For those of you who don’t know, my father passed away on Wednesday. And for those who don’t know, my relationship with him was far from a beautiful “daddy’s little girl” type of scenario. I loved and hated him. I was afraid of him, yet I felt protected from the outside world by him.
My father was an alcoholic, mean, misogynistic, childish, and a bully. But he was also full of life, energy, and joy. He was strong—crazy healthy despite himself—and had the strongest work ethic of anyone I’d ever met. Just as strong was his play ethic: he worked hard and he played hard.
He lived a full life of ups and downs. He made money fast and spent it even faster. He loved drinking, gambling, and chasing women. He didn’t believe women should work or that education mattered. He believed you should take care of yourself and your family with food, shelter, and clothing in a basic sense. There was always enough, but always with the constant worry that maybe there wouldn’t be, the weight of bills looming.
From him, I learned a lot—what to do, what not to do, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to show up in the world. This both served me and hurt me. The two main lessons I took from him were how to be productive and how to live fully at the extremes of emotion.
He hated the word “relaxing,” unless everything else that could possibly be done was already done. Before he came home, my brothers and I would scour the house for anything out of place, dirty, or unfinished. Yes, it was unhealthy—but it taught me to scan my environment, make lists, remember details, prioritize, and execute with whatever time I had.
This shaped me: I don’t know how to rest. I’m constantly doing, doing something, or several things at once. I am incredibly productive, and I think I like it that way. It’s a blessing and a burden, because I often don’t realize when I’ve pushed myself too far or taken on too much. My father, in an unhealthy way, taught me this.
Another word to describe him: loud. When the work was done, it was time to play and let loose. He had no qualms about body image, running around shirtless with his big belly. He sang at the top of his lungs, danced like a giant silly human without a care, and enjoyed food like there was no tomorrow. He loved sports—football mostly, the NY Giants in particular, but also soccer and basketball. Watching games with him was full of antics and superstition. The whole neighborhood knew if the Giants were winning or losing.
But with his intensity—whether excitement or anger—came loss of control. Things broke. People and animals got hurt, physically or emotionally.
Some of you who know me now might not realize that “loud” was once how I lived too. I still like to dance, be silly, and LAUGH—only now without the drinking and the overkill of noise.
Ultimately, I didn’t stick around to live like he lived or under his rule of thumb. I got the #$&* out of dodge and started a path of my own in the world.
I’ve learned over the course of the past 31 years that I struggle with boundaries. I was never taught them. I didn’t even know they existed. Particularly with extremes of work, play, and emotions—at first I had none. Everything was to the extreme. I’m now at a point in my life where I realize I can detach from those automatic reactions I was taught, and instead have healthier boundaries around rest, relaxation, and emotional highs and lows.
I am not perfect (who is?) and often struggle with doing too much without realizing it, or failing to recognize when I’m overwhelmed until it shows up as anxiety or panic. A lot of yogic work, mental health work, and a little medication have helped keep me balanced most of the time.
I sit here on my front porch on an August Sunday morning with my coffee and thinking about my dad.
There isn’t much rhyme or reason to this blog—just a moment to reflect on how my father shaped my life and who I am right now because of it. If I stay healthy, it’s not unreasonable to imagine living another lifetime beyond the years I’ve already lived (49). I can’t change the past, but I can absolutely change the future and how I choose to show up and react in it.
One day, those who are in my life when I pass will likely reflect on how I lived, what I taught them—whether it’s how they want to live, or how they want to avoid living. My hope is that whatever I put into the world, people experience it in a way that makes them pause—whether positively or negatively—and reflect on how their own experiences shape their behaviors and ultimately guide their decisions about who they want to be in the world.
And maybe, just maybe, that is the truest way my father continues to live on—through the ways he shaped me, both in what I carry forward and in what I’ve chosen to do differently. In that way, his life reminds me that even the hardest stories can become soil for growth, and that the future is always wide open for choosing a new way to live.
