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| Me with my brothers and sisters in 2014. |
My name is Karen Benecewicz and I was born in August of 1973, in New London, Connecticut,
while my father was enlisted in the Navy.
A week after my mother got her driver's license. Running joke is they gave her the license
because they saw how pregnant she was. I am the oldest of six, I have 2
brothers and 3 sisters. There is an 18-year
age difference between me and the youngest.
My favorite childhood memory is traveling to Brooklyn in the
summer and visiting my grandparents and cousins. It was like a second home, a
familiar place to go to, in between all our moves. As a military brat, we moved around a lot.
While in the Navy, my father was also stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1979-80 my father was commissioned as an
officer in the Army. His first duty
assignment was Edgewood, Maryland - just up the road in Harford County. From there he was stationed in Landstuhl,
Germany. My trip to Germany was a very
unforgettable event.
My father left a few months before to report and find us a
house.
So, in the winter of 1982, my mother,
traveling alone with 4 children ranging in age from 9 years to 3 months
arranged our flight to Germany.
We left
on a cold snowy November morning, out of JFK and flew to Philadelphia.
A snow storm delayed our plane and we missed
our connecting flight.
After a few phone
calls, we were loaded on to a bus and went to McGuire Air Force Base in New
Jersey.
It felt as if we waited there a
whole day. Actually it was late in the evening when we finally were told we had
a flight.
We were loaded on to a C-141 cargo plane. It was dark, cold
and barely any seats and NO
windows. My sisters and I found a spot
along the wall in the drop down jump seats. We were buckled in, issued ear
plugs and given a boxed dinner for the long plane ride. Several hours past and when we landed. Do you
know what I saw? (Remember there were no windows.) Palm trees, sunshine and it was a balmy 70 something
degrees. At 9 years old, I knew this
was NOT Germany! Apparently we stopped in the Azores to
refuel. To say the least, after sitting
on the jump seats and being up all night, I was NOT getting back on that plane.
I wanted to stay, it was paradise.
After some persuasion, I was finally coxed back on to the plane and
apparently forced some high ranking official to give me his seat. Needless to say, we finally arrived in
Germany where we were greeted by my father.
The flight to the United States three years later was more
of what I had in mind. Window seats,
peanuts on the plane and a movie. My
experience in Europe as a young child inspired my passion for travel and
history. The year we returned was the
summer of 1986, I had just finished 5th grade and we moved to San Antonio,
Texas for 3 whole months. In December of
that year we moved to Indianapolis, Indiana.
I considered Indiana my home for the longest time. I was able to finish middle school and
started high school. It was in Indiana
where I learned to drive and got my first job.
My first job was a record store, back when cds were a new thing. I was
one of those cool kids with a great job.
I think it was during my time at the record store I acquired my taste
for alternative music. I love concert, live bands and try to keep up with the
new artist. At the end of my junior
year my father retired and was offered a job back at Edgewood, Maryland. So, the summer of 1990 was a miserable one. I left my best friend, moved to a town where I knew no one and had
to start my senior year at a brand new school.
After high school, I attended
Immaculata University and
majored in History and International Relations. I spent the first 5 months after
graduation traveling between Supreme Headquarter Allied Powers Europe (S.H.A.P.E.),
in Belgium and Amsterdam /Hague area of Holland.
One of the greatest weeks of my life was spent
in London exploring Westminster Abby, seeing
Cats,
Phantom of the Opera
and
Les Miserable.
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| My children - Josh, 13 Caroline, 19 and Geoff, 12 |
Upon returning I settled in to working. I had a few random
temp jobs. In 1997 I meet the love of my
life, we married in 2000. It was also in
1997 when I took a job as a declassification analyst where I read some pretty
interesting papers. In 2001, I left the
position, I was five months pregnant at the time and the commute between
Baltimore, MD and Springfield, VA was becoming too much. I took time off to raise my kids. I have 3 beautiful children - Caroline, 19;
Joshua, 13 and Geoffrey, 12. In 2002 my
husband and I bought our home in Parkville, Maryland. All three of my children have gone to the same
elementary and middle school. They have the life I have always considered to be
normal.
In 2007, I went back to work, picking up part-time jobs here
and there.
In 2012, I was hired as a
temp work at the
Anne Arundel County (AA Co.) Board of Elections. They were
ramping up for the Presidential Election.
I had always had a passion for politics, my maternal grandfather once
ran for office in New York, so it was in the blood.
I felt I had finally found a home as far as
my career was concerned. It was interesting to see the election from the side
no one sees until election day.
Due to
funding issues, I was released after the election.
In 2014 after being
in between jobs again and out of school for 20 years, I decided it was a good
time to start my Master’s program in Contemporary Communications. The same week I was called back to work at
the AA Co. Board of Elections. So here
I am today, daughter, sister, mother, wife, student with an anticipated graduation
of May 2017 and employee in the Election Workers Department of the AA Co. Board
of Elections.
Warm pies cooling on the counter and the evening dinner simmering on the stove, while the days soap operas played in the background. My mother was a little June Cleaver and a little Peg Bundy. She was my only example of what a mother should be and I never needed more until I lost her. Once she was gone and I became a mother myself; I quickly began looking for some guide of "how to parent". It all seemed very textbook except that it never quite worked for me. I was never any good at a scheduled day and proper bedtimes. I let my children show me when they needed to sleep and we often ate on a nonexistent schedule. I spent many moments thinking about all the things I was doing wrong but never considered I was doing anything right. I wanted to be June Cleaver but I felt more like Marge Simpson. I took comfort in the fact that I wasn't Peg Bundy. I had this idea in my head about what family life and parenting was supposed to be and then I had the reality of what it was and that is what I call "Pohler opposites".
