Built to Belong

by Natalie Franke

  Day after day in the hot summer sun you are pushed to the limit and held to the highest standard. Pristine uniforms and shined shoes are required at all formations and inspections. Haircuts are frequent, with lengths never to exceed the collar. Showers are short, and personal time is limited.

  You learn how to tie knots, sail boats, and qualify with the .45-caliber pistol and the M1 rifle. You march.

  There are obstacle courses to run, ropes to climb, and parallel bars to swing from. You march some more.

  You must tread water for forty minutes while being weighed down by heavy military clothes. Then you march again. By the time you are done marching and your head hits the pillow, you are nearly too tired to fall asleep. Plebe Summer is arduous.

  Several days before Labor Day, the brigades of upperclassmen arrive. Unfortunately, then it only gets harder. The older midshipmen make it their mission to ensure that all plebes are put to the test. Struggling young plebes must march down the center of the hallways and can only take the long way around—no cutting corners, no shortcuts ever.

  At mealtimes during the school year, all four thousand midshipmen are fed together at one sitting. Stainless-steel platters are brought to the tables with large trays full of meat and sides. When the food arrives, the seniors get access first, and they take the choice pieces. Afterward, second classmen and then third classmen have their go. By the time it gets to the plebes, there are only leftovers remaining.

  No one goes hungry, but they certainly don’t get the best parts of the meal.

  Once the plebes get their turn to eat, upperclassmen start grilling them with questions. Hard questions. If you don’t know the answer, you respond, “I’ll find out, sir.” You don’t guess. If, God forbid, you answer incorrectly, anticipate a verbal assault from all directions. All of this difficulty is by design.

  As a plebe, you are in enemy territory at all times. You are all at the bottom of the totem pole, and it is a steep, strenuous climb to the top. These intentional hardships are a critical rite of passage. Each future officer embarks upon a personal quest to prove that they won’t give up, to prove that if push comes to shove, they are willing to lay their life on the line for their country.

  My grandfather, in recounting the hardship of that summer, remembers one thing above the rest. No matter how hard it got, he never had to face it alone.

  Jack was right there with him when he was running late to class or formation. It was always crunch time. Making sure his shoes were shined, his uniforms were pressed. Picking up the slack when classes ran behind or challenges arose. Jack always had Frank’s back, and my grandfather had his.

  On the obstacle course, the high platform was my grandfather’s greatest challenge, a towering structure with a ledge five feet off the ground. Plebes had to climb their way over the barricade in order to reach the other side. Frank had trouble clearing the high platform, whereas Jack was able to get over easily.

  To help my grandfather pass the test, Jack reached out his arm from the top of the platform and pulled him up and over. One outstretched hand and the pair passed the test just in time. It was a triumph through teamwork.

  Back and forth they helped each other. Amid the sailing and studying, they held each other accountable and carried the other’s load when the weight became too much to bear.

  You see, as a plebe you are taught early on to look out for one another. The only way through it is together. You are all in the same boat, figuratively and quite literally.

  Every day at noon, midshipmen march together in formation outside of Bancroft Hall. A towering building of stone, it sits at the heart of the academy grounds. They line up in front of the building perfectly before proceeding to lunch.

  There is a famous flag that hangs inside Bancroft. It glimmers above a marble staircase leading to Memorial Hall, which honors all USNA grads who died in combat defending the United States. On the flag is a phrase sewn onto the fabric that bears a motto my grandfather has repeated time and time again from when I was young: “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”

  These five words were the dying battle cry of twenty-seven-year-old Captain James Lawrence, captain of the USS Chesapeake in the War of 1812. After he was mortally wounded, his heartfelt plea to his crew was to refuse surrender at all costs. Despite his final words, the British overtook the American fleet and the battle was lost.

  Months later, the war raged on. Fellow naval officer, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, upon hearing of his late friend’s passing, named his ship the Lawrence and commissioned a flag emblazoned with his friend’s final phrase. In battle, Perry set out to finish what his friend could not. Turning his pain into purpose, he used these words to inspire others to bravery.

  As he sailed into battle against the British on Lake Erie, Oliver Hazard Perry raised the flag in honor of his comrade. The Americans were victorious, and the phrase “don’t give up the ship” has lived on ever since.

  It is an anthem to persevere and a reminder that all sailors are in it together until the end. It demands that we stand united in moments when it would be easier for us to abandon ship—and abandon one another.

  Plebe year at the Naval Academy is about so much more than strengthening midshipmen physically and mentally. It is about forging friendships in the fire and clarifying the core value of camaraderie in the face of adversity. It is a lesson about the strength of camaraderie and refusing to give up when your buddy is relying on you to move forward.

  My grandfather and Jack remained friends for the rest of their lives. They were truly inseparable—spending the school year involved in athletics, helping each other in academics, and spending their summer leave together. This lasted for all four years at the Naval Academy.

