2 Weeks Notice

Making the choice to deploy is easy for me. I don’t question for a second why that is; I know why. I know that there is a much bigger world outside of my own. I know that I have a responsibility to do what I can to support those who need it most, when I can and with what I have. I know this because people have done that for me during the course of my life. Sure, the argument can, and has been made that I don’t have to leave the country to do that. This is true, I don’t. In my full time work at home, I carry the same belief and do what I can in my role to help others. But those that argue that I don’t have to leave the country to help, also argued when I flew out to Alberta to support the Fort McMurray wildfires. I realized a long time ago that it’s not that they believe I shouldn’t have to leave the country, but simply that they do not want me to go. Period. I also know that most of those people care very much about my safety and well-being, and for that, I cannot fault them for their line of thinking.

But my beliefs are mine and so is my life.

My notice for deployments can be anywhere in the 24 hours to a week range. With my current full time role and our staffing shortages, I gave my availability and asked for as close to two weeks notice as I could possibly get. As the Canadian Red Cross is an extremely respectful employer who understands the difficulty outside employers have in releasing their emergency staff, I was given exactly two weeks notice for my deployment to Bangladesh. 14 days notice, 12 days ago. But like everything else in this world, two weeks notice also comes with its pros and cons.

While it gives me more time to prepare my full time work to ensure minimal disruption for those having to cover while I’m gone, it also allows too many opportunities for questions/opinions about the work I do and am about to do.

While it gives me more time to say goodbye to my children, family and friends, it also gives them too much thinking/processing time and in turn, an ability to express ALL their concerns, no matter how hurtful.

Two weeks turns into me having to comfort everyone else. Having to explain my choices to all who feel entitled to an explanation. It takes a toll on me physically, emotionally and mentally, at a time when I really need to stay focused.

Two weeks can feel like an eternity, and it has.

I find myself having to answer questions several times a day to various people who know me, people who don’t know me, people who never wanted to speak to me before they found out I did this work, people who are interested in doing the work themselves, people who have heard about what I do, people who have seen me in an interview, speaking arrangement, panel discussion…SO MANY PEOPLE WITH SO MANY QUESTIONS!

And regardless of where in the world I’ll be deploying and in what conditions I will be working in, the questions and comments are always the same.

“Why do you have to go?”

(inside voice) – “I don’t have to do anything, I CHOOSE to go! Why don’t you mind your own business and continue to make your own decisions for your own life?!”

(outside voice) – “There is not a day that goes by that I’m not grateful for the ability to be able to go and do the work that I love. It’s not for everyone, but it is for me.”

Who’s going to take care of your kids?

(inside voice) – “Ugh, their father. SHUT UP! Do you ask men who travel for business the same question every time they leave?!”

(outside voice) – “Their father. I was fortunate enough to know that I wanted to do this work at a young age, so I was able to build a life around my dream. You’ve heard the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, well I live that saying. I have a network of support that jumps in to help with whatever is needed at home when I leave for work. It works for my family.”

As a mother, how can you leave your kids?

(inside voice) – “It’s easy, I say goodbye and I get on the airplane. SHUT UP! Do you ask men who travel for business the same question every time they leave?”

(outside voice) – “As a mother, I want my children to grow up and have the courage to follow whatever dreams they have. I believe the best way to teach that, is to model it. I have 3 sons at home, who are growing up in a world that still teaches them that women are the primary caregivers in the house. At home, they are growing up in a family that supports each other, regardless of gender. My hope is that they grow up not only following their own dreams but that they also understand the importance of supporting the dreams of their partners.”

Aren’t you worried something is going to happen to you and your kids will be without a mother?

(inside voice) – “I hadn’t considered that, do mother’s worry? SHUT UP! Do you ask men who travel for business the same question every time they leave?”

(outside voice) – “I think it’s very natural to worry about something happening to me, I haven’t stopped worrying about that since my first child was born. I worry about getting hit by a car every time I walk down the street and see how distracted everyone is. I’m careful about what I eat and remain physically active because I worry about getting preventable diseases that will shorten my life and the time I have with my kids. Of course I worry! But I haven’t stopped crossing the street. I haven’t stopped eating dessert when I feel like it. I would be WAY more concerned if I chose to stop living my life.”

Be safe and don’t do anything to put your life at risk.

(inside voice) – “I’m a 36 year old mother of 3 children, who loves and values her life but thanks for the reminder, I hadn’t considered safety this time around.”

(outside voice) – “I will, thank you.”

