RP: Jenna Who:Jenna Where:Her home When:Night before Saturday Summary:Jenna takes a long hard look at herself.
It was ten to one at night, but in spite of being dead tired, Jenna couldn't find the peace of mind to sleep. Her mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. Memories of conversations and arguments were floating in and out of her head and mixing with the memories from the life she'd led before walking through the rift, arm in arm with her brother.
She could remember the person she had been then, but she could see very little left of her in the person she had become. Slowly, piece by piece, her own sense of self had withered away. She'd lost the ability to have fun, to joke around, to relax - but most of all she'd lost her confidence, her belief in herself.
She'd been thinking about it ever since the situation with Doug. That one conversation with Marty had been more enlightening than any conversation with her father or Sean or Savannah had been able to do. It had made her think about who she had become and who she had once been - and of when she lost her way. Because she could not think about it differently; She'd lost her way. She'd lost herself, her sense of self-worth. Or perhaps she had never had the last part, not really, not deep down, but she had had confidence. She had known who she was, where she wanted to be, she’d had something to strive for, something to do with her life. She missed the person she used to be, the one she'd been before Afghanistan, the one she'd been before coming here.
It was no secret, as much as she tried to make it so, that she had not been mentally strong after returning from the war there. Memories haunted her, nightmares she'd never had while there plagued her sleep once the stress of the situation lifted. She'd never dealt with it, never allowed herself to and then she'd ended up here and other things had been more important. She'd had to deal with a new family, with a new romance, with a pregnancy that had not been in her plans. She had thought things had started to pick up after Blaze was born, when the worry of not being a good enough mother had lifted. When her body started to function as it was supposed to again. Still she had not found her way back to herself. Could she even? Or had she'd wandered down a different road for too long to find the way back leaving no breadcrumbs for her to follow.
Then again, maybe what she needed wasn’t a way back, but a new way forwards, a way to merge who she had been with who she had become. After all, whether she’d like to admit it or not, she was no longer a Marine other than in her own mind. Instead she was part of a new team. She was also a mother, a wife, a part of a family - although the latter didn't like her much; neither who she had been or who she had become. Hadn't they been the one to tell her time and time again that she needed to change? Become someone different? Less like herself, but more caring, more nurturing, less selfish.
Restless, Jenna snuck out of bed, pushing Blaze closer to Dom. She knew it was not advisable, but right now she needed the space in spite of the risk it posed. She grabbed her backpack and rifle and sneaked quietly into the kitchen where she could turn on a lamp without bothering anyone. It was too dark outside, too late to think about these things, and yet they wouldn't leave her alone. It was as if for the first time in months, possibly well over a year, she saw things clearly. She saw her own self-doubt start, she saw every conversation that lead up to this point, and somehow she needed to get it out of her system or she'd never get the rest necessary to handle tomorrow.
Finding a piece of paper and a pen, Jenna sat down by the table. Writing wasn’t something she did often, at least not by hand, but sometimes it was the only way to get your thoughts in order, figure out how to get things right. She didn’t bother to try and think about what to write, she just wrote, let her feelings and doubts and thoughts spill onto the page until they started to organize themselves. Things she knew, things she doubted, things that had left her confused or that had hurt her, everything spilled onto the pages she was writing until eventually she sat holding two letters in her hands. Letters to the two people that apart from her husband and son meant most to her.
Looking at them she wasn’t sure what to do. Well with Sean she did. She needed to talk to him, to tell him these things in person. With her father? Well that was a lot more complicated. He wasn’t there for her to talk to, and even if he had been she knew that this was a conversation she’d never be able to have with him. It would just turn into another meaningless argument which would lead to nothing. One thing her father did not know how to do was to admit to being wrong or hurtful. He’d never admit to having hurt her – or if he did he’d tell her it was due to her own actions. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t even important any more. He wasn’t here, but she was, and what she needed was to move forwards rather than dwell in the past. Once they found him, and they would find him, she’d be stronger again. She’d make herself stronger, and then none of this would matter any more.
Still she didn’t throw the letters away. Instead she put them in the bottom of her backpack marked with ‘Dad’ and ‘Sean’ even if they were more for her than the people addressed in them. A reminder of what she couldn’t let happen to herself again, of how not to react to the same situations. She couldn’t change others, but she could change herself, and that was what she would have to do.
