2

23SEP2009
　
Sometimes K____ seems farther developed to me because he is more experienced in relationships. I come from dead relationships (the House). He comes from live ones: a Real relationship with his Mom, and one with his Dad, and one with each of his siblings, and then there were his friends, and girlfriends, etc. etc.
Sometimes it makes me feel like he’s more evolved and I feel insecure about my own state.
__________
　
25SEP2009
　
The other guys in the company are cool with me, always saying hi. The other day, at the gym, a couple of them asked if they could work out with me next time I did abs. Unfortunately, my abs are famous in our company. One guy who liked to work out caught a look at them when I was getting dressed. A couple weeks later his friends came up to me in the gym and wouldn’t leave me alone until I lifted my shirt so they could see. It was the gayest thing ever.
Walking back to the tent, I complained to K___ about how embarrassing that was. That didn’t stop him from laughing up a storm. Yesterday, a somewhat-volatile co-worker asked me if I wanted to start working out with him. (When you’re deployed, working out together is a sign of friendship. Me and K___ , the prime example.) It hadn’t occurred to me that I was considered a cool guy.
I also noticed my size. I am taller than most, and I am thicker. I never used to notice that about people who out rank me -- how much bigger I am than them. There is this one LT who is my age. I assumed he was big, then I noticed I was looking down at him, and my arm was twice the size of his. Instead of him getting on my nerves like he usually does, I just felt more calm.
Today I was in a gym at another FOB killing time before our convoy was to leave. At my much smaller FOB, all the mirrors are like circus mirrors. Even the ones in the gym are off, some making you look shorter, others taller. At this gym the mirrors were clean, and more expensive. I saw myself in their mirrors and was surprised. I looked like a normal, good-looking-enough guy.
My voice has changed, too. It not only surprises me, but seems to surprise the people who know me. It’s smoother, sounds more confident, and my Southern accent is more allowed, I guess. It doesn’t seem to surprise K__ or Mace__.
These words have been in my mind a while. Lately I’ve been more present, more engaged somehow, in the soldiering I’m doing, in the experience I’m having. It’s like I’m paying more attention to my days. I usually push the Story of my Life away, because I erroneously identify too much with it. Now I don’t, because I seem to know what I‘m doing, and it feels right.
When those words run through my mind, they remind me of something. I then walk into a situation unrehearsed. Usually I’m always looking ahead in my mind, kind of practicing for life. It’s what someone does when they don’t want their true colors to show by accident, because they feel like they are Less, so they take control of themselves in that way.
Lately the words: you’re a cool guy, enter my head just before I enter a room, or before I enter a discussion, and I enter the situation unrehearsed, and do a lot better. I walked into mine and K___’s room two mornings ago, deciding to break the silence between us, and I reminded myself again.
For about a week K___ and I had been avoiding each other, and didn’t speak to each other. We hadn’t worked out together either, even though we had been working out together twice a day for the past few months.
The last time K___ and I argued -- last June -- it was because he was ugly to me: for about three weeks he was more and more arrogant and seemingly competitive with me. I was stunned. In the back of my mind I thought I had done something wrong, something offensive to him. I gave him the benefit of the doubt in that way. In the front of my mind I was angry.
For about a week I naturally reflected as I went about my days, while K__ and I kept our distance and didn’t speak. It wasn’t long before I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. So, still thinking I was to blame, I reflected on the deeper stuff.
I wondered if I had lost his respect. Or his interest. K___ is socially at ease, good looking, funny, and cool. I wondered if I was cool. If I was as cool as K___. Since the day I met him, I have felt unsure about these questions, and have felt that the friendship was hanging by a thread.
In that last fight it was when I realized I was just as Good as K__ that I broke the silence. K___ and I then argued vehemently. Nothing was off-limits. Words were exchanged, including curse words. Then we argued vehemently again. And later, again. Incidentally working toward reconciliation.
