Cinderella
I tell myself that we have 3 years and then the milspouse label will no longer apply to me. And in that vein, I have been trying (after a decade of doing my best to avoid involvement with the mean girls who drove me off my first year as a milspouse) to check off all the quintessential milspouse things, like a trip to Disneyland before we depart into that blessed goodnight. This year, I was working myself up to going to a ball, something the t-shirt and jeans (also sweatpants in the commissary) me would avoid like the plague.
I was already feeling stressed about it. I was poor growing up and had saved to buy a second-hand homecoming dress. The mean girls at school made a point of making fun of me and when prom came around, I never went. I couldn’t make myself go through the humiliating bullying again, even when my friend offered to buy me a dress and the whole nine yard. (Mike, I still adore you for that offer and I have never forgotten it.) So I steeled myself for dress shopping and shortly after I had made the circuit and found that there just weren’t a lot of pretty dresses that fit well, and addressed my modesty concerns (raised Mormon), I talked to my mom who resurrected a dress she had started for my wedding. She finished the skirt off and sent me the top from my engagement dress. And then I accidentally stumbled on the ~300 comments about ball dresses on SpouseBuzz, which ran the gambit from: -the chic in the pictures boobs are not the same size, some one should call her plastic surgeon- to-ball gowns are not appropriate for a ball and look silly- no slits, no bright colors, no low-cut because we think you look like and are a slut- and of course, the quintessential -we’re mean and judgy for your own good. In all fairness there were minority voices who disagreed with being mean and judgy as a public service, but they were a very small minority.
I walked back to my closet and looked at my hand-made dress with it’s full skirt and old-fashioned pale lace. It definitely looked like a dress right out of the 1950s, closer to an old-school cotillion dress than modern evening wear, and I felt sick. Add to it my asymmetric breasts and the 30 lbs I’ve gained in graduate school and I just wanted to cry. I could just envision my ball experience, surrounded by these women. It looked a little like this. This is going to be high school all over again. And my next thought was, maybe I should just get our money back from the ball tickets. I wanted to do it once for the experience, but if this is the experience I’ll be in for, my ego doesn’t need another beating. But then what do I say to my arthritic mother who lovingly sewed me the dress that they women will mock?
You see, my problem is that clothes don’t make the man or woman. What comprises your character is something deeper than that and it is often revealed the second you open your mouth. These women who spent so much time ripping on every aspect of other people’s formal attire do so because they believe that how you look is the measure of who you are. But, what you say indicates something profound about you and that how you act toward other people is a measure of who you are.
So I will wear my old-fashioned ball gown to the military ball and I am sure I will be mocked by women (aka Cinderella’s step sisters) who think that the only thing that matters is what I wore. I will conduct myself with grace and kindness toward every person there, regardless of my attire. But I want to believe I am wrong, that this won’t happen and that we are more than just a bunch of mean girls. I want to believe that some day we will grow into the word community, embrace it and treat each other with dignity and respect. I want to believe that some day military spouses will realize that how they act in the public arena matters as much, if not more, than how they dress and that they will let every military spouse enjoy their moment with their Prince or Princess Charming at the ball because we have enough darkness and sorrow and suffering in our lives and each of us deserves a moment like this.
Here’s the thing: I’ve started avoiding spousebuzz. it’s gone WAY downhill in the past year or so and the only articles that are written are stupid crap like the ball gown dress. Nearly every article lately has been this horrid “we are mil wives and we are idiots” .
Truly, I think there are more of “us” than them. I know that the group I sit with at our balls are dressed in everything from black street dress to full blow ball gown. One of us shows too much boob, and one of us covers up too much, but the thing is we’re all still friends. And we don’t give a flying fluck what anyone else says.
Do I think people look at us? Who cares. The thing is that we’ve all been around the block 8 or 10 or 30 times. And we simply realized that the spousebuzzers of the world only have power when we give it to them. Yes, there are mean girls – but I really think they just think they’re supposed to be that way. If we want military wives to change then we must MUST show up and be ourselves. Period.
Wear your dress, be happy, and look for another lost soul. You’ll find her.
I agree with Michelle – wear your dress and be happy! The women who are judging others feel far worse about themselves then what they are projecting onto others. Which really, just makes me feel sad for them.
