Being With You Was like Being at War

Like being at war, I had to wear my uniform every day, never knowing when a bomb would drop and destroy everything around us, just like a storm that cleans it all up, whether or not you’re someone it likes. I could never be prepared enough, even if I’d been there for months. 

Like being at war, I had to distance myself from the people I liked, or they would have seen death in my eyes. I didn’t want them to know that kind of suffering.  

So when you come back for some time, you smile. You’re proud of the work you’ve done, helping people, making their lives better, protecting them from themselves, when the truth is that you’re in a hostile and lonely place, without knowing when the pain is going to come or when this is all going to end. 

At some point, you lose parts of yourself; you forget what life was like before. You think, “This is real life.” It has become your reality.

Your definition of happiness is being the first witness to distress and destruction, even thinking you could do this your whole life. 

But then someday, you have to come back home. Or the army doesn’t want you, or you don’t want it anymore. No one really knows. You become a veteran, without a home, without landmarks. With an unbearable pain you walk. So intertwined with it that you don’t even feel it. You are it. But you’ve been wearing the weight of the world, a little more, a little less… Nightmares?  » Daymares « ? You don’t know the difference. Past, present, future, real, false, right, wrong… who really cares? You’ve got this anger, this unbearable pain, this sadness accompanied with a sense of freedom. Free… when in fact you are now in self-destruct mode. You are ready to do anything to numb some parts and awaken others just to feel some joy. You start living in the moment, not giving a fuck about tomorrow, forgetting that what you do impacts everything and everyone around you. You don’t want any more weight or expectations on you. Whatever it takes, that’s what you’ll do. But the pain doesn’t leave that way, in fact you’re just adding more in you. The mistakes, the remorse and the shame: at some point you’ll have to stop that vicious circle.  

I had to stop it, start cleaning, making excuses, forgiving, breathing again and taking off layers of dirt until I found my new self: the one that I am now with all that story. But not only that. I united my real self with the one that now knows that war is not the place to be. I chose peace, a freaking big garden with unlimited space, sun, air, love and living beings. I gave myself the real freedom of being me without you.