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Ep. 41 Boiled Tanked

20:36
 
Chia sẻ
 

Manage episode 329460134 series 2866500
Nội dung được cung cấp bởi Chicken Mind Nuggets. Tất cả nội dung podcast bao gồm các tập, đồ họa và mô tả podcast đều được Chicken Mind Nuggets hoặc đối tác nền tảng podcast của họ tải lên và cung cấp trực tiếp. Nếu bạn cho rằng ai đó đang sử dụng tác phẩm có bản quyền của bạn mà không có sự cho phép của bạn, bạn có thể làm theo quy trình được nêu ở đây https://vi.player.fm/legal.

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

chickenmindnuggets@gmail.com

@mindchicken

References for this episode

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

It was back in 2008 I had just joined the military and I was clueless about what military life was like. I got on the plane from the Great Lakes recruiting center (lovingly named Great Mistakes) and headed to San Diego for Sonar training. I was slated to be there for about 9 months so I could complete basic A school before I got sent off to a ship. At that point, I have never been to San Diego, and it was one of the reasons I chose orders to be a Sonar Tech. I arrived in San Diego, looking like shit. Let me describe this to you. Before I joined the military, I had a pixie cut. I was a little overweight, and I let myself go a little bit. When I joined the military, my hair was out of regs, so I had to let it grow out into regs. The problem was I couldn’t cut it, because that would be out of regs again, and my command said I could go to captain’s mast. I had to grow out my pixie cut in all the awkward stages of its horrible glory without any maintenance, which left me with a rat’s tail and awkward growth all over my head. On top of that, the Navy had the utilities, which consisted of a baggy blue shirt and high-waisted dark blue pants which gave everyone a fupa. It was not my best look.

I started smoking again because everyone did and it was a way to escape the long hours of sonar training while getting to know people. When I was in the Navy, you didn’t get a break unless you smoked, which is what I learned early on in A school before even heading to a ship. You also got to meet new people because they would come by and hang out at the smoke deck to catch the roach coach or sit at the picnic-style tables that were nearby.

There weren’t many women in A school, and I didn’t care for many of them because I got along better with men. I tried to be friends with some of the women, but I never felt 100% comfortable. Luckily, that was about to change.

In comes Boiled. OK, her name isn’t really Boiled, but I’ll get to that in a minute. We hit it off instantly. If you were to meet us at face value, you wouldn’t think that we would belong together. I smoked, drank heavily, hung around with fun, but awful people, and was making some pretty bad decisions. Boiled was (and is) beautiful, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink much, and is a preacher’s daughter. Lifestyle-wise, we were the opposite, but we became friends with a bond that didn’t break even after a 12-year separation.

Remember I said her name wasn’t Boiled? It’s not, it’s Boyle. In the military we go by our last names. She started hanging out with me, and that meant going to the bar. A lot. And going to Ocean Beach. And sometimes the two were combined and sometimes we tried to get to Ocean Beach from the bar at Point Loma, but we were too drunk so we offered strangers $5.00 to let us ride in the boat they were towing so we could get to Ocean Beach. Sometimes we stayed at the bar, because it was male stripper night, and when it is male stripper night, you don’t party lightly. Boiled had never experienced male strippers before, but it was not my first rodeo. I put $100.00 on top of the bar and told the bar tender, whatever she wants, she gets. We put dollars in strippers’ underwear, and the look on her face as crotch was dancing from the left side to the right side of her head, was epic. To say it was a bonding moment, would be an understatement. She asked me what an orgasm felt like, and I don’t remember this, but she told me I described it to her. We did a lot of late night, hard partying, drunken sailor shenanigans for months. We even went to Ocean Beach and got tattoo’s. Boiled got one, then another, then another. I got my chest tattooed, and Boiled got another. Boiled even got a boyfriend!

We suffered through PT together after being freshly tatted, we suffered through mandatory study hall time because the class wasn’t getting good grades, we suffered through weekly Friday night lectures about not going to Tijuana, we suffered through command uniform inspections and impossible shoe shines unless you had Vaseline, we suffered through the unspeakable drama of a building filled with women sharing rooms and bathrooms with showers that had no barriers. But we also suffered through beautiful west coast sunsets, amazing food, lots of laughter, first time experiences, hanging out at lib hall, and becoming amazing friends.

