A Marine came back from Iraq to his base in California. He called his mom and his father and told them, "Hey! I'm back!" They were really happy to hear from him. He went on telling them about his friend. He said, "Father, my best friend just came back with me and he got his legs blown off in combat, is it possible that when I come home for leave, can I bring him with me?" The father replied, "Well, son, I don't think you should. He will be kind of an inconvenience. I think it's best off that you just let him get treated in the hospital because they have people that are trained to handle people like your friend." The Marine tried so hard to convince his father and mother otherwise, but got nowhere. That was their feelings about it and there was nothing more that can be said or done to change their minds. Later on that night, 0200, the mother and father get a phone call from a police officer saying their son committed suicide by jumping off a 40-story building. When they flew to California to see if they can recognize their combat veteran son, they saw he had no legs.
Somewhere after finishing this long 5 page letter, I realized I was 17 when he wrote it and I knew nothing about the world and about the military. He was suffering from PTSD and was having problems expressing himself to people. He came to me hoping I'd understand him and accept him- in the end I didn't. Throughout the entire letter he goes on to share his feelings of love for me, but while saying all of these things he also predicts the near break-up of our relationship.
The Marines had changed him forever. I remember him waking up with night-sweats, and suffering from sleep apnea. I remember him always being paranoid about the people and things around him. I couldn't understand him then, I have never been to war. I have never had my close friends die in front of my eyes. I never understood his drinking habits or why he looked at the world from a defensive point of view. Once again, I was young and naive. All I wanted was a normal relationship- someone who would actually have fun going out to crowded places and not cause a scene when a stranger is standing too close him. Someone who wouldn't become paranoid from illusions that he built up in his mind because someone was staring at him in the wrong way. All I wanted was a normal relationship, but in wanting that, I hurt him and broke him. I refused to understand him and accept him. He knew this, and because of this, he knew we were not ever meant to be- even though I thought we were. Two years and he is the only guy who's ever taught me anything about life. He was the only guy who knew what it was to be a man in a relationship.
I was the problem. That story he told, about the Marine who committed suicide, I now realized he was secretly saying that I was the parents who didn't want to accept someone who's been damaged. At 17, I had gone through my own trials and tribulations, but nothing could compare to what he has seen and done- and that my friends, is where we grew apart. My mind could only reach but so far, and his hands couldn't extend out to me any longer. I gave up on him just as much as he gave up on me.
In the end, he turned out to be right. He moved on from me in a matter of days, while I spent the remainder of a year crying my eyes out for nights on end. Getting drunk with my friends only to end my night in tears wishing I understood where we had gone wrong. I knew I was all wrong but I was too young to understand how and why.
I never admitted this to anyone but at this point I'm willing to pour my soul out at this very moment. There was one night, just a few months before things ended between us, where I had gone to visit him for the weekend. We stood up late watching t.v., and as I laid there trying to fall asleep, he broke our silence and asked me, "Ash... Are you still in love with me?" Any good girlfriend who is really in love would've have quickly responded, "Yes, I do." But no, not I. I said no such thing. Instead, I paused and felt darkness creeping up on me, telling me, "Tell him the truth." And so I did. I told him in the kindest words I could find, "No I don't think I am anymore." There it was, all out there. I broke his heart in that moment. He had known before then that I was changing and with that, so were my feelings towards him. He had known long before me that I would not love him forever, but that I will always love him at the same time. He cried that night, and I didn't know what to say or do. It was one of those moments when you're expecting a child to know how read and write instantly; I was that child and I couldn't even speak. Words just would not come out of my mouth and for that moment, I was completely mute and hopeless, feeling guilty for having torn his heart apart. I was 17 years old and I knew nothing about life.
I am 22 years old now and head over heels over some young guy who knows nothing about life. There's only so much one's mind can imagine without actually experiencing it first-hand. In the end, I got my heart broken by this Marine. What he couldn't get out of me, he got it from someone else, which I hope she was worth it. In the end, I spent an entire year grieving over a relationship that was destined to end anyways. I couldn't understand it then and now that time has past, I understand it all so clearly now. Had he known me today, things may have worked out, but everything happens for a reason and people are in your life only for a season.
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