Do you notice the theme here? Mothers? Women? This line of questioning, while the intention might be good, is based on a foundation of sexism and patriarchy. Men have been traveling for business for decades, and no one questions who will be taking care of their children while they are gone. The men I work with in the field don’t have to answer those questions either, not at home and not while we are working.

I believe that these questions are coming from a place of genuine concern, but I also believe I have a role to play in challenging them. I’ve always been very outspoken about the double standards when it comes to women traveling for work, particularly mothers, and even more so for mothers with young children. While I try to be as sincere and patient as possible, after 12 years and hearing them literally thousands of times, it’s often a challenge in itself. Still, you have to laugh to keep from crying. As far as we’ve come, we still have such a long way to go.

2 weeks can feel like an eternity, and it has.

Off to Bangladesh in 2 days.

Freedom and Fair Dinkum.

It’s not unusual to hear people say things like “just let life happen,” “everything will work itself out” and “trust the timing of your life.”  You’ve probably scrolled through thousands of those little gems on various social media accounts, maybe even reposted a few of your own.  I’m guilty of saying that myself, usually keeping it to that level of simplicity when I don’t feel like engaging in a deep conversation about life.  But how many of those people understand what any of that really means.  How many people can truly say they are comfortable living by that logic?

Sit me down in a quiet place with no time restriction, and I will delve deeper into the art of trust.  Real trust. Trusting the idea that if you allow it to, the universe will take you exactly where you need to be.  What it means to give up the control we all so desperately crave, in order to hear what we’ve been missing, forgetting, denying, rejecting.  It is the ultimate level of trust, “I walk by faith, not by sight.”

I do.

I have lived most of my life with this belief.  At my rock bottom, I realized that my purpose was so much greater than anything I could have imagined.  That in my need to find some control over a life I barely knew, I was missing everything I needed to learn.  Good or bad, right or wrong, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  The more I saw this, the more I could go back and find the signs that I had been ignoring.  The more signs I saw, the more I understood that there were no coincidences.  The more I accepted that truth, the easier my life became.

I wish I could say it was a quick awakening but it took me years of practice to stop fighting myself.  Years to learn how to drown out the noise.  Years to find comfort in the uncomfortable.  The most beautiful years of my life.

A wanderer, wandering with a wanderlust.

I have had a phenomenal career, 20 years in the making.  A career that began with so much anger and pain, frustration and fear.  A career fuelled by injustice; rage against systems created to keep people down.  I hadn’t opened my eyes to the labels I was born with, lived with, defined as, carried.  At 14, I awoke.  I found myself drowning in a system that I was powerless against.  I was a female, a girl, a victim, voiceless.  My whole world came crashing down, brick by fucking brick.  It would be 3 years before my rock bottom.  My suicide attempt.  My epiphany.  I fought to survive beyond my 17 years.  I have never stopped fighting.

My fight for women’s rights very quickly turned to a fight for human rights.  My fight against sexism, quickly turned to a fight against oppression; racism, classism, ageism, ableism, etc.  My fight at home quickly turned into a fight that crossed international borders.  My fight.  Our fight.  I got so fucking tired of fighting.

Recently, I’ve started to think about taking a break, doing something different.  I’ve been seriously considering it for a few months now.

I walk by faith, not by sight.

The more I try to control my path, the more I lose myself.  The more I lose myself, the louder the noise gets.  The louder the noise gets, the more uncomfortable I become.  It’s a cycle I find myself in occasionally and one that begs to be challenged.

A wanderer, wandering with a wanderlust.

To break that cycle, I disappear.  Alone.  I get in my car and drive, no destination, no plan.  I pick a direction and put all my faith in the universe to take me exactly where I need to go.  To show me exactly what I need to see.  To teach me exactly what I need to learn.  Two weeks ago, I left.

I found myself in Vestal, NY, a small town west of Binghampton.  I wrote.  I hiked.  I explored.  I shopped.  I laughed.  I cried.  I played music.  I sang along.  I ate.  Just me, listening to the signs of the universe.  It was peaceful there.  Beautiful actually.  The crisp fall air made it easy to spend as much time as I could in nature.  The silence made it possible to hear my thoughts and feel my feelings.  After two nights, I started to drive in the direction of home.  I was approximately 5 hours away, but I wasn’t paying attention to time.  I made whatever stops I felt like making and took whatever detours I felt like taking.  I got lost in the wrong direction, and took my time to get back to the right direction.

Then I really had to pee.