So after being indoctrinated into the world of drunken sailor shenanigans in San Diego for over 8 months, Boyle, became Boiled. And I became Tanked. And that’s how we became Boiled-Tanked.

Now in San Diego, I hung out with some people who were the very wrong crowd. This is where I was left in a hotel room naked. This is where one of the most abusive narcissistic relationships I have ever had began. This is where I was lied to by the command after getting approved to continue to tech school. And this is where I found out I was going to Norfolk…the one place every sailor at A school said never to go.

One day in class, all of us were sitting at the desks when we learned that orders came in and we would be getting orders to our commands that day. I wanted to stay in San Diego, Boiled wanted Japan. In comes STG2 someone and orders were written on the board like a pick list of jails you had to choose to serve your time in. Boiled got her Japan. I was so happy for her. My only option after the class rankings were picked was Norfolk. I was furious. I couldn’t choose Japan for various reasons, but Norfolk felt like I was being sentenced to Alcatraz in modern times, even though it’s a fricken museum.

That day, I wanted so badly to celebrate her happiness, and I was happy for her. I was so devastated by my orders that I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in a couple of hours. I’ll save the details of the Norfolk orders for another episode. All I knew was she was going far away, and I might never see her again.

A few months later, Boiled left. She went to Japan, and I went to Norfolk. It was hard to stay in touch, but we had Facebook and sent each other messages when we could. We had an unexpected rendezvous on one of the ship’s secret communication channels that we were both unknowingly manning one day. I saw STG3 Boyle on the screen and my fingers raced so fast to verify if this was her. Boiled?? I typed waiting for a response. Tanked?? She typed back confirming my suspicions. It was Boiled! We were ecstatic and talked briefly because that channel was for other things, but that brief moment was a rare ray of sunshine in the terrible world of being stuck on a destroyer in Norfolk.

As the months went by, things kept getting worse for me. I got really sick on the ship, and constantly had digestive issues. I couldn’t eat a lot, and dropped to 109 pounds. My grandmother died, and I told my family if they wanted me to come out, the only way I can be released from the ship is for them to send a red cross message. My family refused to send one, saying they think I should just be able to come home. But that’s not how it works in the military, and they refused to hear it. I had an investigation going on, contributed by the same narcissistic person I was involved with in San Diego. He hacked into my accounts and sent fake emails from them, then threatened severe damage if I didn’t do what he said. The people on the ship played a sandwich punching game where they punched your sandwich at chow. I’m not kidding, they physically punched your sandwich. When my food was punched, I couldn’t eat it, so there went my meal. I was terribly seasick for years, and I was made fun of for sleeping in other spaces because the girls in birthing were loud 24/7. I was sleeping 2 hours a night because on deployment the new captain realized no one on the ship was qualified to stand an armed watch due to the poor administrative upkeep of the prior master at arms, so 2 other people and myself were put in charge of getting everyone qualified, re-trained, sometimes re-OC sprayed, and documented before we hit land. This is when I switched from Sonar to the antiterrorism force protection team because the people in sonar were physically fighting with each other, stealing from one another, and gossiping. They even held a meeting where they made me sit down and one of my senior techs said, OK we’re all going to take turns telling you what we hate about you. So they did, for hours, and I had no chief to back me up.

To put icing on the cake, I received a message on Facebook from a friend in Washington state that I went to A-school with saying the narcissistic person I was involved with raped his wife, and if I ever see him, tell him he will kill him. I forwarded this message to the narcissist because they were at the same Navy base together, and left it at that. A few days later, my Master chief said they were aware of a message I had on Facebook and they need access to it. I don’t know how they knew, but I had to obey, and I told them I will get them the message, but I want nothing to do with the situation. I had to speak with the XO, the CO, you name it, everyone, about what I knew, and I kept saying, I don’t know anything, this happened in Washington, I’m in Norfolk, I got a Facebook message, and I warned the person, that’s it. And not too long after, my accounts were hacked. By guess who.

When all of this, plus more that I won’t get into for the sake of time, happened, I had a breaking point. I realized I could no longer live in the world that I was living in, and I decided to leave it. My mental state was destroyed and I didn’t know what was real and what was happening. Little did I know this was some of the worst narcissistic abuse syndrome symptoms which was exploding from my narcissistic upbringing and the current situation. It was a breakdown, of unimaginable proportions. While I was getting out of the Navy, I sent a message out on Facebook that I will no longer be on Facebook because not only was I getting harassed, but I wanted to start my life over. I wanted to leave the Navy life behind, move to Arizona, and leave the me that I knew so I could create a better me. I was so sick, so distraught, so fed up and hurt that I had to wipe the slate clean, start therapy, and start from scratch. So I sent a goodbye message, and Boiled and I didn’t speak for 12 years. I remained off of social media until I started my podcasts, but I have not been back on Facebook.

