Between Deployments
This is a journal entry I wrote when I was preparing to go on my second deployment. Without the context of what was going on in my life at the time this may seem arbitrary. Eh, who cares. Enjoy.
On to the next…
In recent years I have made a huge detour in my life in hopes of getting somewhere better. I want to be through with this stage of my life. I am currently moving out of my 8th apartment/home since moving out when I was 18. It used to be fun to think of whats next and having hopes of longevity at the next stop was always there. This time it is a little different. I am packing my stuff in storage so I can deploy for a year and I know that when I come back I will be moving at least two more times before even being able to think about settling down anywhere. The life I have immersed myself in has been less than fulfilling in many ways, however I feel I can come out of this wiser and more prepared for what life may have to throw my way. I have learned more than I imagined about friendships and what they can do to your life. Some friends are friends for reasons that you may not want, and some friends you just have to bear with for a while until you find a happy medium. It’s hard not to take it personally when you are betrayed by people and it happens again and again. Sadly, I expect certain people to betray me again and again and I am actually O.K. with that as long as I don’t let myself get too reliant on their friendship.
I have many goals for myself in which I hope to come close to accomplishing within the next year along side this deployment. I will be taking online courses to get my degree and I hope to be frugal with my money to pay off bills and begin saving for something that will help me get where I want after I am out of the military. I will get my pilot’s license when I return with some of the cash I save up. I will be a bit more careful on how hard I work because I have very quickly lost sight of my own personal well being simply because I spend so much time and energy on work.
One thing that I have thought about and written about before is the fact that I have been living my life alone for a long time and it’s starting to get the best of me. I do have the love and support of my family, but I have fended off the idea of having a wife for so long that I think I forgot how to envision anything different. I want to give my heart to someone but it truly does have to be the right person. I feel ashamed that I have spilled my thoughts and feelings to certain people only to soon realize that they really didn’t care as much as I hoped they did. I want my wife to be my everything and I want her to feel the same way. I don’t however, want to fall in a trap of being tied to everyday life trying to make ends meet in hopes of having a fairy-tale life. I need to do great things with someone not live the life created by the influences in society as it is. I have to do another deployment alone, but I hope this is it for me. Though I don’t have an immediate family here that I am leaving (wife etc.), I find it hard to have to wait another year to begin what I need to do to move on.
There is some hope out there for a better life. There’s more to life than alcohol and TV. There’s more to life than simply just surviving in a place that doesn’t make you completely happy. Heck, there’s more to life than sex. These things we do to fill our lives are simply a crutch for our insecurities. We pursue a life with someone not because we see potential to do great things, but because we are lonely. We pursue sex and alcohol so much that we get the idea that we are socially incompetent if we don’t have it. I don’t abstain from sex because I have had a light come from within me making me a born again virgin, I abstain from it because it is one of the few things I have that allows me to really show someone how I feel. Even though to some people sex is just sex and it is something they do because they can, what more do they really have in life to be intimate with someone?