Every Light in the House is On

(uncredited picture published on article page of SpouseBUZZ)


Every Light In The House Is On


My publishing credit: credited as “Guest Blogger” “Christina” (see bio below) (I am going to frame my acceptance email!)

Published by SpouseBUZZ of Military. com on November 30, 2012, in Deployment, Military Life by Guest Bloggers.

Everyone has weird quirks, some are weirder than others. One of my biggest quirks, which hurts in the pocketbook, is leaving our holiday lights on all night long. I’m talking 5 p.m to 5 a.m.; our house can probably be seen from space when it’s decked out for the holidays.

My husband sees those lights and he sees dollar signs.  He thinks winter is a time when we can recoup from the languid, unbearable Florida summers of non-stop air conditioning.

I see those lights and see comfort during long deployment months — something that is vital at a time when, traditionally, families are coming together, not being split asunder. While our military operations abroad might be drawing to a close, I will continue to fight this battle at home.

I fight the good fight with Christmas lights. Because I was alone during our first Christmas as a married couple. It was hard to come home and destress about work or traffic to no one. As many spouses know, talking out loud can sometimes make the room seem so much more … empty.

Due to the nature of the mission I could talk to my husband only about once a month.  I was holding my breath in dread, weeks on end with every news report that came out. I never knew how my husband would be described if his time was up. Would it be just a number of casualties, would they mention his country of origin, his branch of service, his rank, his age, his name?

I was most assuredly jealous of my fellow spouses who complained that they couldn’t deal with the multiple calls a day from over there:  doesn’t he/she understand?

Oh, I understood the need to make those calls; I would be the one calling every other hour if I was over there. So much for being the strong, independent one.

To fill the void in the hours after my solitary dinner and before report-time for work the next day, I went out the door of what had become my narrow life and into the greater world to search for the light. Holiday lights.

Sometimes I bundled up and walked around the neighborhoods. Other times I drove around to the more affluent areas and basked in glory and appreciation for the lengths these people went to: single color, multicolored, flashing, strobe, ropes, net lights, minimalist, circus-worthy, wreaths, vehicles, characters, deer, polar bears, menorahs of all sizes, colors, and quantities, lighted fake palm trees, manger scenes of various sizes, cultures, and ethnicities, toy soldiers and purple hippopotami.

I was especially thankful, and made the point to silently thank, each and every time, those who left their lights on all night. Some were surely forgotten, others, it seemed, left them on just for me. Perhaps they actually did.

So last year I was dead-set on leaving my lights on all night long. One night, my husband and I had another round about why the lights needed to be on even after we had gone to bed and why we couldn’t take them down until the end of January. I stepped outside to enjoy my lights. I saw the two candles I had placed in the windows–part of that age old sign of welcome–were not lit.

I wondered if I could replace them without my husband noticing. Because I will leave the lights on for that one person who may be searching for solace and healing the wound of the missing other.

Christina is a proud war bride, military “dependent,” writer,and volunteer. She met her husband while working two jobs and he stuck with the despite the long and crazy hours away from each other. And so began her experience with the military. Scrapping the wedding for a long and dangerous deployment, she fully embraced being a military spouse. Christina reaches out to all available networks to learn and take advantage of what the military has to offer its family.

Read more: http://spousebuzz.com/blog/2012/11/every-light-in-the-house-is-on.html#ixzz2FAZTUC4q
SpouseBUZZ.com

Novel Review: Lost Voices

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter- I am glad I read it but I thought it would have turned out much different. I was left feeling… empty, as if part of the plot was missing. I actually had to reread multiple sections to see if I missed something. First off, I was not happy to see military (Coasty) ships attacked, being a mil spouse, but they can’t all be cruise liners.

The general idea is that girls, and only girls, who are abused, in number of various ways and degrees, turn into liquid in order to reach the sea ultimately turning into mermaids. These mermaids are sirens luring ships to destruction effectively killing the evil adults who if they had not, would perpetrate horrors the girls lived through. There was a good twist with snobbish, fashion-needy girls changing the culture of the otherwise primitive, easy going group.

On a much deeper level, the angst between the “queen” and our heroine was excellently built: the truth hidden, needing to be exposed, to suffer due to survivor’s guilt from doing “the right thing” which ultimately turned out horrible, and therefore be liberated from the guilt when fully usurped. Ultimately, it is the story of humanity, holding on to it despite continual, sometimes horrible odds and how each girl interprets the opportunities and peer pressure. So, perhaps, being an adult, the peer pressure and need to strike out on one’s own, by her own rules, went right over my head.  What I did not miss was how the girls who survived the human monsters and abuse had become so embittered that they became monsters themselves, murdering similarly innocent people but they made sure there was no salvation, no second chance for sailors in order to keep the mermaids existence hidden.

Except for one, a boy. I did catch all the questions, the undercurrents of why boys, even abused, could not become mermaids. I however missed the explanation. Perhaps it is pre-pubescence innocence. Much easier to study humanity when it is not mucked up by relationships.  I would have liked to have this during those awkward, questioning years to help debate which peer groups I should stay with, which path I should take, and that it is ok to go off on my own, all alone.

Novel Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

A Novel Review by Christina M. Callisto
May 31, 2010
Let me start out by saying I have been reading children’s literature since I was a freshman in college as a welcome reprieve from the torturous, exhausting life of adulthood. It was a wonderful tradition I lovingly hold on to. The children’s books of today are not what they were when I was that age!

After reading the first few pages, nay, the first long paragraph, I realized why I love kids’ lit… it’s happy. Not all of it. Actually, most is not. Take Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events book series. Living is hard enough; try switching into a new anything, and dealing with your associated adults’ lives and the negative it brings into the mix. Makes for good “angst.” It’s a good word for teenagers, but it crops up much earlier than that.

Which is quite apparent in this book. But with every, OMG I just can’t take how depressing this is, it’s turning my mood sour and making me truly miserable, thought I realize I cannot stop reading it! Honestly, had I researched the farm crisis of the 1980s, or ease and use of drugs by teens in the 80s, or the general development of abandoned children, I might have understood this book a bit more and not taken the plight of the characters so personal.

Every other chapter is told by a different person, a family member or supporting character, and each offers a bit of the story line, detective style, moving the plot along while drawing it further back so there is always the need to continue searching. The need of the reader, not the characters. I am continually impressed that although I would rather refuse this book and drop it back at the library (yay, free book use!) because it deals with a gruesome murder that is revisited the entire time, dissected, turned over, debated, I cannot stop turning the pages. The characters are refreshing, depressing, but you feel for them. And who hasn’t thought in sarcastic italics before? Out it comes in subtle hilarity from our damaged characters.

I went from page 50 to 219 over the course of a day; the amazing transformation of each character over a back-and-forth period of a few decades had me reading outside in the sun, through dinner, and turning the TV off. The fact that Flynn gives characters their own chapter really lets the humanity show through in bold, blazing emotions of each age during the blasé life events most authors forget or can’t seem to grasp.

I finished the novel having staying up late into the night and was thoroughly satisfied. It wasn’t a bubble gum ending but there was closure in many ways. At least, in the way that humans can find, justify, or believe closure. The plot line has scattered shreds of intertwined lives that continue to strengthen and unravel. The interesting thing is to see where the blame goes and how people find or lose strength.

I definitely recommend a trip to the local library for this book. It is not one I would read again, personally. But it was an easy read, easy to understand, no sucker punches. You learn as the main character learns. And I loved the twist and closure at the end. I am glad my friend recommended Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.
http://gillian-flynn.com/