One day my co-workers and I at my current job were sharing military stories. I talked about Boiled, how amazing she was, and all of the great times we had in San Diego. I was wondering what happened to her, so I decided to see if I could Google her. And there she was. On a Navy page listed as Senior Chief Boyle. I couldn’t believe it. We were in A school together as little E1- and E2’s, and now, she’s an E8. I was blown away, and was so proud of her. I wanted to see her, get a hold of her, but I didn’t have Facebook. I talked to my husband, and he searched for her in his Facebook. Is this her? Nope, that’s not her. How about this one? Nope, that’s not her either. This one? No, sorry, still not her. This one?

Yes! It was her! He found Boiled!! She looked amazing! After 12 years, here she was, a senior chief petty officer sonar tech, which if you don’t know, is a pretty big deal in the Navy.

Now came the hard part, connecting with her. You see, I had a lot of time to reflect and forgive myself for my prior life, and I have come miles since my years in the Navy. I look back on it and I’m tremendously grateful for the experiences and the wisdom I have as a result of the experiences. But this doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same. There are certainly people out there who only hold me in a negative light, using my past actions as a definition for my character, and that’s OK, because that’s their journey to realize people change. But I didn’t know if Boiled held me in a negative light, or a positive light. What would she say if my husband reached out to her for me? “Oh yea, we knew each other in San Diego, hope she is doing good, thanks, bye.” Or maybe no response at all, which tells you everything you need to know. Boiled knew me as a mess, as a drunken, lost, abused, scared person who drank to get rid of some of the problems that the drinking caused. Could she hear my name and hate me for helping to turn a preacher’s daughter into a tattoed, drinking, cussing, sailor? Would she only remember my disasters, and my sorry attempts for trying to put myself back together? Would she remember our laughter, our fun, our jokes, and our connection? Asking my husband to reach out, was one of the scariest things I have ever done because it opened the door to a past that I had closed.

He reached out, and said you don’t know me, but you know my wife. She says she knows you as Boiled, and you know her as Tanked. She’s doing well, lives in Arizona, and wants to connect.

The time from when my husband sent that message until he heard back was nerve-wracking. I knew that my Buddhist training helped and kicked in when a deep voice said it is OK if she doesn’t want to talk, and I knew that voice was right. But the unknowing of what she would say, was like waiting for a jury verdict.

Boiled responded. She wanted to connect. Oh my God, she wants to talk. And she sent me a message on November 2nd, 2020: Hey Tanked! It’s Boiled! Your husband sent me your number on Facebook. I told him I would plan to call you this weekend if that works for you?”

Tears flooded my eyes as I was typing back my schedule and we were coordinating our rendezvous. We decided to meet on What’s App, and for the first time in 12 years, Boiled-Tanked was really about to happen. I was in my tiny house, staring at my phone. She’s gonna call, she’s gonna call, OMG, Boiled, I’m gonna cry, holy shit, holy fuck. And then she called. The moment we saw each other we screamed and cried. The first 30 minutes were nothing but crying. If we said words, they were masked by tears, but all we knew was how happy we were that we were seeing each other. I held nothing back, she didn’t either. It was pure love, and connection and a reunion that was far overdue, but perfectly timed. We caught up on everything, and kept crying through the process. Everything felt right, everything felt better, and that scary door I opened to my past was met with her light rather than a scary dark unknown that I had anticipated. Boiled was back. And so was Tanked.

Boiled went though a lot in her time in the Navy. Her relationship with the guy in A school ended and he was found guilty of let’s say inappropriate pornography. She was a victim of sexual assault and was mistreatment by her fellow sailors. She wanted to get out, she hated the environment, but stayed with it and came back to the U.S and was stationed in Washington state. She traveled to the East coast and served in DC, then went back to San Diego, and now is in Norfolk with only 6 years left before she retires. Her career had frustrations, heartbreaks, anger, friendships, love, unknowns, deployments, underways, difficult people, losses, and growth. Boiled back in 2008 had no idea she would be going on an amazing and challenging journey, one that brought her to become a person that she loves. How do you continue to face difficult situations everyday, without the ability to quit or take a sick day, surrounded by people you have to agree with until you make rank, and thrown into cultures and situations fresh off of one boat and onto another with no road map of who you will meet and what you will face? Well you face it like a Boiled, a strongly vocaled, stand you ground, head on straight, heart in place, tough as nails Boiled. We can all take a lesson from her.

