"They say all's fair in love and war, but this war's not fair and my heart's still sore."
TheyTom Milsom
My desk is covered in post its: movie suggestions from friends, passwords to websites I will inexplicably lose track of, a list of boys at my school I find to be easy on the eyes (...), quotes I might or might not save, dates to remember, gift ideas I will forget anyway. There are more post its stuck in my day planner, things I mean to remember and never do (E for
effort?). Another stack has long been sequestered at the back of one of my desk drawers. Presumably I don't need them, but I haven't quite perused them lately either. The disarray becomes comfortable, if somewhat inconvenient.
All this said, I am a somewhat organized person. I spent a large part of my last summer sifting through my possessions and downsizing. I recently purchased a box to hold my files and subsequently nerded out over its glorious existence; I find enjoyment in making things right. A military brat for the majority of my childhood, I am used to evaluating my belongings every few years.
That I can find any advantage to my upbringing amuses me, as I am understandably bitter about my childhood. We moved every few years; friendships didn't last and my home life was volatile. Downsizing every few years was awful, and I still mourn the loss of hundreds of the books I loved as a child. I
lost things when we moved, small but dear: the teddy bear I loved, a favorite coffee mug, a scarf. As important things broke, too fragile to survive the turmoil, so did my heart. My passport may have quickly filled with brightly colored stamps, but the endless years spent isolated on military bases overseas rubbed me raw in ways that only scar over.
A nasty, real-life scar crawls up left knee. My father was deployed as soon as we moved to Italy; my grandparents visited to help us move in to our house. My grandfather was watching my sister and I one afternoon. I lay in bed, probably reading, and shifted only to find a shard of glass (I have no idea. Ninjas?) had split my knee open. Binding it with a pillowcase, my grandfather rushed down the winding hill leading to our house to beg a telephone from a neighbor, and eventually we found our way to the military base. I read Dr. Suess as we waited for the doctor, leg propped up on the arm of a couch.
Most of the knee is scar tissue now, numb to the touch nearly ten years later. I don't often recall it to memory, and it might be moot point save for aesthetics, but to apply pressure (hello, end table) is to summon searing pain.
Metaphors 4 lyf.
A few weeks ago a Navy recruiter gave a talk in my government class; I shook for hours afterward, my stomach tying and retying itself into knots. My father was Navy. The recruiter made the option of joining sound so clear, so whole. He joked with the class and scrawled figures on the board, cost of living and college and
life.
If you qualify, he said,
your tuition will be paid. Housing is provided, food is provided...Problem solved.
"No," I said, voice catching in my throat. Breaths in, out as my palms grew cold. "My father was Navy, and the moving hurt me. Years and years of it. I haven't kept friends. I was stunted. It isn't that easy."
Of course, there are sacrifices...
But I wasn't really listening anymore.
I respect the military, I do, but the chords situations like these strike within me are tender to the touch. The education I received through DoDDS schools (schools for the children of active-duty military overseas) were more challenging than those I've encountered in the US. While the students weren't necessarily much "better" than those elsewhere, there were also harsher, lasting consequences to serious misbehavior. I have visited something like fifteen countries in my short life so far, and I miss true Italian food more than is beyond my own comprehension.
But I didn't ask for any of this, and so much of it has hurt. The lines blur until the fuzzy upset is all I can see anymore. I try to look back and cannot separate what I saw from what really was. In the last three years of our time in Italy, when familial conflict escalated noticeably and we moved to another base several hours away, situations I had failed to question began to pinch me at the sides like ill-fitting clothing.
I clung to the internet like a life preserver for the first time, finding comfort in the message boards of my favorite author and Harry Potter podcasts. I transformed into a haughty grammar fairy. I saved up for a clunky, refurbished laptop (sans internet connection) and started writing.
So many things I love and have loved began as coping mechanisms then, obsessions I could hold on to as everything went wrong. The internet and those I have found within it don't just pick up and leave, which has always been a major part of the attraction.
These parts of my life remain integral, less coping now and more appreciation for what is good.
Hopelessness may ride my coattails and thoughts may leave me blank, but I am slowly learning to take off the coat that has left me claustrophobic for so long. I am stronger than I let myself believe. The memories still hurt, but these experiences have shaped me, and I am glad to be who I am.
I am not yet ready to forgive. I don't want to forget. I have only just begun to accept the state my life was in when I could not truly see it.
All I can hope for is to find the words.