As I sit here on the Metro North Railroad next to my husband on this very sunny, very windy Sunday, late April morning, I’m filled with wanderlust and a sense of possibility. As we speed by I notice trees, mountains, houses, cars, waterways, docks… so many ways of living and modes of travel.
The subway this morning, leaving New York City, back home to Connecticut
My heart aches to experience it all. I sit and watch, feeling stuck where I am; on a moving train that is going too fast. I am unable to really see, experience or touch any of it. Destination known.
I marvel at how at any stop I could really get off. How I could take another train to another destination and experience something new. I could…. Why don’t I? Why haven’t I?
I am a government employee.
A Fork in the Road.
That is the title now infamous email sent to government employees on January 28th. It quite possibly could open doors, new roads, endless possibilities. However, the doors and possibilities are soured by the ruthless ways civil servants have been discussed in the past few months.
I am government employee with a possibility of taking early retirement. I am 49 and was not planning to retire for a while. But the possibility cannot stop lingering on my mind. I want to see the world! I want to get out from under the grind, off the crazy train. The past few years, but particularly the past few months have dampened the passion of flames I once had for work. It was long burning down, but the new administration has left but the smallest of sparks still attempting to burn.
I have given my entire adult life to the United States government. At 18 I went into the Coast Guard. At 22, I continued into the active reserve pool and became a weekend warrior while raising two babies. At 26, I became a civil servant where I have worked ever since.
I’ve been on a train, on the path set out by many. Get an education, get a job, start a family, get the bigger house….
In the past 31 years with very little help from the supposedly educational funds and benefits that tempted me into the military in the first place I obtained a Professional Secretarial Certification, a Bachelors in Business Administration, an MBA, and a certification Healthcare Analytics.
There were countless other trainings I took through work or on my own. Regardless of where I took these trainings, I immediately gave everything I learned back to the government through my work. Up to and including teaching yoga.
I chose the government because like many undiscussed Americans, particularly second generation Americans, I grew up not have basic securities met. We always had food, though food security was something my parents often struggled with. There were enough clothes and enough help to feel ok. We did not have healthcare and my parents did not have jobs with paid vacation or sick time. Retirement is still out of the question for my 74 year old father. My mother passed away at 49, in part to smoking; but more in part to not having access to healthcare.
I chose the military for the benefits. Paid education, vacation days, and healthcare. The military also seemed as if it were fair and just, that there were rules that had to be followed and consequences for breaking those rules. My home seemed to be a place where there were no consequences and no rights for women or children. As a teenager with looming uncertainty of my future, the military recruiters at the tables stationed around my high school looked healthy, happy and secure in themselves. I wanted that for myself too.
I still don’t know if recruiters purposely mislead or they themselves do not know, but many of the things I was told were only partial truths. Healthcare is not for life unless you are destitute once you separate from the armed forces. The Montogomery GI Bill hardly paid for a semester let alone an education. I was not able to apply for specialty school right out of bootcamp as an E-3, a benefit I personally took advantage of because I had spent 3 years in junior ROTC. The immediate bump from E-2 to E-3 wasn’t a huge benefit, but the one that likely made what was a tough decision at the time for me. A decision that ended up being a very good one for my life.
Swearing into the United States Military at MEMPS in Brooklyn NY August 9, 1994
From that time, and into my career, and until this very day; there were spouted benefits. Benefits that lured me in, but were not what they seemed to be. Benefits that few who are the gatekeepers to obtaining these benefits even seem to know about.
My earliest experience was the lack of knowledge at my first duty station on being an E-3. Then seemingly gregarious barriers to putting my name on a wait list for specialty school. I did everything I was supposed to as quickly and efficiently as I could. It seemed to surprise people that I had the oomph to push through the barriers and keep pressing until I got the answers I was seeking. It seemed unnecessarily difficult, but that was only the start of many years ahead of pretty much the same.
I met and married my first husband who was also in the military at the age of 19. We had no plans of having children anytime soon, but I did know about the benefit to females of taking two years off to raise a child and coming back to finish any required time that was owed to the government.