Throughout all the years I spent wondering if I hurt her, if I ruined her, if she hated me, if she regretted our friendship, if she is OK, if she has found happiness, if she is loved…she spent wondering if I would ever come back.

I had no idea, the impact I had on her. She told me the day I posted the Facebook message was difficult, and she thought I would be back in 3 days. When she realized I wasn’t coming back, it was hard. I couldn’t tell Boiled that I never left her, I left me, and my separation from the world was for the world’s benefit. Boiled set me free when she said she loves the person she is, she cherished us, and the day she got the message from my husband she could hardly contain herself.

Here she is, an important person from my past, who has come back with loving arms. She healed a part of me I left hurt in the closed door of my prior life, and to that I can never repay her enough. We talk as much as we can, and both of our lives are happier and fuller with significant others, wisdom gained, and years fulfilled.

She is listening to this episode, and has anticipated it since I told her I wanted to tell our story. Boiled, since you are listening, I love you. If you needed a left arm, I would give you mine. You have come such a long way from the E2 I knew, and I’m so proud of everything you have done in your life. Your accomplishments are billboard worthy. The things you regret are beautiful stones in your path to becoming even better. Your beautiful smile and personality make the bad in the world become better. Your friendship, is far more valuable than anything I can fathom. You have brought a sense of peace to my life I didn’t think I could have. I never meant to leave you for so long, but throughout all of the things we have been through separately, I’m thankful we get to go through our futures together. When we meet again, drinks are still on me, but we’ll do it better this time.

Thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime to be your friend.

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please follow me on Twitter @mindchicken, Instagram at chickenmindnuggets, or leave a review on iTunes, listen to anywhere you listen to podcasts, or visit chickenmindnuggets.com

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iconChia sẻ
 
Manage episode 329460134 series 2866500
Nội dung được cung cấp bởi Chicken Mind Nuggets. Tất cả nội dung podcast bao gồm các tập, đồ họa và mô tả podcast đều được Chicken Mind Nuggets hoặc đối tác nền tảng podcast của họ tải lên và cung cấp trực tiếp. Nếu bạn cho rằng ai đó đang sử dụng tác phẩm có bản quyền của bạn mà không có sự cho phép của bạn, bạn có thể làm theo quy trình được nêu ở đây https://vi.player.fm/legal.

Chicken Mind Nuggets.

Hosted by Wifey

Chickenmindnuggets.com

chickenmindnuggets@gmail.com

@mindchicken

References for this episode

Introduction music graciously provided by

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Thinking Music" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Show script: (may differ slightly from spoken word)

It was back in 2008 I had just joined the military and I was clueless about what military life was like. I got on the plane from the Great Lakes recruiting center (lovingly named Great Mistakes) and headed to San Diego for Sonar training. I was slated to be there for about 9 months so I could complete basic A school before I got sent off to a ship. At that point, I have never been to San Diego, and it was one of the reasons I chose orders to be a Sonar Tech. I arrived in San Diego, looking like shit. Let me describe this to you. Before I joined the military, I had a pixie cut. I was a little overweight, and I let myself go a little bit. When I joined the military, my hair was out of regs, so I had to let it grow out into regs. The problem was I couldn’t cut it, because that would be out of regs again, and my command said I could go to captain’s mast. I had to grow out my pixie cut in all the awkward stages of its horrible glory without any maintenance, which left me with a rat’s tail and awkward growth all over my head. On top of that, the Navy had the utilities, which consisted of a baggy blue shirt and high-waisted dark blue pants which gave everyone a fupa. It was not my best look.

I started smoking again because everyone did and it was a way to escape the long hours of sonar training while getting to know people. When I was in the Navy, you didn’t get a break unless you smoked, which is what I learned early on in A school before even heading to a ship. You also got to meet new people because they would come by and hang out at the smoke deck to catch the roach coach or sit at the picnic-style tables that were nearby.

There weren’t many women in A school, and I didn’t care for many of them because I got along better with men. I tried to be friends with some of the women, but I never felt 100% comfortable. Luckily, that was about to change.