The hardest part was us opening up to each other again, especially for K___, who is a jokester, and talks the most in our friendship. Him not being talkative can come across as a more deafening silence than silence itself. It wasn’t until the last, tense, discussion that finally he exhaled, and K___’s words flowed, and the ongoing conversation we had been having since we first deployed started up again.
Yesterday I was working out during my lunch break, and decided it was again time for K___ and I to break the silence. I thought about how life was about timing, and how we were in a war zone, and how bad I’d feel if things weren’t resolved timely.
I felt guilty that our friendship being on hold had pushed me farther in my healing from the House. How since the mental noise had abated I had this new sense of myself that I didn’t think would’ve showed up as clearly within the confines of mine and K___’s bubble. But mostly, I missed him.
I hated the fact that I would, just like last time, be the first to break the silence. This fight started because K___ had again been a jerk to me, I had reacted by backing off -- thinking I had done something offensive to him, or maybe he needed space -- then I realized I hadn’t done anything wrong. Not only had K___ been a jerk, but I didn’t get to tell him off, because I had given him the benefit of the doubt, and afterwards felt like a fool.
The first time we had argued, it took me a week to get to this point, this time it took maybe three hours. I was Angry, and the friendship was on hold until one of us spoke to the other. I went to the room, he was there -- and I chickened out.
I went for it again the next morning, thinking to myself: You’re a cool guy, as I walked into the room, unrehearsed.
He was lying on his bed, working on his laptop with his headphones on.
_K___ I said.
He turned and looked at me.
His eyes looked kind, but I wasn’t sure. It was really his voice that would give it away. I had a good opening line. The whole deployment, both K___ and I had been searching for a certain tv series, one we had both liked when we were kids, but neither of us could remember well:
_I borrowed The Wonder Years from a guy, in case you want to burn it._
_I ’ppreciate it,_ he said.
We had broken the silence before, here and there, just out of the logistics of being roommates. Usually we dart our eyes away.
This time he didn’t dart his eyes way, and this time when he put his headphones on, he left one ear uncovered when he looked back to his laptop. That was new.
I didn’t know what to say next. I leaned up against the little refrigerator I had gotten from FOB ____.
It was back in June, the day after we had ended our last and first real fight. It was extra important to me because not only was it a refrigerator but it was also a kind of gift, a kind of symbol of our renewed bond.
With only forty five minutes before I was supposed to SP, I heard from another soldier how he had seen this refrigerator for sale. I asked him where and how much. Despite having little time -- (it is unforgivable to be late for an SP) -- I asked a complete stranger who had just driven up in a HMMWV if he would give me a ride. He obliged, taking me by Finance first since I had no cash.
When I walked into Finance it was just me and a Sergeant Major in there. When I walked up to the counter they said their systems were down. I couldn’t believe it and said so.
_I’m not from FOB ____ I said, getting loud, _We don’t have these amenities. We barely have chow. We certainly don’t have access to Finance. And we definitely don’t have refrigerators. And now you’re telling me you can’t help me, even though every other time, you never needed any system, I just signed a piece of paper._
This speech had little affect on the tellers. The Sergeant Major asked me how much the fridge cost. I told him seventy dollars. He gave it to me out of his wallet, I would pay him back a week later. I ran out to the stranger waiting in the HMMWV and we rode to the place where the fridge was for sale.
I tapped my fingers and looked at my watch impatiently. The stranger told me why he was a driver this deployment. The last deployment his legs got full of shrapnel.
The old Arab man selling the sand-covered refrigerator explained to me the details of our deal while I was accepting the deal and paying him. If I returned the refrigerator before I went back to the states, he would give me half back.
There was no time for me to check if it was running. I heaved it over my shoulder. I snuck the refrigerator onto the convoy at SP time by setting it with another soldier’s furniture, because he was moving to our FOB from FOB ___.