When my husband and I were re-located and co-located from the west to east coast, the new dispensary that I was assigned did not carry the birth control pill I had been on for years. I was prescribed a new pill and immediately experienced unwanted side effects. When I went to the dispensary to discuss these issues; they took some bloodwork to ensure I was not pregnant, prescribed a new type of pill, and asked me to not take any pills until my next cycle.
My newlywed husband and I were careful, but obviously not careful enough because I never did start that next cycle. I was unintentionally pregnant at 20 years old. My new duty station (which was for the first time in my career on land [opposed to on ship]) helped me to apply for the two year program to raise a child. The administrators and I could not foresee my request being denied because I owed 2 exactly two years and my husband was also a service member.
The request was denied without an explanation. We were flabbergasted. The men and their wives at my at my station were so supportive and helped me and my husband with taking care of our newborn child. I will forever be grateful for the rallying and support provided.
October 1996, pregnant with my first born
My baby Thomas at just over a year old with his daddy
Two years later my owed time was up and I had the option to reenlist. For the majority of non-Air station based jobs, most Coast Guard members were required to be stationed on a ship alternating with land stations. Unless they specifically wanted to be on ship duty or if circumstances called, folks were allowed to be stationed on land for back to back tours.
The military does married couples the honor of trying to station couples together or close by. My husband’s tour was also up. His job required him to be at an Air station which were far and few between. Air stations at the time also required a 1 in every 3 or 1 in every 4 evening overnight obligation. My job as a cook was one of the few jobs in the Coast Guard that did not require overnight stays at all. It was the only way we were able to get by raising our son until that point. That and the help from the members of my station.
Service members have some input on where they would like to go by filling out what was referred to as a “Dream Sheet”. We filled out our dreams sheets and requested to go anywhere in the world as long as I could be stationed at a land station nearby an Air station so I could be home every evening with our son. It should not have come as a surprise when this reasonable request was denied. Yet it was a surprise and felt like a blow.
The Commanding and Executive Officers who were fond of my hard work, impressed that I finished a secretarial certificate and was taking college classes, and who were already upset from the denial for the maternity leave I asked for were also infuriated. The Commanding Officer (unprompted) wrote a letter asking for my request to be reconsidered because he felt I was just the kind of person that the Coast Guard should want to keep. He received a response back saying that it was my turn to go on a boat and if I didn’t like it, I did not have to re-enlist.
I did not reenlist.
I enlisted into the Active Reserves for four years instead. My husband stayed in and I became a military spouse. We had another baby and I finished my bachelor degree.
Four years later in 2002, both my husband and I had completed all required obligations to the military. It was not long after 9/11 and we decided to take a plunge into the civilian world.
Finding work in your twenties hot out of the military with little other work experience and family obligations is not easy. I was interested in federal employment because of the benefits and pension.
I applied to dozens of government and private sector positions. It took about 6 months to find a temporary grant funded government position.
During my first few years as a civil servant I applied for the programs and leadership trainings that were available, but I was denied participation because I was not a permanent employee. I went back to school (out of pocket) while working full time and raising 2 children for an MBA.
I used the information I was learning in school and my personal drive constantly to make my job, my role, and in turn my organization a better place. In 2007 I finished my Masters degree and landed a full time permanent position. About 5 minutes later I was asked to teach and mentor students in the programs I had never taken and had been denied access to. I was not snarly or punishing because I paid for and took my own initiative to learn what they denied me access to. I excitedly obliged because I wanted to provide my organization with the passion and knowledge I myself wanted to share.
MBA graduation in 2007
I cannot believe that was 18 years ago. Since then I’ve learned even more. In my journey as a government employee I’ve changed as a human, but maintained exceptional performance reviews for every single rating period for 31 years without fail. I have given the government every piece of knowledge I learned, and for many many years, many more hours than I was ever paid for.
I have since been divorced and remarried. My children have grown and left the nest. I’ve taken many other trainings at work and outside of work. I trudged a personal journey of experiencing C-PTSD from childhood which involved drinking, recovery and a lot of therapy.