In comes Boiled. OK, her name isn’t really Boiled, but I’ll get to that in a minute. We hit it off instantly. If you were to meet us at face value, you wouldn’t think that we would belong together. I smoked, drank heavily, hung around with fun, but awful people, and was making some pretty bad decisions. Boiled was (and is) beautiful, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink much, and is a preacher’s daughter. Lifestyle-wise, we were the opposite, but we became friends with a bond that didn’t break even after a 12-year separation.

Remember I said her name wasn’t Boiled? It’s not, it’s Boyle. In the military we go by our last names. She started hanging out with me, and that meant going to the bar. A lot. And going to Ocean Beach. And sometimes the two were combined and sometimes we tried to get to Ocean Beach from the bar at Point Loma, but we were too drunk so we offered strangers $5.00 to let us ride in the boat they were towing so we could get to Ocean Beach. Sometimes we stayed at the bar, because it was male stripper night, and when it is male stripper night, you don’t party lightly. Boiled had never experienced male strippers before, but it was not my first rodeo. I put $100.00 on top of the bar and told the bar tender, whatever she wants, she gets. We put dollars in strippers’ underwear, and the look on her face as crotch was dancing from the left side to the right side of her head, was epic. To say it was a bonding moment, would be an understatement. She asked me what an orgasm felt like, and I don’t remember this, but she told me I described it to her. We did a lot of late night, hard partying, drunken sailor shenanigans for months. We even went to Ocean Beach and got tattoo’s. Boiled got one, then another, then another. I got my chest tattooed, and Boiled got another. Boiled even got a boyfriend!

We suffered through PT together after being freshly tatted, we suffered through mandatory study hall time because the class wasn’t getting good grades, we suffered through weekly Friday night lectures about not going to Tijuana, we suffered through command uniform inspections and impossible shoe shines unless you had Vaseline, we suffered through the unspeakable drama of a building filled with women sharing rooms and bathrooms with showers that had no barriers. But we also suffered through beautiful west coast sunsets, amazing food, lots of laughter, first time experiences, hanging out at lib hall, and becoming amazing friends.

So after being indoctrinated into the world of drunken sailor shenanigans in San Diego for over 8 months, Boyle, became Boiled. And I became Tanked. And that’s how we became Boiled-Tanked.

Now in San Diego, I hung out with some people who were the very wrong crowd. This is where I was left in a hotel room naked. This is where one of the most abusive narcissistic relationships I have ever had began. This is where I was lied to by the command after getting approved to continue to tech school. And this is where I found out I was going to Norfolk…the one place every sailor at A school said never to go.

One day in class, all of us were sitting at the desks when we learned that orders came in and we would be getting orders to our commands that day. I wanted to stay in San Diego, Boiled wanted Japan. In comes STG2 someone and orders were written on the board like a pick list of jails you had to choose to serve your time in. Boiled got her Japan. I was so happy for her. My only option after the class rankings were picked was Norfolk. I was furious. I couldn’t choose Japan for various reasons, but Norfolk felt like I was being sentenced to Alcatraz in modern times, even though it’s a fricken museum.

That day, I wanted so badly to celebrate her happiness, and I was happy for her. I was so devastated by my orders that I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in a couple of hours. I’ll save the details of the Norfolk orders for another episode. All I knew was she was going far away, and I might never see her again.

A few months later, Boiled left. She went to Japan, and I went to Norfolk. It was hard to stay in touch, but we had Facebook and sent each other messages when we could. We had an unexpected rendezvous on one of the ship’s secret communication channels that we were both unknowingly manning one day. I saw STG3 Boyle on the screen and my fingers raced so fast to verify if this was her. Boiled?? I typed waiting for a response. Tanked?? She typed back confirming my suspicions. It was Boiled! We were ecstatic and talked briefly because that channel was for other things, but that brief moment was a rare ray of sunshine in the terrible world of being stuck on a destroyer in Norfolk.