With the letters safely in her backpack, she burned the other papers before turning off the light and returning to bed, managing, by some miracle, not to wake up Dom in the process.
Dear Dad, You’ve been gone for almost two months now. Two months in which we haven’t fought, it must be a record since getting to this place. I miss you, dad. I miss having you around, I miss being able to talk to you, to work with you. Even though we can’t seem to talk without fighting, even though you are the most pigheaded and stubborn person I know, I still miss you more than words can say. I know that if I told you in person what I’m about to tell you in this letter, we’d have another fight. You’d give perfectly logical reasons why you were right even when you were wrong and how anything I felt or thought or experienced was simply wrong. It’s who you are. Trying to change it is fighting windmills and yet no one can say I haven’t tried. And yet, if I could I’d much rather hold this conversation with you than writing it on a piece of paper. Or at least have the options to. Maybe by the time we see each other again – and we will, I refuse to accept any other possibility – this won’t even matter any longer. Maybe by then I will have found the strength to accept who I am, and accept that in all likelihood, neither you nor Sean will ever truly like who that is?
Yes, I know, you like us all the same and you’d never make a difference between us. You’ve told me, I heard you. I even believe you mean it, that you try and maybe you even believe it. I don’t. Your actions, reactions and words have said otherwise one too many times for me to do so. I appreciate you trying, though sometimes, just sometimes it would be less frustrating if you could just admit that you like Savannah and Sean better. Savannah named her daughter after you – I didn’t. Savannah is the one cooking for the entire family without asking – when I only did after being asked. Savannah is the one going home to people to clean their house and help with their children – while I would think it a terrible imposition.
I’m the Marine, I’m the woman who clawed her way to the top, who fought every step of the way to prove that I was just as good as any of the men. I was the one trying to be like you to make you proud, but here none of that helped me at all. The fighting, the training – it was always so much easier than the family. Finding you with expections of me to be more feminine, more like a traditional woman. Cooking, cleaning, staying at home with the kids. It wasn’t expectations I ever had on myself. It wasn’t expectations my husband had on me. But you, you expected it, and you were disappointed when I didn’t meet your expectations of what a woman and mother was supposed to be.
Did you realize, how much your doubts hurt me? Did you know how deeply your words struck when you again and again told me you believed I wanted to abandon my child? When you refused to take me at my words that I would never do what you did, that I’d never voluntarily leave my son behind? I’ve been hurt by you many times, all through growing up, but nothing hurt as deeply as your firm belief that I’d make a terrible mother. That I didn’t love my child enough.
If I still wish anything, I wish you could admit to being wrong on that account at least. I wish you could look me in the eye and tell me that you see that I’m a good mother; that you see something good in me. I know it’s too much to ask. Admitting that would be admitting that you were wrong about something. I might as well wait for the world to stop turning. Neither is going to happen in my lifetime. No, you had cause. That’s what you’ll say. That’s what you did say. I must learn to stop bringing these things up with you, because your answers always manage to cut me again. It’s like a scab that you can’t leave alone enough though you know you should.
Well maybe it’s about time that I learn from my mistakes? My mistakes, not what you tell me to do. Not the things you want me to do, because here’s the thing: you want me to be different. You want me to be the person who goes to someone’s home and starts cleaning up the house because they might need it. Well that is never going to be me and I’m tired of hearing that I’m selfish because of it!
When Savannah was hurting I tried to talk to her, not because someone asked me to, but because I saw that she wasn’t herself. When it didn’t work, I talked to you about it because someone else needed to get through to her and I wasn’t the one. Yet whenever you list all the ways I never helped, that one always manages to be forgotten. Just as my cooking Sunday dinners after Savannah’s “death” tends to be forgotten. It was asked of me, therefore it doesn’t count. It’s the logic of the family. Unless you do things without being asked, it never counts. Which is why it’s not counted that I took care of Liam when Savannah no longer could even though the child care plan wasn’t in place yet, because again I was asked, it was discussed, I didn’t just do it without asking.
I don’t know when I started buying into your world view that this makes me a selfish person, but I have, and I’ve tried to change, and because of that I don’t even recognize myself any more. I find myself not trusting my instincts, not trusting my own judgement when I should. I have no more confidence left in me at this point. I have nothing of what once made me, me.
