her after a water bottle, I'm so clever), found out first. I called my karaoke friend. What was I going to do?
Sounds pretty dang terrible, huh? Oh it gets better.
I told unfamiliar guy about the baby and he took it well. Said he would be there for me. Then, one night, he called me drunk out of his mind. He was in his parents' driveway, he said, with no way to get in. Yea...that's about all it took for me to slam that door. I was freakin out as it was, I didn't need some alcohol-infused teen-man running around stressing me out. I told him to call me back when he wanted to talk about the baby.
I was a cocktail waitress at a bar. My boss fired me for being pregnant at drill with my unit on a night he needed me. I'd told him I would be at drill two weeks ahead of time, but the guy prolly didn't hear me through his 7th vodka and tonic. I'd been renting a room from a friend and couldn't afford to continue paying the rent. I had no insurance, no money, no job.
So I applied for Medicaid. And WIC. And got on the housing list. And found a new job working at a dental office. After six months of grueling interviews and applications and proving I wasn't some secretly wealthy pregnant lady, I secured an apartment at a brand-new, low-income apartment complex. I was the first person to live in my apartment. It was clean, fresh, small, and perfect.
But the baby. Still wasn't sure I could take care of a baby better than some rich family somewhere with a huge house and puppies and begonias lining the walkway. I scoured adoption sites and sobbed, picked out people who looked perfect and ready and loving.
"Jen," my girlfriend said to me on one of my particularly bad days, "you know you can take care of a baby just as good as a rich couple. Look at your mom. Look at mine. They were both single moms without a lot of money. Were you miserable growing up?"
I remember her comments washing over me like sunlight. I didn't have to give up my baby. I could do this. I really could. I would need to work hard. But I could do it. I made a promise to myself, though, that if I decided to keep this baby, I would do so wholly and completely. No screwing around. The baby would come first, always, and I would do everything in my power to ensure she never felt unwanted or deprived of a stable life. I had my mother as the perfect example of what a family can become with a lot of love and a little creativity. I could do this. Right?
My answer came a few weeks later. I was about 6 months along and back on the adoption sites, tears welling up, when *thunk*......*thunk tumtum thunk*.....****THUMP**** .....hi mama.
Unfamiliar guy was allowed back in shortly after those first kicks. I guess I needed that time to myself...to figure things out, to make some hard choices, to get settled. He forgave me and when he left for Iraq later that fall, he had my kisses on his lips and weekly letters on the horizon.
Our baby was born on a clear January night.
I'll be the first to tell you our circumstances were not ideal. I've heard and felt the sting of judgement many times, sometimes from those I loved and considered friends. But in case you haven't guessed, that unknown guy stuck around for a little while. We'll be married seven years this January. Married after our beautiful daughter was born. Dating years after we were wed. Going through all the terrible hard stuff in the first five years. We apparently like to do things out of order.
But you see, something started for me in the worst of ways. Girl walks into bar, girl gets knocked up, girl loses job, girl gets on welfare. Aside from Congress, I am the most hated group in America, right??
I chose to dig, and climb, and scratch, and suck up the pride, and lean on those who loved me. I reached out to any resource I could find. I was very blessed. I was also very determined.
Freaky, life-changing things happen everyday. I've made some terrible mistakes in my life......but working hard at this life I have chosen is not one of them.
I'm tellin ya, tho......joy and peace kinda rule.
Jen
