my biggest challenge...
since i've been home, is not volunteering to go back to iraq (i actually really want to go to Afghanistan)! i don't know if i can exactly explain my feelings, however i'm sure some know what i'm talking about, but fuck, i'm so bored. day-to-day is so blaaaaah. a few highlights here and there...a few good laughs...a few good friends...and i'm very grateful for all of that. but this life is so repetitive...i feel like i'm trapped in a room and the walls are closing in. so i sit quietly and watch everything around me...everyone looks blah. i'm over it.
so everyday i tell myself...Kate, you made it back home with all your fingers and toes and your family has been through enough...and you wouldn't want to hurt them anymore...so you will go through the motions. you will work, spend time with family and friends, smile, pretend to be excited about life, go back to college and do all the other bullshit that follows.
home is worse than iraq.
**everyone should check out vetvoice. i'm going to throw up a link Brandon sent me...please check out what Nick Suhr wrote. Link!
so everyday i tell myself...Kate, you made it back home with all your fingers and toes and your family has been through enough...and you wouldn't want to hurt them anymore...so you will go through the motions. you will work, spend time with family and friends, smile, pretend to be excited about life, go back to college and do all the other bullshit that follows.
home is worse than iraq.
**everyone should check out vetvoice. i'm going to throw up a link Brandon sent me...please check out what Nick Suhr wrote. Link!
posted by GI Kate at 3:22 PM
3 Comments:
Ugh, Kate. I've read and heard similar sentiments over the years. Can you express it further? What is missing, why the emptiness? Have these feelings been the same since you've been home, or have they become more apparent as time passes? Is returning to overseas duty the only way to scratch the itch? Certainly not expecting answers to the above. Your post brings forth many questions and thoughts, but I'll shut the hell up now. Sorry you're feeling unsettled.
Cathy B
Nooooooo, Kate!--You DON'T want to jump back into the quicksand!! Not even as a war correspondent! See, that's what I meant when I mentioned being addicted to war, why it (war) sucks, and (the addiction) is just one bad after-effect of it. I've had to sleep w/guns MYSELF a couple of times and THOSE were bad enough; can't imagine having that need permanently imprinted. And beware of the future Psychological Kevlar, they're trying to put out. Don't do it! Afghanistan, in my opinion is the same quicksand. H
Oh, Kate. I have never been a soldier. However, as a civilian on another continent, in another decade I witnessed 2 coups and a revolution. there were many other scary incidents, but they were exciting -chased, arrested, shot at: the whole "B Movie" stuff. But I felt real. Maybe it's the adrenaline rush? I dunno.
Returning to the states, honestly was more stressful than my life on The Dark Continent for 5 years. It took me and my children years to settle in to the place we had so looked forward to returning to. Shopping brought to my knees. I hated all the "stupid" products and often returned home from shopping in tears and with nothing. Today, two decades later I sometimes have a hard time relating to American values. I tried, but I just can't care about that new-slim-baby-blue-keychain-cell-phone-with-a-flush-toilet.
Perhaps a part of what you are feeling rewsults from point of view you have learned having spent time outside our country. You've developed a larger image of our world. You will find peace and joy again, Kate. I think you are having a normal reaction to a not-so-unusual situation. Stay with people that make you feel good for being yourself. We want to see who you are going to become in your next decades! Love,Thanks and Health to you, Soldier Daughter.
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