As the months went by, things kept getting worse for me. I got really sick on the ship, and constantly had digestive issues. I couldn’t eat a lot, and dropped to 109 pounds. My grandmother died, and I told my family if they wanted me to come out, the only way I can be released from the ship is for them to send a red cross message. My family refused to send one, saying they think I should just be able to come home. But that’s not how it works in the military, and they refused to hear it. I had an investigation going on, contributed by the same narcissistic person I was involved with in San Diego. He hacked into my accounts and sent fake emails from them, then threatened severe damage if I didn’t do what he said. The people on the ship played a sandwich punching game where they punched your sandwich at chow. I’m not kidding, they physically punched your sandwich. When my food was punched, I couldn’t eat it, so there went my meal. I was terribly seasick for years, and I was made fun of for sleeping in other spaces because the girls in birthing were loud 24/7. I was sleeping 2 hours a night because on deployment the new captain realized no one on the ship was qualified to stand an armed watch due to the poor administrative upkeep of the prior master at arms, so 2 other people and myself were put in charge of getting everyone qualified, re-trained, sometimes re-OC sprayed, and documented before we hit land. This is when I switched from Sonar to the antiterrorism force protection team because the people in sonar were physically fighting with each other, stealing from one another, and gossiping. They even held a meeting where they made me sit down and one of my senior techs said, OK we’re all going to take turns telling you what we hate about you. So they did, for hours, and I had no chief to back me up.

To put icing on the cake, I received a message on Facebook from a friend in Washington state that I went to A-school with saying the narcissistic person I was involved with raped his wife, and if I ever see him, tell him he will kill him. I forwarded this message to the narcissist because they were at the same Navy base together, and left it at that. A few days later, my Master chief said they were aware of a message I had on Facebook and they need access to it. I don’t know how they knew, but I had to obey, and I told them I will get them the message, but I want nothing to do with the situation. I had to speak with the XO, the CO, you name it, everyone, about what I knew, and I kept saying, I don’t know anything, this happened in Washington, I’m in Norfolk, I got a Facebook message, and I warned the person, that’s it. And not too long after, my accounts were hacked. By guess who.

When all of this, plus more that I won’t get into for the sake of time, happened, I had a breaking point. I realized I could no longer live in the world that I was living in, and I decided to leave it. My mental state was destroyed and I didn’t know what was real and what was happening. Little did I know this was some of the worst narcissistic abuse syndrome symptoms which was exploding from my narcissistic upbringing and the current situation. It was a breakdown, of unimaginable proportions. While I was getting out of the Navy, I sent a message out on Facebook that I will no longer be on Facebook because not only was I getting harassed, but I wanted to start my life over. I wanted to leave the Navy life behind, move to Arizona, and leave the me that I knew so I could create a better me. I was so sick, so distraught, so fed up and hurt that I had to wipe the slate clean, start therapy, and start from scratch. So I sent a goodbye message, and Boiled and I didn’t speak for 12 years. I remained off of social media until I started my podcasts, but I have not been back on Facebook.

One day my co-workers and I at my current job were sharing military stories. I talked about Boiled, how amazing she was, and all of the great times we had in San Diego. I was wondering what happened to her, so I decided to see if I could Google her. And there she was. On a Navy page listed as Senior Chief Boyle. I couldn’t believe it. We were in A school together as little E1- and E2’s, and now, she’s an E8. I was blown away, and was so proud of her. I wanted to see her, get a hold of her, but I didn’t have Facebook. I talked to my husband, and he searched for her in his Facebook. Is this her? Nope, that’s not her. How about this one? Nope, that’s not her either. This one? No, sorry, still not her. This one?

Yes! It was her! He found Boiled!! She looked amazing! After 12 years, here she was, a senior chief petty officer sonar tech, which if you don’t know, is a pretty big deal in the Navy.

Now came the hard part, connecting with her. You see, I had a lot of time to reflect and forgive myself for my prior life, and I have come miles since my years in the Navy. I look back on it and I’m tremendously grateful for the experiences and the wisdom I have as a result of the experiences. But this doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same. There are certainly people out there who only hold me in a negative light, using my past actions as a definition for my character, and that’s OK, because that’s their journey to realize people change. But I didn’t know if Boiled held me in a negative light, or a positive light. What would she say if my husband reached out to her for me? “Oh yea, we knew each other in San Diego, hope she is doing good, thanks, bye.” Or maybe no response at all, which tells you everything you need to know. Boiled knew me as a mess, as a drunken, lost, abused, scared person who drank to get rid of some of the problems that the drinking caused. Could she hear my name and hate me for helping to turn a preacher’s daughter into a tattoed, drinking, cussing, sailor? Would she only remember my disasters, and my sorry attempts for trying to put myself back together? Would she remember our laughter, our fun, our jokes, and our connection? Asking my husband to reach out, was one of the scariest things I have ever done because it opened the door to a past that I had closed.