It’s funny, I’m writing this and I can already hear you in my head telling me how selfish this makes me. How can I think about myself when I should be worried about all of you? Here is the thing though – I can’t! I can’t keep thinking about what everyone else wants from me. I have a son, I have a husband, I have myself, and everyone else is going to have to take a back-seat right now. I need to trust myself again, my instincts, my judgement rather than yours. I need to be me even if it makes all of you think of me as selfish. If it does I’ll live with it because I can’t be a valuable member of this family, or the team, if I question and second guess every decision I make. Most of all, I can’t be a role model for my son if I let you or others dictate who I am. If I teach him anything, I want to teach him to trust himself, to believe in himself, and to not let others dominate how he thinks of himself. Not even family, not even me or his father. Now how can I teach him that when I let you dominate who I try to be? When I constantly try to live up to your expectations instead of my own?
I wish I knew how to end this letter, but then maybe it’s not even important that I do. It’s not like you’re ever going to read it. When we find you, there will be other things that are important. But how about this: For all that I am, good or bad, for all my selfishness and failures, you made me that way. I always tried to live up to your wishes, your goals, your dreams and expectations. But no matter how much I love you, and I do love you, Dad, I need to find my own expectations to live up to now. If you think that makes me selfish, then so be it.
I love you, Jenna
***
Dear Sean,
The long letter went to Dad, as always, but I need to write to you too. Not that I’ll actually give you this, I’ll just talk to you instead, but perhaps this will help me figure out what to say.
I’m so afraid of disappointing you. I know I have, I know your expectations on me and my actions haven’t matched, and I don’t think what I’m about to say will make you any happier. Especially since you already think me selfish, but to put it short, I need to be right now.
I know you think I do too little, too little action and too much talking. To me, talking means something. Talking means taking the time to go to see you in order to find out if you're okay. Talking means I care. You can choose to believe it or you can choose to go on waiting for me prove that I think about you in various ways, waiting for me to earn your trust again. I fear you'll be disappointed, no I know you will be, because your expectations are set to high for me to ever have a chance to reach. You expect me to know when you want to talk and when you want to be left alone. You expect me to stay away and wait for you to come to me, but at the same time be there for you. You expect me to act and do things, but never ask what those things are. When I don’t come to you, I’m too distant. When I do, I’m too in your face, and if I do something it’s never enough.
Don’t get me wrong, I do want to get it right. I do want to be there for you in just that way you need, but I can’t keep apologizing for not knowing what you need when I’m not even allowed to ask what that is. It's tearing me up inside and making me doubt who I am, what I think, what I believe. It's turning me into someone I don't know and someone I don't particularly like. I love you, I care about you and if you ever need anything from me that is in my power, I will be there for you in a heartbeat. However, I can’t give up on myself in the process of trying to be there for you. I need to be me. I need you to allow me to be me without thinking it means I love you less. I know that I’m asking a lot, but I need you this time. I need you to accept me for who I am. I need you to accept that just because I don't act in a certain way it doesn't mean I don't care.
You told me I need to be patient, that I need to make all the efforts, but right now, I can’t be and I know how that sounds but it can’t be helped. Over the last weeks I’ve apologized more times than I can count. I’ve acted in ways that goes against my very instincts because I find that I don’t trust my instincts any longer. I can’t keep this up. How will I ever teach my son to stand up for himself if I can’t stand up for myself? How can I teach him confidence when I have none left?
I love you. I care about you. I want to be there for you when you need me to, but I need to be there for me too and right now I need to come first. You may call that selfish and no doubt this will disappoint you, and while I wish it wasn’t so maybe it’s the necessary prize to pay to find the pieces of me that’s missing. I hope you’ll be able to understand this. I hope that when I talk to you about this you’ll get where I’m coming from, you’ll get that I need to find out who I want to be rather than who Dad or you or anyone else want me to be. I hope that you can still accept who I am, and perhaps someday even think that it’s good enough.
I used to be a person who didn’t let others affect her actions, who believed in herself and was prepared to stand up for what she believed even if others thought it's wrong. You might not like her, but I did, and I need to find that confidence and sense of self-worth again. Maybe then I can be there for you in the way you need too? I hope so, because I do love you, Sean. I just need to find a way to love myself too.