Very typical office set up I had (back in the days I had an office that is)
At my ‘hands down’ favorite position I held in Primary Care
Screenshot
Group of lady work friends I had for many years
I’ve been on the path. I was not planning to retire now. I have more to give. But do I want to give it to the government anymore???
My heart has not been in it a while. And the current administration seems to admonish and mock employees like myself.
Until this very day I am dealing with “benefits” unknown to those who are the gatekeepers. My latest escapade involves healthcare. I have been paying for health insurance for a family through the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) since 2002. A few years ago while I was undergoing intensive outpatient therapy I was part-time and we used my husband’s insurance because the employee share for part-timers is unaffordable. We switched back to my insurance over 4 years ago, but the government has a stipulation that upon retirement in order to keep the FEHB for life, you have to have paid FEHB for the 5 consecutive years prior to retirement.
This is what stopped me from Taking the Fork in the Road back in January. Healthcare. One of the very reasons I entered into the federal workforce 31 years ago. The lack of which (healthcare) I attribute to my mom passing at 49 years old. The very age I happen to be at the moment.
The only time I did not pay for healthcare was for the short period of time I shortened my work hours to deal with mental health issues.
Most veterans have mental health issues. Most individuals enter the military because the benefits outweigh the personal risks. Most individuals who join at a young age do not have many other options. Those lack of options, lack, limit = mental health issues that if not already experiencing, will likely show up later in life when the dust has settled. Like it did for me.
Back in January when the Fork in the Road email was sent, I read all over the place in OPM guidance and other government sources that under VERA authority (when early retirement is being offered) the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) waives this 5 year healthcare payment requirement. I asked about it at the time. No one has ever heard of it. Of course they haven’t. I’ve been down this sad road before. Benefits that are there but unknown or in some way inaccessible.
My Department is offering VERA again due to impending RIFs (Reduction in Force) and this time it specifically states that OPM is waiving the 5-year requirement.
Why am I still here? What do I have to gain?
I think I want to get off the train. I watch the world literally and proverbially whizzing by. A world I long to see and experience.
I am not one of these mystery civil servants you hear on the news. One of these lazy people who is just taking from the population and needs their job to be cut with a sledge hammer. I gave the government more than I gained from it. I know my job can be involuntary cut in a few weeks. If I get to keep a job at all, there is no guarantee it will be at my salary level or that I enjoy.
Yes, there is waste in the government. There is waste in all organizations. The fairness I had been seeking when entering the federal workforce is not on everyone’s side. As employees under the rule of the law, we are mostly indistinguishable from one another. All kind of being lumped in with the bath water that our administration wants to throw out.
As I reflect on my journey, I realize that my experiences have shaped me into the person I am today. The highs and lows, the challenges and triumphs, have all contributed to my growth and resilience. While the uncertainty of early retirement looms, I am filled with hope and possibility. I am ready to embrace change and explore new horizons. My dedication to public service has been unwavering, and I am proud of the contributions I have made. As I contemplate the next chapter of my life, I am reminded that there is so much more of me to give. The world is full of opportunities, and I am eager to seize them.
“Don’t be ashamed of your story. It will inspire others” ~Blake Pierce
Division Bell
Wikipedia defines a division bell as: A division bell is a bell rung in or around a parliament to signal a division and thus call all members of the chamber so affected to vote in it.
Hence –it’s a call to action.
It’s also an album by Pink Floyd that was released in 1994. Pink Floyd was one of my favorite groups in high school. In 1994 when this album was released I was a senior in high school just about to graduate. I heard it right after I made my decision to join to military once I graduated. It felt like a time of hope. The album spoke to me.
It’s time for me to do my part in a call to action against domestic violence. I grew up as a child in a household with domestic violence. My father was the perpetrator, my mother, brothers, and myself the victims. More than anyone though, even my family would agree, for some reason I bore the brunt of the violence.