When we SP’d back to our own FOB, K___ was out on mission. He had left me a note, explaining to me how his buzzers had stopped working after he had only buzzed half his head. He needed five dollars to go to the barber and only had four. He went and got my new buzzers out of my locker; _hope that was okay,_ he wrote. He’d never left a note for me before. He seemed to have done it this time as a gesture, since we’d only recently stopped fighting.
I cleaned the fridge out and scraped off the stickers, then filled it with water and Gatorades, and waited for him to come back form mission. I wanted to say grandly: _Friendship reestablished,_ as he walked in the door, my arms like a masculine, sweaty, sand-covered version of Vanna White, gesturing toward the proof.
When he came in from mission I turned from what I was doing with a grin on my face, about to show him the miracle I had pulled off. He looked haggard, and didn’t seem to notice the fridge. I dropped the grin and asked him how it was going.
He looked at me and gave me polite answers. I showed him the gleaming, sparkling new-to-us fridge, and told him how I barely pulled it off.
He said, sitting on the edge of his bunk: _Oh yeah, I thought that might have been a refrigerator I saw as I came in._
Then he told me how our 1^st Sergeant had gone on mission with them that night, and had showed himself to be a bad leader, a selfish, self-absorbed leader, and it bothered him. We talked for over an hour outside over cigarettes and both of us forgot about the refrigerator.
It was still worth it, I thought, now looking at King’s one headphone-less ear. It bought us a few precious months of continued friendship in a foreign land.
_You been doing alright?_ I asked him.
He took his headphones all the way off and sat up. _Yeah,_ he said.
I didn’t get the chance to feel an awkward silence, or the burden of what to say next, or of how to get things back to normal, because he went on.
He told stories of how unorganized our highers are, especially certain Sergeants we both knew, and how they never know anything, and never have the answers when they’re supposed to -- especially concerning medics.
All I had to say was _Uh, huh,_ every once in a while and laugh here and there, and ask a question sometimes, to keep him going, which I did, for over an hour, and both of us forgot about the last four days.
As we caught up, we found out that when the storm hit we weren’t but a several yards from each other. It was almost dark, then it was totally dark, as sand and rain and wind descended upon us, filled my throat and lungs, and had me stumbling back, coughing, to our tent. K___ had been walking from the CP, I had been walking toward the CP. We couldn’t have been but so many feet from each other. The 10 minute storm took down another tent, and a canopy, and littered the FOB with debris.
I wanted to tell him he was my best friend. I wanted to tell him how lucky we were. Most of the other soldiers on this FOB don’t have a bubble of a close friendship to ride thru their deployment in. Most chose not to have roommates.
_I have three levels of friends in the military,_ Sch___, the logistician, told me once: _The vast majority are total dou-che bags -- people I’d never want to know if I didn’t have to. Then there’s the ones I can tolerate, who I enjoy for a conversation here and there, who I can be around all day without a problem. Then there’s the ones I seek out because I enjoy their company. That’s how me and D___ are. We are in different companies and don’t live in the same tent, but we still eat most meals together._
I wanted to tell K__ how this was the first relationship I hadn’t screwed up. I wanted to tell him I loved him like a brother. But it turns out that I’m a guy, and K___’s a guy, and the words were just as redundant as that refrigerator had been.
We’re back to normal, in a way. Whenever I walk into the room K___ naturally stops what he’s doing and starts a conversation, same as I do for him. Whenever one of us steps out we naturally tell the other how soon it will be before we’re back. Both of us treat the friendship as if it has value.
Last night we sat outside and talked for over an hour over cigarettes. He talked about his girlfriend’s family, and how he didn’t know how to deal with them. Mace__ overheard me ask K___ if he needed me to pick up some cigarettes from FOB ___ when I went.
M___ said: _You’ve never offered to pick me up cigarettes._
_Yeah, but K___’s my battle buddy -- or whatever,_ I said. Usually it’s awkward whenever K__ and I’s relationship accidentally gets defined.