  Commissioning sent them in different directions, the marine corps for Jack and the air force for Frank, but they always stayed in touch. Several times they reconnected at various duty stations while on leave. After separation from the service, they resumed seeing each other quite often on vacations and at most of the navy football games, until Jack passed away a few years ago.

  Fifty-seven years of steadfast friendship. No matter where their careers took them, through seasons of hardship and seasons of prosperity, they would forever remain bonded in the brotherhood of service, dedicated to their country and to each other.

  Friendships can be forged in the fire.

  Facing challenges together bonds us. Enduring hard seasons side by side unites us. However, so often when we are facing hardship, we withdraw from the world and try to overcome it alone. We become fearful of letting people in. We become afraid to be vulnerable about what we are walking through, and we all suffer for it.

  The next time you are facing a particularly difficult season of life, try this instead:

  • Be open with your loved ones about what you are going through. Don’t hustle to hide it. Don’t repress your feelings while trying to appear as though you have it all together. Start by being honest. Remember that vulnerability invites more vulnerability. To kick off the conversation, start with: “I trust you and want to confide in you about something that I’m really struggling with. I’m not looking for advice. I just want to be honest with you about what I’m going through.”

  • Search for a support group. There are groups for nearly every human experience, and they can be a powerful place to forge relationships and create connections. Four of the most powerful words in the human language are: you are not alone. Find a group that gets it, and when you make it to the other side of your season of struggle, remember to pay it forward by giving back to the groups that gave so much to you.

  • Ask for help when you need it. When you are struggling, speak up. We can’t expect people to read our minds and know precisely what we need. We also cannot push away help that is offered to us because of our pride. We must be willing to ask for and accept assistance in our seasons of struggle. There is no shame in needing support.

  When we’re treading water to the brink of exhaustion and someone re
aches out their hand to pluck us from the sea, we need to have the courage to take that hand. There are lifeboats all around us for when we need a break from the battles of life. However, in order to make it through, we need to be willing to accept assistance from a friend.

  Friendships can be forged in the fire.

  We not only bond face-to-face, but very often, shoulder-to-shoulder, working alongside one another through challenging seasons and personal hardships.

  So often we think of relationships as something that stems from seasons of prosperity, but I truly believe that community is strongest in the struggle. It is strengthened by shared experience and is designed to be our safe place to land.

  We must be willing to open our hearts to the possibility of doing life with others… not just when we have it all together, but also when the world is falling apart. That is the place where the community shines the brightest. That is the moment when we discover the impact of belonging.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OVERCOMING COMPARISON

  Growing up, we are taught to believe that when we’re ready to have a baby, it will just happen. Heck, as a Catholic kid, I worried that looking at a boy the wrong way would accidentally get me pregnant. Mary was a virgin, remember? Those nuns really know how to scare us.

  The picture of parenthood is always painted a certain way. Broad, simple brushstrokes on a pristine canvas. When two people are ready for a family, it just happens.

  Boom. There are candles, a little Marvin Gaye, and nine months later… an adorable bald baby enters the world. Right?

  No one talks about how many people are yearning deeply for a child—waiting to become parents or expand their family, experiencing loss, going through adoption, searching for a surrogate, or battling infertility. No one really talks about the vast routes to parenthood and the pain that often accompanies the journey.

  Three years into marriage with an infertility diagnosis resulting from a benign brain tumor, I walked into a clinic with my husband for the first time. There is nothing that says romance quite like a cold sterile hospital room, nitrile gloves, and thousands of dollars in medical bills. Making a baby was nothing like we thought it would be.

  I still remember the butterflies I felt in my stomach as I walked into the fertility doctor’s office. This was the beginning of our journey. This doctor was going to fix whatever was going wrong with me. Framed diplomas and plaques covered the walls. This doctor was the real deal—and with his help, I was going to join the mom club.

  His eyes scanned the documents on his desk. Cluttered white papers from corner to corner: dozens of hormone tests, ultrasound reports, and my brain MRI laid out in the open. His eyes rose to meet mine.

  “I don’t think it’s smart to begin fertility treatment at this time.”

  His words sent a searing-hot pain straight down into my stomach. With a giant heap of empathy, our fertility endocrinologist went on to explain that my brain tumor would need to be removed or dealt with through radiation or medication before proceeding with a healthy pregnancy.

  I nodded stoically. When inside, my mind was screaming, Wait, what? You mean, we can’t even start treatment? We need to wait even longer? You won’t help me?

  I was crushed.

  This doctor’s entire job was to help women get pregnant. All those framed accolades were proof that he was one of the best in the business. Yet, somehow, my body was too broken for him to fix. This was never part of my plan.

  None of this was part of my plan.

  The two years that followed that first appointment were painful. One by one my friends got pregnant—all in the same pattern: a happy announcement on social media, baby shower invitations in the mail, and a flood of newborn photographs a few months later. Every milestone, every joyous moment, every time I refreshed my feed.