I drove by a sign on the highway that showed a Dunkin Donuts off an exit, but I didn’t see which exit I was supposed to take.  I chose the wrong one and found myself in an unknown town, surrounded by nothing.  Normally I would get back to the highway and find the right exit, but not on this trip.

There are no coincidences.

I continued to drive and still, nothing.  Nothing but a very foul odour.  It stunk!  I can’t quite explain the smell, but it was awful.  Not a farm type smell, not even a sewage type of smell, just gross.  I saw a sign for a couple hotels about 4kms away and decided to drive in that direction; hotels usually mean some kind of fast food nearby.  It felt like I had been driving forever in search of this washroom by the time I saw the golden arches in the distance.  It still smelled awful but I was happy to know that I wasn’t going to pee my pants.  I pulled into the McDonalds and used the washroom.  I hadn’t eaten in a while, so I bought a coffee and a hamburger and sat down to log onto the free wifi.  In true Sandra fashion, I recorded a video of me complaining about how bad this place smelled.  I was able to upload a couple photos that I had taken earlier but for some reason, it wouldn’t let me post the video making fun of wherever I was, I still had no idea.

There are no coincidences.

Why wouldn’t it let me load that?  I suddenly felt guilty for making the video in the first place.  It was mean and unnecessary.  Why did I feel so guilty?  Where the hell was I and why was I supposed to be there?  Instead of going back to the car, I decided to walk out onto the street to look around.  As soon as I turned the corner, I saw a sign with a little arrow that said “Women’s Rights National Park”.  I didn’t know what it was, or how far in the direction of the arrow it was, but I suddenly felt like I had to go there.  I got back into my car and continued driving.  And driving.  And driving.  Where the hell was I???  I was driving so far in the opposite direction of the highway, looking for something I had never seen or heard of.  I was just about to turn around when I saw another sign, “Seneca Falls, NY”.  No signs for this park though, I kept driving.  At least now I knew what town I was in.  I continued driving and driving, and didn’t see any park, anywhere.  What I did find was the water, and I love the water.  I made a quick turn back and drove down a hill to an area with some boats docked.  It was beautiful.  So peaceful.  Perfect.

The first boat I saw was named “Freedom”.  I smiled.  Freedom.  It was parked next to another boat, “Fair Dinkum”, an Australian slang word used to describe something that is genuine or true.  Freedom.  True.  The water.

 

There are no coincidences.

I spent a bit of time there, just taking it all in.  Finally, I was ready to get back in the car and start the drive back to the highway.  It’s Autumn, my favourite season, and the leaves were beautiful shades of red and orange.  I had to take some more pictures.  As I got closer with my camera, I could see that there was another sign, hidden behind the branches, “Women’s Rights NATL Park Community CTR” and arrow pointing back up the hill to where I came from.  I didn’t see a park on the way there, but I also know that I need to figure out what this place is.  I drive back up and park my car on the street.  I can see a little grassy area with a sign on the corner, but it’s too far for me to make out the words.  I cross the street and walk over to it.

“First convention for Woman’s Rights was held on this corner 1848”

Holy shit!  I had no idea.  I see a bench in front of the building and I walk closer to read it, “Women’s Rights National Historical Park.”  There is no park though, what is this place?!?!?!  Two people exit the building as I walk towards it; I go inside.  I find myself in the lobby of a small museum.  In it, the story of how the First convention for Woman’s Rights came to be, right here in Seneca Falls, NY.  Right where I was standing.  I walked in, and found myself completely overwhelmed with emotion.  I was surrounded by pictures of women; white, black, young, old, gay, straight, rich, poor, able-bodied, and those who were differently-abled.  I was surrounded by stories of the underground railroad, slavery, laws written to protect men, laws allowing for the rape and abuse of women by their husbands, banning women from accessing education and working in certain fields, protests, deaths, fights, fights, fights.

I walk upstairs.

There is a father with his daughter, who can’t be older than 12 years.  She is reading all of this too, asking her father if this is all true.  He tells her it is and that if any man ever hurts her, she is to call him.

There are no coincidences.

I start crying.

I’m surrounded by some of the women who fought the fight that made my own fight possible.  I’m watching a man, a father, introducing his daughter to the women who fought the fight that will make her own fight possible.

There are no coincidences.

I hear the universe loud and clear; I’m exactly where I need to be and I’m not done yet.  I allow myself to feel everything I need to feel.  Learn everything I need to learn.  See everything I need to see.  Their fight isn’t over.  My fight isn’t over.  The little girl with her father doesn’t even know that her fight has just begun.  We have a long way to go, and I’ve just refuelled.

Time to go home.