If You Were Wondering...

In the event that anyone's unclear on this, I am in fact planning to lose my mind.

It's a survival mechanism, here. You become absolutely fantastic about parroting back information. You study leadership, electronics, naval history, military history, how to work out better without hurting yourself, how to eat properly when you've got limited variety in your grub, and on the side, perhaps a bit of fun literature just to work the kinks out of your brain. Sort of like going for an easy run after spending nine hours at the gym.

In addition to this, I try to find time to grab a bit of Scripture, and possibly a well-known Christian author that simply everyone is reading. Basic maintenance, you understand.

My responsibility is to take what I've read, be able to repeat it, and be able to put it into action. Very frequently, very quickly, and invention does me no favors here. We are training OUT of original thought. Original thought is wrong, it's how we make mistakes, we're not doing it right.

Now, this is not to say that servicemembers are stupid. If we were, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't make it. This environment is demanding to say the least, and I'm still only in my first school. The simple fact is that we're adaptable. We have to be. If the way to survive in this environment is to stuff in scads of information and regurgitate it rapid-fire, we'll learn that.

But prior to my enlisting, I had a theory about human nature, and it is what allows me to do this. I hold that, left to its own devices, as long as one is still alive and everything is relatively intact, the mind and the body can heal. Always. From anything. The extent of damage may take a very long time to heal in some cases, perhaps more time than any person has left in life, but there will still be change. This is my problem with suicide, really - that if a person had just waited, at some point, life would get better. The mind would get better, once removed from the nasty situation.

So I collect beauty. I'm not sure why, exactly, but there's something about beauty that heals the mind. Tonight I spent an hour listening to my sister's friend play acoustic guitar on his youtube videos. Not that his voice is remarkably lovely, but acoustic is quietly so. And it tells me that somewhere out there, there's a young man who has TIME to play his guitar. I haven't had time to play my saxophone in months. Now and again I find an unattended piano and can run over some well-rehearsed melodies, but that's rare. But somewhere is a person who isn't running for food, or shelter, or dashing to compete against other people who are just as deserving as he is for one isolated position that might elevate him to a higher level of responsibility in hopes of catching the eye of the leader who might get him a few points towards his next rank. Someone's free, somewhere back home.

And that's what I think about. I don't want to ditch my responsibilities. I want to serve, to do what I said I would, and do it well. And when it comes to after this, I talk about my plans for college, and work, and what else I hope to accomplish. But when I think on my own time about getting out, I'm reminded of a scene from Spitfire Grill, because all of my fantasies are just having some time alone in the woods, on the hills, sitting in the grass or the dirt, and just breathing. Just eyes closed, hearing the woods around me. Coming back to that same place for days, where I'm not imposing on it, and the world can forget I'm there. And hopefully, with enough time, I can forget I'm there, forget about me and where I hurt, and what I need to be doing, and just listen.

And then in time, a long time later, I might be okay around my sister's friend, and she might ask him to play guitar (because I think I'm going to be a very quiet person for a very long time), and I'll sit, and listen to the notes spill from the frets, and something else will unlock from between my shoulders, and more will seep away.

And after a long time, I might trust someone to go hiking the North Shore with me, when I'm not hiding the tension, but I can let it seep out of me, to be caught up by the wind off the lake and flung up into the clouds.

And someday, someday, I will laugh for sheer exuberance, the way I used to, when I suddenly take off running. And I'll be free.

I'm not PTSD. I haven't seen combat, and it's greater than a 99% probability that I never will. I'm not dealing with anything more than any other person on this base, likely. And I still have yet to hit the job I'm actually training for. But my sister worries sometimes, that her sister is getting lost. And I wanted to let you know that in some ways, I kind of am, but I'm on a long leash back to myself. I knew a little about this before I came in. And I'm going to be okay again.