Eliminating Disappointment
Note and Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own M*A*S*H and its characters and storylines (CBS and 20th Century Fox do). I just wrote this story, I swear, like all others. It's also totally different from what I usually write. This, like most of my one-shots, is based off of Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, just after Margaret leaves the 4077th and heads to the 8063rd. This is a part of a series of one-shots for all of the main characters during or after the war ends, written in the first or third person.
They always said to me, by eliminating the disappointment – the bitterness, even – of life, you take away the pain of being the person you're supposed to be, the pain of being a man.
But I am not a man, but a woman. And I've been through more than what a normal man can handle, been through more than what any of them can say. I've been through war and love and everything else I could not possibly imagine.
I've been in the Army for my whole life, so war should have been normal to me. Nevertheless, after the Army, being in a war was a family tradition, born and bred in every one of us. Hell, I even traveled with my father as a child and knew everything about being in the military (Fort Ord was the longest we've been someplace) and enlisted as soon as I could, entering service in 1942. Like him, I followed my own heart and decided what I wanted to do…with his wishes in mind. I often went by what my father wanted and, as always, ignored what my own heart wanted: taking away the pain of being who I wanted to be.
All I wanted to do was be happy and to have a happily-ever-after story after all I've been through. Most of all, I wanted to be married and have children and to live someplace I can call home. I loved the feeling of being in love all the time, which was what I thought was going to make me happy. After all, I never had a stable family life. I've always traveled and thought of my career first and foremost because it was what I grew up with, knew. I didn't have any idea what love really meant, for I never really felt it. Lust, maybe, but never love.
However, as I sit here in my temporary tent at the 8063rd M*A*S*H, I think back to what I've been doing, eleven years after I joined other Army nurses and served without a thought to my own happiness mostly. From Europe to Japan to Korea I went and yet…was there ever such a miserable creature such as I? I didn't show it because it was my duty to love and serve my country, but yet, to show weakness…to show the tears of grief and disappointment…would not be tolerated. I had to prove to them, one and all, once and for all, that I was not a typical woman. No, I was a woman that could not be tampered with, a woman that others would fear and shrink from.
No, I had to get rid of all of that. I would fall back on the first love of my life – Army Regulations – and be comforted by that I could reform some of the draftees that I would come across. After all, war was coming to Korea, that Godforsaken country, and I could do without the tedium of Tokyo and its Generals. They needed me there to serve and I would do my country proud…except there was nothing more to do in order to achieve that.
I never easily made friends, but was delighted to find a "friend" in Frank Burns after being humiliated when I showered and when I even wanted privacy in my tent. A fellow Army Major as I was, he was easy to get along with and I felt sorry for him in a way. He was married, had children and loved me, even if he was sending his wife and three daughters letters saying how much he loved them almost daily. He was also just as Regular Army as I was and shared the same sense of discipline we longed for in the camp. He was religious…to a point…and even quoted Scripture at me (Father Mulcahy corrected him a few times). But, he was never the man I wanted him to be. Month after month, he gave me promises of love, marriage and children. He gave me promises of a home, a life and even that happily-ever-after I wanted. And, month after month, I believed him until I got tired of him. I got tired of the lies, the deceit and him calling me names to his wife on the phone. I pushed him away and, with that, one way to receive the happiness that I so wanted.
Then, there was Donald Penobscott. I met him in Tokyo and became engaged to him almost immediately. He was charming, much more so then Frank, and had the characteristics of the man I wanted: tall, dark, handsome, physically durable and even a Lieutenant Colonel. We married shortly afterward and tried to have that marriage I always dreamed of – finally, having that man I wanted in my life – but it failed, as all things in my life seem to do. After hearing a nurse say she had an affair with a Colonel named Donald, I flew into a rage. After he transferred to San Francisco, initially saying that he wanted to repair our marriage, I flew into another rage. I divorced him and grew stronger. I knew that the best thing to do was to be my own woman, to show everybody that I could get over the disappointment, to hide the tears of sadness. I could not afford to show how apprehensive I was about not having that life I wanted, but chose to move on, yet again.
There were other interests, other men that I wanted to try out that on, but there were none that I could find. Aides, soldiers, doctors…they all seemed the same to me. They were men. Most had no interest in what I wanted and shared no ambitions with me. But then, there were others who had reached out and crossed their signals most of the time. The one I usually had in mind, after Jack Scully (although he was a pain too) was Captain Hawkeye Pierce, the womanizer of the camp, a member of the morale police, in a sort of way.
Hawkeye Pierce also seemed to want to settle down, if he found the right person to do it with. But, in other ways, he showed that he wanted to be around women, no matter who it was. He went after one after another – just as I had with men – and even when he was at his happiest, I could see that even he was unhappy, especially after seeing a woman he loved leave him. He could not find the right notch anywhere, it seemed, and, like me, loved to be loved.
But, personal life and habits aside…he's a good man. He was often bitter about the war, but he was stood his ground and never backed down from what he believed in, even if it was against Army Regulations. He joked, pranked and even teased. With his bunkmates, save for Frank Burns and mostly Charles Winchester, he made the 4077th a more bearable place to be. I could even somehow understand the pain and shock he went through after seeing that baby smothered on the bus…the pain of seeing a quick end to the war…and the excitement he must have felt when he finally found a way to leave.
And then that kiss, only earlier today…
No. It's not possible. It's not possible at all. But, could it? No, I could not hope anymore. I've been through another disappointment and pain to know that even a man like Hawkeye Pierce could kill love, could leave a woman to die in her self-loathing, even if he was sincere enough. But I would have loved it. And I would have loved to have him again.
So, I sit here, thinking, wondering, flipping through the pages of optimism. This war turned me to romanticism, turned me into a sap in many ways. But it was all I could live for, all I could dream about. And after that…then what? I could not imagine my life forever. I have to live it.
I made too many promises, said too many words that could…or could not…be broken. I could not back down now. I'll see to them someday and to make sure that, in the future, I would look to myself, and not to others, for what should be in my life. I would fight for my own joy.
I am Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, a former Army nurse, who only wanted something – somebody – in her life. I am unmarried, without children and single and yet…I only long for one man. One man would make me happy.
And all I have to do, as I settle down for the first time, is to call him, to make sure that he got home and to reassure him that I did the same, for once. Then, for the first time ever, I could put aside the despondency and gloom of my life, to finally be the woman I wanted to be, and to put aside all of the disappointment of all of my life and to be a human being finally.
For, to that one man, I want to say:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
As everyone knows, the poem written down is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 43" from Sonnets of the Portuguese, which, if I remember correctly, if one of Margaret's favorite poems. In Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, Charles does give Margaret Volume 3 of his set of poems, this being one of them.