I look back at the balls that we attended and remember that my husband ditched me to smoke outside, and I remember the one when I had THE best time ever, and I look at our pictures and remember how naive I was about everything military related. LOL But I don’t remember what others were wearing, I barely remember what I was wearing (except to one because I loved that dress). I remember my babysitter snapping a picture before we left, and I miss her because at the tender age of 16 she killed herself. I look back at these experiences and am able to make that check mark off the milspouse things list. We have had many opportunities to go to more balls, and we haven’t, but the ones we went to I have memories of.
Also, I think the spousebuzz website is really not a good place and I hope that new wives do not think that is the norm.
Oh, I am going to go, but I wanted to make a clear and distinct point. Some military spouses are BULLIES and they justify their bullying behavior as being public service to the spouses they ridicule. I’ve been bullied. I don’t like it and while it is NOT acceptable behavior in ANY arena, I think it is particularly low, classless behavior coming from people who have been slogging through war for 10 yrs. But telling them this directly gets negative responses, so the best way to articulate my point is to paint a picture of how it feels to observe it and to listen to it and to have people I work with who are civilians think that this is what military spouses are…all we are.
I believe that someone has to visibly stand as a counterpoint to their behavior. Some has to tell them that you could wear the most expensive designer dress in the world, but it goes out the window the second you open your mouth and use your words to verbally abuse another human being.
Maybe I am too sensitive, but the past few years have been full of too much suffering for me to remain silent and laugh off behavior that hurts real human souls. I have no stomach for man’s inhumanity to man.
Ugh. If there is one thing I won’t miss when my husband separates next year, it’s the mean and judgy spouses. Yes, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid them too… For 20 years! A ball? Forget about it. Never been.
Anything remotely spouse-related online or IRL? Nope. I haven’t gotten involved. Instead, I’ve focused on putting myself and my career first, and been much happier for it.
Be yourself. Wear what makes you feel comfortable. Go. Have a good time. Smile and eat and enjoy the night!
You aren’t too sensitive. Many of those women are just awful. We often find kindred spirits from afar, unfortunately, usually via blogs and online groups. But sometimes we get lucky and find someone we can talk to right there on base. So if you have a friend there who is attending, make arrangements to meet up or go together. That might help.
If I thought SnarkyNavyWife could be conned into a ball gown, I’d make her go, but other than that I don’t really know anyone there. Maybe that’s a good thing. The hubs is trying to convince the lesbian couple at his command to come with us, but has had no luck, which is too bad because I would love to watch the jaws drop.
I don’t live near the base because of my career, which is a godsend because I can dip in and out of the culture as necessary. I feel you on that.
I just believe that until women start treating each other with dignity and respect, they’ll never get men to do so. It’s 20-effing-12 and these women are carrying on like it’s 1899.
Anyway, the ball is nearly upon us and then I’ll have an update from my poofy dress that is now also not approved of by the wonderful juveniles commenting on MSM’s BS post. It’s kind of empowering to be unapproved goods. Ha.
Oh evening dresses. How I love thee. I used to have 28. Then the robbers took all of them. They were beautiful. Earned 50 cents at a time by dancing, or working two jobs while in high school. I would love them because it was what I wore at the beauty pageants. It was the wrapper to all the best of me on thaat stage on pageant weekend. I would be this beautiful teenage girl. Clean, elegant, and american. Not a dirty barely legal mexican who worked too hard for way too little. Not that kid who got shit on by life. Not that awkward teenager who could never get a boyfriend. I loved my dresses because they made me feel beautiful. Like I was someone I’m not. Sometimes when wed have a really bad day, id put my dress on and slap on my crown and simply make my parents laugh. Wed take pictures and play music, id even dance for them. Or sometimes when someone would really treat me like shit id put on my dress and feel like I’m secretly better than them. That this trailer trash bitch is royalty to someone out there. I miss my dresses. I cried so hard when I realized they were stolen. Burglaries are rough. Especially when it was the jealous nieghbors who stole from you. And they rub it in your parents face cause they can’t do anything about it. I don’t think ill ever own an evening gown ever again. Ronald Leroy hates his blues too much to take me to the Navy ball. And I can’t see myself doing pageants again. Oh well. Maybe that’s just how things go. One never knows who they really work for.