Like a fish doesn’t know it’s in water, I didn’t know I was in a bad situation. I didn’t realize my father was an alcoholic. I knew he was a gambler. I knew what happened in our house wasn’t right, but I also thought it could be worse and the people who experienced something worse were really the victims. There were so many people in my life who saw the signs and bruises and heard our excuses. Teachers, friends, friend’s parents, our own extended family, our neighbors. No one dared ask past the excuse. They all suspected, but they dropped it there. I always thought – they should suspect more, poke a hole in my ridiculous story so I have a reason to elaborate. Since they didn’t, I assumed my parents were right and it must not be too bad.
Everything went. Things broke. Things were thrown at us – food, boiling water, household objects. Our heads and bodies made holes in walls and doors. I was thrown across the room, beaten with a chair, punched, kicked… you name it. Called names, told I was stupid, lazy, a whore, an idiot, etc. Looking back it’s a miracle I made it out ok.
I was also told not to cry – by both of my parents. Neither could stand anyone yelling back or crying. I learned so early on to bury my feelings and cry only under the cloak of darkness.
I knew I wanted out of that house, probably from the age of a toddler. My mother once said to me she couldn’t leave my father because she didn’t finish high school and couldn’t take care of us. It was my life’s mission as a kid to finish school and get an education so I could take care of myself. I didn’t want to be like her and put anyone else into the situation I was in.
It wasn’t until about a year after I left my house & was in the military that I realized anything was different about me. I overreacted far more than anyone else to other people’s anger. I jumped when asked to do something and did it better than anyone else. The only good that probably came out of my growing up situation is that it made me a good solider, a good employee, one who aims to please. But other people’s anger really got to me. I went to see a counselor through the EAP program once my ship was on land. She gave me a book about co-dependence and didn’t think I needed to go back. It was no help at all to me.
When I got pregnant with Tommy I was determined to be a different kind of parent. I read every book I could get my hands on about parenting, which was pretty limited 21 years ago – it wasn’t like I had Amazon or all the time in the world to shop while I was active duty. I think the books served me well. John didn’t read anything and was quick to listen to me. We were on the same page as parents – loving, stern, caring, rules, and fun. Once I had Tommy and I was a parent myself, I started to realize how it feels to care for and love another little human so much. It really started to bother me thinking about the way I grew up. I just didn’t understand. For about a year I think I cried and journaled EVERY SINGLE day. John was kind and patient. He was more angry at my parents than I was. Again I went to counseling through the EAP, and again I found it to be a waste of time.
One day about a year of absolute post suffering, in the middle of writing – something just clicked inside me. It was like something you read about in books or see in the movies. All of a sudden my sadness was just lifted. It wasn’t replaced by bliss and I wasn’t overly joyed; but I felt a sense of letting go of the past. I suddenly realized what John meant when he said there is nothing you can do about it anymore. I think I just put the pen down and stopped shedding tears. I was just done crying about the past. I was only 22 at the time.
For the most part since then I’ve been able to talk about my experience without getting swept away by it. When I was 30 my mom passed away and her boss asked our family if we would write a little something about her life. I wrote this story that I shared on the 10 year anniversary of her passing on my blog page: https://esterinaanderson.com/tag/my-mom/.
At the time there was nowhere to post it. I emailed it to a bunch of my family and friends. Everyone gathered around & supported me. It was the first time I was public with what happened in my house. I hit send and was kind of frightened by the reaction I might get. I had always felt ashamed and broken by the situation – as if it made me different from everyone else and less of a person. But the love and support I received made that feeling disappear. It felt good to share. I felt light.
For the next 10 years I only talked about it when it seemed relevant (super rarely). It wasn’t until I went to a Yocovery class last March that I realized I was still very much affected by what happened to me. Yocovery is a special program at my yoga studio where addicts and family members of addicts go weekly to share their stories and do a little yoga. I was curious about what it was one Friday evening, so I drove over and joined the class. Everyone started sharing their stories. When it came to be my turn and I started talking, I was surprised to get choked up and then start crying. Wow – it did still bother me. Over the next few months I started to read about the affects of child abuse on adults. I was a classic case. Anxiety, anger, rage, guilt, shame, emotional numbing, dissociation. On the outside I’m very normal and well adjusted, but I hid a lot. And I hid it so well I was no longer aware it was even there.