_I’ve worked side by side with you in our AO for six months._
K___ jumped in and said, _Yeah, but you did it because that’s your position. You didn’t help Chuck all through Camp S____ out of the sheer kindness of your heart._
Later, after Mace__ left, I told K___ about how when people see me working out alone at the gym they get excited. _It’s like we’re the hallmark example of best friends -- or whatever. And when they see that we’re not together they feel the sky might not be blue anymore, that everything that used to be true is now in question. They freak out._
_I know, I know,_ K___ said, laughing.
Things have been different. The real change has been the lack of change. While K__ and I were on hold, I came more into my own in a way, and when the friendship began again, I didn’t give that up. Instead of our room being filled with K___ and his friend, it’s now filled with K___ and Him.
I’m calmer lately, it feels like time has slowed down. When I was coming back from the shower in the dark, Doc Wood__ said: _Is that Chuck? I thought I knew that silouette._
I stopped and had a conversation with him, even though he’s crazy and impossible to have a conversation with.
I noticed how calm and smooth I was in dealing with him. Even though I didn’t enjoy the conversation -- because he seems weird -- I did enjoy the moments.
Mace__ , who is the same age as K__ and me, comes by the room every night, to talk for maybe thirty minutes or so. I left our section for another one, and now Mace__ is on his own dealing with the unfairness there, and it’s hard for him. I still handle the Scandal, but I stay behind the scenes, making sure it’s the criminals who remain in the hot seat, instead of Mace__.
Usually, when talking to anyone, including K___, I feel anxious. But again, I noticed how calm and smooth I was in dealing with him. And despite it being so normal -- having a conversation with an old colleague -- I enjoyed myself. It’s the same with Sch___, the guy I work with now; conversation has become an easier thing.
Maybe it’s about not being Reactive. I’m not reactive to K__ anymore, because I don’t see him as the primary figure in our friendship anymore. I’m Him, and enjoy it.
When I’m alone it’s still about not being Reactive. Like how yesterday I was on two convoys, surrounded by people I didn’t know. Usually I would’ve chosen my actions, attitude, even my posture according to them and the way they were, this time I was just Him -- myself -- and enjoyed the moments more, I took it all in more. Just like Tolle was trying to teach me, I think.
How I see myself has a huge impact on who I am in the moment, my behavior, and how others see me. Knowing myself as Him seems to be improving everything.
When I’m Him, I don’t need my life to turn out any certain way. I don’t feel stressed that I’m not all-the-way-healed, that I still keep needing to write. It’s about the experience of being Him.
I used to be impressed with K__ the same way I was with those paintings of masculine beauty, way back before I came to broken spirits.com. Now I’m impressed with Him, impressed with the gift of being alive, of being him. I catch myself, even just in the last two days, still being intimidated by K__’s classic good looks, but it only lasts a moment, because I remind myself: you‘re a cool guy. I have my Own.
In my last unit I was close friends with W___ and felt impressed in the same way. Now I know that K__ and W___ both feel the same way as I do, they both deal with the same stuff, both have this feeling of being Him.
At times they both have let on how they feel like other guys might be more _guy_ than them, more male, more masculine. Every guy deals with that. Maybe not due to Abuse, but they still deal with it. This is how it feels to be a guy. I have those years of not being able to feel -- of being numb -- back, too, in a way, because I can feel what it was like to be numb.
These unwritten rules I don’t break now. Rules I haven’t learned, I just Know, because I can feel. I come from Abuse, not relationships. When I feel the unwritten rules, I know everything I need to know, as if I had come from a Real Mom, and Real Dad, and Real siblings, as if I had had the ideal childhood, one that I’ve never known, but can feel in my chest.
The friendship is different because it’s not hanging by a thread anymore. I’ve let go of the underlying assumption that K__ is slightly better than me, is somehow worth more than me in the friendship. It had caused problems -- ironically not because it was untrue -- but because K___ has never seen it that way.
Since we incidentally had opposing views of our dynamic, it’s was hard for us to understand each other’s actions. Now I agree with his original assumption: we are equals.
