The Church is all about communion. Communion with Jesus. Communion with each other. I am, and forever will be, dependent on communion. I need my friends and my family and my faith. My Platoon Sergeant even gave me a Christian Soldier challenge coin to commemorate this tour where he gave me so much crap about faith, in jest, and I took it all in stride. I am set to return to Denver very imminently and the reality is setting in that we are going home. It is comforting to know that I mattered and he cares.
It seems that throughout my life, I have always had somebody to talk to. During this tour, my most faithful correspondents were my friend, Lauren, and my boss, Betsy. Before this tour, Lauren and I regularly exchanged emails during the workday to pass the more stressful times by focusing on the better things in life. During the last tour, Lauren was also very good at sending me emails to keep me up to speed on home. For the few years before the last tour, I had my good friend Phil living with me and we had some seriously epic conversations. Before that, there was Derek who was practically implacable since Basic Training. During my first semester at college, I had Peggy.
Last night, I had a long phone call with my mother. It took me over two weeks to talk to my mom since coming back to the States, and I am still not home yet. Peggy’s family has been our family friend for decades that precede my own birth. When I was younger, I used to spend weeks of my summer vacation with her grandparents. At first, they pawned me off on her because they figured that I would not want to spend my summer with them. Her grandfather was homebound with terminal COPD. Peggy and I would usually go to the beach with some of her friends. It would not take long for me to develop an attraction to her and her lifestyle. She seemed pretty care free and appeared to have a good time most days.
I learned that I was just a little too young to really be on her radar. Fast forward a few years and we become AOL chat buddies. I used to stay up late at college in the computer lab at the dorm and chat for all hours of the night with her. After that first semester and basic training, I fell out of touch with her. After my first tour, I visited her grandmother and saw her only briefly. It became quickly apparent that I was still just some visage of a family legacy that was dying. After a marriage and dissolution for her, we reconnect briefly again and I learn that she has a son. My life quickly went through its own challenges with my two run-ins with the law. During my second tour, we reconnected again, albeit briefly, diving into the truth of the decade prior. How I felt, how she did not feel, and generally exchanged encouraging messages back and forth. I always told her that she and her family were very important to me. I came home on leave and met her for lunch on the way to see my family. We had a good lunch conversation, just like old times with a little more ‘tension.’
Two weeks later, I was back in North Carolina because my sister had passed away. During one of my first conversations with her on the phone while back, I learned that she had developed feelings. I quickly became a bastard to her because I would not leave my family to see her during our real difficulty. In many respects, I was a bastard because I talked to her on Facebook. I sensed that our dynamic had changed but did nothing to quell the ‘tension’ I helped to create a few weeks before. The reason I did not pursue anything was because I, myself, developed a great attraction over Facebook during that second deployment.
One of the most difficult things during a deployment is being so disconnected from home. Emails and Facebook are great tools to stay in touch. I think it is easy to say from four years in the future that I fell in love for the first time. I felt more for someone else than I did for myself. Up until that point, relationships were a means to an end whether or not I was really aware of that at a surface level. I would have done well in Victorian England because all of my relationships before I was 27 were about what they could do for me. My first girlfriend was not really about attraction or compatibility but rather about having the title of ‘boyfriend.’ The second was about having a greater standing in my social circle in High School because she was one of the centers of that circle. The next girlfriend was about sex. And my dysfunctional relationships continued along selfish lines. But I changed with her. I would do what I thought would please her but at the same time did not deal with my issues from the second tour.
I did not really believe that I was that messed up after the first deployment and the law broke my feelings of invincibility but I didn’t change. After the second, I could not hide that I had reflexes and reactions that were violent. The second tour was violent. We dealt with soldiers getting blown up, and soldiers from our base getting killed. Blackouts for notifications were not frequent but they happened enough to keep us on guard. My soldiers had to repair bases that experienced catastrophic damage from assaults. My own actions and aggressions even appeared at the office during the first few months of my new job at the time. But for the most part, she was there through all of that. I should have known how much she cared when she sheltered me in Denver right before my sister’s funeral when my family sent me away for a few days because I was just too angry for them to deal with at that difficult time. But I ruined that, of course. Over time, my behavior became too much and I was alone.
I ached over the loss of her. I dated one other after her and that relationship did not last. My own thoughts though faded drifted around. The girlfriend at the time did every thing she could for me but it wasn’t enough and we separated after a week of real arguments about me and my life. I felt bad for that relationship because I knew somewhere deep that was not what I wanted.
I still was wounded from her and it showed in the next relationship. I could have never dreamed that she would call just a few months later and we caught up real fast. I tried to prove my worth and how much I had grown. We went out a lot and from the outside we were together but the deep and lasting commitment was not there. Before her first call that year, I volunteered for another deployment more out of guilt for the relationship after her. She took my mind off most of that guilt and even talked deep with me about it one night when she called me out on hiding my thoughts and feelings. She challenged me to be better. But, this is me and I would eventually ruin this good thing by getting selfish. I thought about me in the weeks preceding my ship date to the new unit. I was more concerned about me than her. It’s a good thing she was not committed like I wanted her to be because of my selfishness. I justified it in my mind because I thought I was being selfless by doing every thing she’d let me during her struggle with me, us, and my upcoming departure. But in the end, selfishness tanked any hope that I may have had for anything. When will I learn the lasting goodness of selflessness?
As I have freely admitted in entries before this one, I am fearful about going home to my life. It will not look like what I left. Dozens of coworkers have moved on. My friends have moved on. I assume she has moved on. In eight months, I have received a brief comment. Not much to go off, but good for her. She has a great head on her shoulders and is very business savvy; she will be good (and Maroon 5, ‘she will be loved’).
This long entry is a result of my phone call with my mom because mom assumed that she and I were still talking. She said that she is probably excited that I am coming home. I had to express my doubts and reveal my own faults just before the deployment. Mom and I talked about my sisters, Peggy and her family, my family and some other things. And I think. So this is my thoughts. I need my friends and family. I need communion.