In December I became aware of a group called Exhale to Inhale (ETI). ETI. is an organization that supports victims of domestic violence and sexual assault through the teaching of yoga. I joined the group and will soon be taking trauma teacher training so I can volunteer my time at shelters and safe houses. In the month of April the organization asked members to hold donations based classes through their own events and at their home yoga studios. I wanted to be a part of that. I emailed my beautiful point of contact at my home studio and got it registered for a volunteer class on Sat 4/15/17 http://www.yogasouthington.com/news-and-events/. I may also host a personal event at the house in Branford on 3/31. Stay tuned.
As strong as I feel, while researching some quotes, pictures and facts to incorporate into this class; I had to stop, cry and feel. Even 23 years after I have left the house, the experiences sit so deeply within in me until today. As a child I had nowhere to go, I didn’t even really know I was in harms way. In school we learned when to tell, but my parents would tell me that is for other people, not us – don’t waste their time. And I believed them.
I just still wanted out of that house. Music through my growing up helped me to escape and deal. Be normal. Sing in the car. Have something fun to connect to. Dance in my room with the door closed. Pink Floyd was one of those music groups for me. Those last few weeks in high school when the Division Bell came out, the end was in sight. The songs on that album mean so much to me. They can be relevant for so many topics. In my room while falling asleep – those songs… the lyrics and instruments were about the rise and fall of innocence before and after abuse. “On the Turning Away” from Momentary Lapse of Reason spoke to me about people who kind of knew but turned away. And then the escape. The ringing of the division bell at the end of that album in the song “High Hopes” as it faded away, sounded to me at the time like the bell toll that was my escape. Any bells I heard after that, especially in my early days of boot camp and in the military were the sound of justice for me. I hope to make that album in some way part of the theme for the karma class to raise money for ETI. The ringing of the Division Bell is a call to action to vote on something and bring justice. It’s time to do something about domestic violence.
Also in reading about the topic of child abuse I had to shake a bit in disgust. Sometimes as a society we take identifying “abuse” too far. Feeling angry, yelling at a kid every once in a while when they actually did something disrespectful, not looking up for the 5th time when a child shows you something and pretending it’s the best thing you ever saw while you are trying to finish something for work, taking some time for yourself and not attending every last little league game is NOT abuse. I couldn’t believe the things I was reading. It’s not even in the same league. Doing these things repetitively could be – absolutely… But children who now feel like they are being neglected and abused by working parents because they only help with their homework 50% of the time is not neglect. I understand why people tune out and don’t pay attention to so many allegations.
There is real abuse taking place. It can be hard to weed through the garbage of allegations, but those who know about it or have experience just can tell. There is a true sense of hopelessness, loss of control, and fear in victims. ETI’s two platforms of Intimate Partner violence and sexual assault help survivors to feel empowered, to feel safe, to help themselves, and to connect with the spirit inside of them that knows the right thing to do.
People are surprised I don’t hate my father. I do love him. I can’t be around him for long. I feel kind of bad for him. He has no real friends. He is still an alcoholic. He hangs with the wrong crowd and does the wrong things. When you talk to him he lives in the past and will still talk about my mom and how she left him, never understanding his part in it. He is still quick to blow up. Has been in jail a few times. He is loving. He is generous with his money. He has some really insightful, intelligent things to say sometimes. People that don’t know him who tell me that my father is a good man and nice company don’t know any better. I liken it to what my brother Mario once said recently about the type of people who support certain politics – if you say you like pops you just don’t know any better; and there is no way I can explain it to you because you haven’t experienced the dark side.
We all come from different experiences. Don’t judge, but do give and command respect back – Always. Act in love, but don’t be pushed around. Listen to your gut if something feels off and stand up for what is right. Push a little harder if you are talking to someone you suspect is having any of these experiences. They likely won’t tell you the first time you ask, but once or twice more may be just the little barrier breaker that can save them.
Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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