He reached out, and said you don’t know me, but you know my wife. She says she knows you as Boiled, and you know her as Tanked. She’s doing well, lives in Arizona, and wants to connect.

The time from when my husband sent that message until he heard back was nerve-wracking. I knew that my Buddhist training helped and kicked in when a deep voice said it is OK if she doesn’t want to talk, and I knew that voice was right. But the unknowing of what she would say, was like waiting for a jury verdict.

Boiled responded. She wanted to connect. Oh my God, she wants to talk. And she sent me a message on November 2nd, 2020: Hey Tanked! It’s Boiled! Your husband sent me your number on Facebook. I told him I would plan to call you this weekend if that works for you?”

Tears flooded my eyes as I was typing back my schedule and we were coordinating our rendezvous. We decided to meet on What’s App, and for the first time in 12 years, Boiled-Tanked was really about to happen. I was in my tiny house, staring at my phone. She’s gonna call, she’s gonna call, OMG, Boiled, I’m gonna cry, holy shit, holy fuck. And then she called. The moment we saw each other we screamed and cried. The first 30 minutes were nothing but crying. If we said words, they were masked by tears, but all we knew was how happy we were that we were seeing each other. I held nothing back, she didn’t either. It was pure love, and connection and a reunion that was far overdue, but perfectly timed. We caught up on everything, and kept crying through the process. Everything felt right, everything felt better, and that scary door I opened to my past was met with her light rather than a scary dark unknown that I had anticipated. Boiled was back. And so was Tanked.

Boiled went though a lot in her time in the Navy. Her relationship with the guy in A school ended and he was found guilty of let’s say inappropriate pornography. She was a victim of sexual assault and was mistreatment by her fellow sailors. She wanted to get out, she hated the environment, but stayed with it and came back to the U.S and was stationed in Washington state. She traveled to the East coast and served in DC, then went back to San Diego, and now is in Norfolk with only 6 years left before she retires. Her career had frustrations, heartbreaks, anger, friendships, love, unknowns, deployments, underways, difficult people, losses, and growth. Boiled back in 2008 had no idea she would be going on an amazing and challenging journey, one that brought her to become a person that she loves. How do you continue to face difficult situations everyday, without the ability to quit or take a sick day, surrounded by people you have to agree with until you make rank, and thrown into cultures and situations fresh off of one boat and onto another with no road map of who you will meet and what you will face? Well you face it like a Boiled, a strongly vocaled, stand you ground, head on straight, heart in place, tough as nails Boiled. We can all take a lesson from her.

Throughout all the years I spent wondering if I hurt her, if I ruined her, if she hated me, if she regretted our friendship, if she is OK, if she has found happiness, if she is loved…she spent wondering if I would ever come back.

I had no idea, the impact I had on her. She told me the day I posted the Facebook message was difficult, and she thought I would be back in 3 days. When she realized I wasn’t coming back, it was hard. I couldn’t tell Boiled that I never left her, I left me, and my separation from the world was for the world’s benefit. Boiled set me free when she said she loves the person she is, she cherished us, and the day she got the message from my husband she could hardly contain herself.

Here she is, an important person from my past, who has come back with loving arms. She healed a part of me I left hurt in the closed door of my prior life, and to that I can never repay her enough. We talk as much as we can, and both of our lives are happier and fuller with significant others, wisdom gained, and years fulfilled.

She is listening to this episode, and has anticipated it since I told her I wanted to tell our story. Boiled, since you are listening, I love you. If you needed a left arm, I would give you mine. You have come such a long way from the E2 I knew, and I’m so proud of everything you have done in your life. Your accomplishments are billboard worthy. The things you regret are beautiful stones in your path to becoming even better. Your beautiful smile and personality make the bad in the world become better. Your friendship, is far more valuable than anything I can fathom. You have brought a sense of peace to my life I didn’t think I could have. I never meant to leave you for so long, but throughout all of the things we have been through separately, I’m thankful we get to go through our futures together. When we meet again, drinks are still on me, but we’ll do it better this time.

Thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime to be your friend.

If you have enjoyed this podcast, please follow me on Twitter @mindchicken, Instagram at chickenmindnuggets, or leave a review on iTunes, listen to anywhere you listen to podcasts, or visit chickenmindnuggets.com

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