Lately I’ve felt sad sometimes about our friendship. Before, when the friendship seemed to hang by a thread, any real moments K___ and I would have, I would write down, because it was so important to me. I liked K__ when I first met him. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be friends.
It’s the same way I felt about W__ when I met him. I knew I was from Abuse and maybe not normalized enough yet. I wanted it badly and worked hard, paying close attention, and writing notes for myself. How ever the friendship was going -- it meant something about myself, and about my progress. It’s not like that anymore. It makes the friendship seem less important sometimes, like it’s been degraded. Silly, huh.
I think about the notes from years ago. They are longer, and more convoluted. They are all my emotions: the insecurities, the laziness, and the toughness. Now I know which emotions are real. They are the ones that sit right with Him. So my notes are shorter. Before, I didn’t know what to feel so I internalized all of them. The fact that many of the emotions were contradictory only made the numbness thicker.
I see why it’s important to have good role models growing up. I feel like I would’ve known, by their example, which emotions to feel and claim, and which to feel and move on from.
I think emotions imply direction, they seem to choose the direction of how you’re going to handle something. But the more I think about it, good example or bad, those choices are self-learned and self-chosen, according to the individual’s understanding of Life and what it is to be alive.
In this book I read once: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, the female lead character is a young woman in India, whose husband has died in an accident. She leaves her family’s home one morning, to go back to the apartment her and her husband shared, in order to take care of it. When she gets there, and after she has worked awhile, she steps onto the balcony, looking down onto the street where he would ride home on his bicycle. She could see him there, and felt good. She imagined him coming up the steps to her and she smiled Then she stopped herself. Despite the strong mix of emotions, she felt it best to step away from madness.
I ran into Master Sergeant B__ this morning, in the gym at FOB ____. He was the principle leader in our company. The Alpha Dog. He was my platoon Sergeant before he was promoted and sent to another battalion. I can’t help but like him.
Usually when I talk to MSG B__, I fall right into his game. He’s egocentric, he acts like he’s the man, and maybe he’ll approve of you. MSG B__ has a way of being very nice, and very cool, while somehow implying by the way he says things that you might not be good enough. I think it’s because that’s how he thinks of himself, which is sad, because I really like the guy. In the military it is easy to fall into a dynamic like that with your supervising Sergeant, especially if they’re impressive.
I felt hesitant to say something to him. I had seen him, but he hadn’t seen me. I knew the old game was over, and didn’t feel like fighting him and maybe losing. But I knew I wouldn’t lose, so I said, _How you doin, Master Sergeant._
He didn’t seem to recognize my voice. He looked up, and said, _Chuck!_
As we exchanged pleasantries he seemed surprised by me. I knew my voice was smoother, more confident sounding, but didn’t think it was that big a deal. My body had changed a lot, and I felt like I was towering over him. I was calmer. I used to be famous for how calm I was. It’s one of the few traits people have commented on all my life. It didn’t seem like getting my calmness back would be that surprising.
He quickly wanted to know everything. I knew where this was going so I chose a neutral subject: Mace__ and how he was doing in the old section. Finally I let him know I had left the section. He didn’t seem pleased, but I didn’t care enough to push it. At the end of the conversation I did start to talk faster, start to fall into his game, and regretted it. It didn’t last long though because the guy he was waiting for showed up, and we parted.
Afterwards, just before the convoy SP’d, I wrote it down, what dealing with MSG B___ was like. He was always the hardest person in our company to deal with, and I wanted to know the truth of how well I did, or didn’t do.
When I got back to the room, I told K__ about it. Despite the subtle complexities of what was important to me about mine and MSG B__’s dynamic, K__ seemed to understand. It surprised me, because usually I have a hard time getting across what I’m saying.
Last night I had to wake K__, and accidentally called him ‘K’. Just the letter, not his whole name. I corrected myself, and hoped he didn’t notice.