On Love & War
This coming Saturday is the Fourth of July. The holiday makes me think of community pool celebrations, running in the streets to grab candy from a parade car driving by, and fireworks lighting up the sky. It's an “in the moment” kind of holiday, and if you don't enjoy it now, it will surely pass you by.
I never quite got it until I lived it. Flash back to five Fourth of Julys ago and there I was hand in hand with my attractive, muscular boyfriend eating snow cones and watching the Richmond sky light up in fireworks. It was a scene of normalcy in an otherwise rocky situation.
A few months prior to that Independence Day, he was still stationed in Iraq. We had been writing letters and sending packages for what seemed like years. I would tell him about the Biology class I was close to failing, and he would tell me about the sand that occupied every inch of his bunk and body. Sometimes, I wouldn't hear from him from him for days and my stomach would do flips watching CNN list causalities. He'd finally call and I'd demand a list of all the cities his transportation company would be visiting.
“Kabul? Is that dangerous,” I'd ask. He'd laugh, knowing my innocence would protect me from grasping the type of danger he was about to encounter at the height of war tensions.
At home, the nation was torn apart over who was right or wrong in this war. The election of 2004 was discussed in Poli-Sci class, at the dinner table, and even in church. Everyone had an opinion and everyone thought they were right. I sat alone in my dorm room staring out the window and feeling guilty for being thankful that one of the names read on the TV was not his.
At 20, I understood far more than any politician, news anchor, or businessman knew about war.
But one day, as often is inevitable with first loves, the magic faded along with the fear he'd never be back.
The real world set in. What was a normal summer for our college friends turned into a splash of reality for us. We spent a summer dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and fighting time until I returned to college hours away. Instead of talking about carefree summer indulgences, we stayed up at night discussing his soldier friends who were battling depression, divorce, and financial woes. A couple of kids that could withstand terrorists and roadside attacks couldn't accept the reality of the America laid out in front of them.
In the end, we both gave each other our freedom. He gave me mine to be a kid, go to frat parties, laugh about boys over drinks. I gave him his. He got to go out with the boys and experience one night stands and keg stands and all other matters of stands. Humanity finds peace in superficiality. This is one of the many lessons I have sadly learned in my lifetime.
I wish it had a happy ending, but I am not so sure the endings we think are right for us are always the intended plan. I know he is happy. He's in love and settled down a long time ago. My search continues but his has rested. I was just a stopping point in his stretch of life.
About a year ago, I finally found someone who didn't make me think about the soldier every time we kissed. I was convinced he was the reason it didn't work out with the other one. But I was wrong.
I stood outside a campsite a few months back watching summer's first fireflies dazzle the late night sky. I had never seen anything quite like them. For awhile all I could see were silver lights. I liked thinking of them as ghosts of my past and mistakes I had once made. I watched them for hours, free to surround me until they finally flew away. That's what freedom is to me: the choice to live your life the best way you can in spite of mistakes and setbacks. It is allowing yourself to love even when you know it could all backfire before you. It is the freedom to let go when you don't even think it's possible.
If you don't enjoy it now, it will surely pass you by.
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