  Not a month went by when I wouldn’t sneakily take a pregnancy test, get the same negative result, and then bury the evidence deep in our tiny bathroom trash can so that my husband wouldn’t know what I had done. I was ashamed to admit that I still had hope—afraid that he would have to share in my latest round of disappointment.

  I tried so hard to hide my pain, and yet it only continued to grow. The deeper I tried to bury it, the more violently it would emerge every time it was awakened by someone else’s joy.

  She just announced her pregnancy. That girl I went to high school with is having twins. Oh, matching family pajamas at Christmas—isn’t that lovely!

  With each passing month, it became harder and harder to celebrate my friends in their newfound seasons of parenthood. Each pregnancy announcement, every baby shower invitation, was just a reminder of my barrenness.

  I was angry with myself. Bitterness replaced my joy. Jealousy consumed me. My lungs inhaled hope and exhaled misery. The endless cycle of comparison and grief was poisoning me slowly from the inside out.

  I didn’t like the person I was becoming. This was a lesson that I didn’t want to have to learn, a painful journey that I never wanted to embark on, and it was going to transform me irrevocably. I could only hope that it would be for the better.

  DEFEATING MY NEMESIS

  Comparison isn’t just the thief of joy—it’s the plunderer of purpose, the burglar of belonging. It is a dagger forged in the fires of our deepest fears and insecurities that threatens our very well-being.

  We cannot fully benefit from the healing power of community or navigate the world with a deep sense of acceptance when we are constantly struggling with our own enoughness. A joyful life alongside others requires that we shift our tendencies away from negatively comparing ourselves and toward openly celebrating others.

  Look, I know this isn’t easy. I just shared a glimpse into my own struggles with comparison in one of my darkest seasons, and it isn’t pretty. I don’t like admitting how hard I have struggled with this. However, I know that I’m not alone.

  It isn’t always big things. Sometimes it’s the simplest aspects of daily life that catch you in a comparison trap.

  Ready for my realization?

  Modern life exacerbates our innate desire to compare and our longing to understand where we fit in the world. We used to compare ourselves to a handful of people in our immediate circle—now it’s ten thousand other people on the internet.

  On social media, our competitive mindsets can go into overdrive. Scrolling and consuming the story lines of others leads to an amalgamation of accomplishments, heaped into a massive mountain that our minds are incapable of climbing. Like the snowball effect, each win or success in someone else’s life gets piled onto the heap of evidence of why you’re not measuring up.

  What starts as: He has the perfect home. She landed a promotion at work. They have the perfect kids.

  Evolves into: Everyone except for me has the perfect home, the perfect kids, career success, and the perfect life.

  We consume independent pieces of information, meticulously curated to portray each of our lives in the best light possible and mesh them together into a joy-draining perception of the way things are.

  We construct a false narrative of reality and begin to accept it as truth.

  In our moments of weakness, we turn the celebrations of others into a weapon against ourselves. A weapon that we create and construct in our own minds. Comparison can quickly become a sword of self-sabotage that leaves us feeling inadequate.

  At least, that’s how it can feel sometimes… right?

  The underlying truth is that social comparison is a hardwired part of the human experience and in its simplest form is an innate act of self-evaluation. In order to understand how we are performing in life, our brain looks to others as a benchmark.

  Psychologists commonly categorize social comparison in two ways: upward and downward comparison.

  Upward comparison involves comparing ourselves to someone we perceive as better off than we are. Downward comparison involves comparing ourselves to someone we perceive as worse off than we are. Think of it like a swinging pendulum between t
wo different perspectives: “It could always be better” or “It could definitely be worse.”1

  For example, we see someone at work who is getting a promotion or creating their own business and aspire to reach similar heights (upward comparison). We may also look at someone who is struggling in the office and find ourselves feeling pleased that we aren’t in their shoes at that moment in time (downward comparison).

  Neither upward nor downward comparison is inherently bad. However, our underlying feelings play a significant role in which direction we take and, ultimately, the outcome of how we feel when it is all said and done.

  When we have negative emotions, we are much more likely to compare ourselves with people we perceive to be better than us, which in turn further worsens our overall well-being. That endless scrolling, that comparison monster created from the accumulation of everyone else’s accomplishments in upward comparison only further exacerbates how we were feeling all along. It affirms our deepest fears and provides us with the proof we were looking for—that we aren’t measuring up.

  The opposite is true, however, when we set out to make ourselves feel better. When we want to feel good, we’re more likely to compare ourselves with people we perceive to be worse off than us, and then, for the most part, our well-being improves… at least for a short while.2

  Frankly, I’m not a fan of relying on downward comparison to create the illusion of happiness and satisfaction. The pain or struggle of others is not a reason to find joy—even when it illustrates the blessings in our lives. It’s just temporary pain relief that we choose over doing the hard work of healing what is broken. We must fight against that.

  We deserve to know that we are inherently enough, that we are worthy of love and belonging, without having to compare ourselves to others. And in order to navigate the tendencies that are hardwired within us, we must reframe our mindsets, dig deeper for an empathy-centered truth, and practice gratitude daily.