Today I drove two hours to make a 45 minute stop and drive back two hours. The drive felt like such a short period of time. As I am wandering in my vehicle it feels that me and my vehicle are becoming one. It is effortless to hop in the car and drive, all the while enjoying the beauty of the world around me. Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was not able to just get in the car and enjoy the music and the open road. It was always running from something, or hurrying towards something. Even the trip to Sioux Falls and back, it felt like I was on a time table. I had a little bit of leeway to enjoy the falls (pictures are posted!), but otherwise that was 400 straight hard core miles.
I want to enjoy my drives. I am heading out in a few days and I plan to take two days to go 350 miles. It might sound silly, but I am forcing myself to slow down enough and enjoy my life, the sights, the people I visit. It is not a race, we each reach the finish line when it is our time.
Today’s trip was significant in the fact that I found out I am still on the hook to the Navy Reserves for a few more months. I have had a lot of heart break in regards to my service, but more proud moments than sad. However it has been a while since I have been able to recall those proud moments. Mostly I have felt jaded, bruised, abused, and rejected by a system that I loved with all of my heart. I was not loyal in the standard definition, but I certainly was good at following orders and excelled at caring for my sailors, so showed a form of loyalty that I may not have felt, even through the hard times. I did my job with pride and was willing to fight and die for anyone I deployed with. I could drag up my baggage about how it felt like no one had my six (watched my back) or how they mentally injured me on my first tour, but I won’t. You want to hear some dark and twisty story of a tour gone awry and a young girl damaged? Well sorry, this is a story of hope, one that I choose for myself.
I lived inside that dark twisty story for many years. It drove me to do things I was not proud of, it made excuses for being someone who did not feel like me. It was a place where the predator inside me was able to come out and wreak havoc on the world around me. It ruined my love for the Navy. Ironically as I lost my love for the Navy I fell more in love with the twisty dark veterans I was meeting. We found consolation in each others arms and stories. At some point though, we all have started moving on. We still share stories, we still tell our dark and twisty in the deep shadows after a long days work, but we are doing so to figure out how to get better, how to be better. As I am transitioning out of the Navy the positives have started coming back to me, and the dark twisty things have taken on the hue of an old scar. I made my decision about being done with the Navy, and as I walked into that reserve center today I realized that I truly had made a great decision for myself.
It didn’t destroy me to know that I have to check in for a few more months, or that I have to wait for their processes to occur. I have moved on, whether the ink has dried yet or not. I am moving on. I am wandering. I am moving forward. The Commanding Officer said to me that he understood my decision and respected that I was doing what was right for me. That meant a lot. It is hard to close that chapter after a decade, but when the ink dries. I will be okay, because I am ready for this. I am a wanderer. I am healing.
Signing off from Cedar Rapids, IA