Filed under: "Utah", Bad Day, Camper, Deployment | Tags: Annoyed, Deployment
SO, I realize that I havent written in a while… and maybe its bcs I havent had anything to write about. Seriously. I get up every day and IM with Camper for hours, and then I get a letter or two from him, and then he calls and I get to spend an hour trying to come up with things to say. Maybe… maybe I was a horrible person but when the shit hit the fan I took the first door I could and exited stage left. Ok, the fact was that he was paranoid, needy and somewhat creepy, but thats not it… oh wait, that was ENTIRELY it!!
On hte other hand, I had been keeping in touch with Utah, and as if on cue, the second he heard about Camper and I getting together he threw a hissy fit and … then when he found out that we had parted ways he eventually admitted that while visiting his friend in Kuwait he gave her the special working over. And then told me that he wants to marry me. Still.
::sigh:: You have got to be kidding me. Why cant I have a normal relationship with someone who is actually in the UNITED STATES???? I mean crap!
Filed under: Bad Day, Camper, Deployment | Tags: Bad Day, Camper, Clearances, Deployment, Marbles
I couldnt sleep last night. I spent part of the night crying at the bar in one of those moments of full disclosure between two friends, and when I got home the words would not leave my head. Some of it was fueled by vodka and part of it, well, most of it was fueled by the conversation I had earlier that day. So there I was laying in bed, not sleeping and when i finally passed out from sheer exhaustion I was wrapped up in teh sweatshirt that still smells like Camper. What kept me awake and what made me cry had nothing to do with missing Camper, it was what my friend had to say abotu clearances and how things that I have had no controll over in life will now affect my current relationship.
I was born outside of this country, raised in a middle eastern country for 2 years before settling into a very comfortable life in a very comfortable area in NY. Im adopted. These are things that a person should be thankful for: to have never had to want for anything, to have been lucky enough to be adopted into a cultured family with strong religious ties in the community, to have a strong heritage. Yet, it is those things that in the end I cant get away from and in the eyes of the gov’t, it is these things that will prevent me from getting serious with Camper bcs of his security clearance. And I have to tell him.
My friend asked me how it felt from the other side. He understood the reasoning from where he stood but when I told him how it felt to be cruely judged for things out of my control, maybe he began to understand. Had I gotten arrested for criminal mischief or possession of a controlled substance, that I could understand. That was something in my life that at one point was in my control, that was a mistake I would have had to accept responsibility for, but being adopted? I got dealt a great hand, and yet because of it I know how happy a person can be, yet Im not allowed to be.
How do you tell someone that becsue you have maintained friendship with various foreign nationals that you are now suspect. You do what your career can handle, I know that, but on fragile footing will he risk everything just for the possibility of happiness? Doubtful. Im sure when I tell him that if we were to ever move forward that he would have to disclose our relationship, he will see the gravity of the situation, and he will most likely go. Yes, Im being negative. I have never seen this situation turn out for the good.
Filed under: Camper, Deployment, Good Day | Tags: "Utah", Camper, Deployment, Marbles, walking away
Ok, so I know what this looks like, I know this all seems so fast and all seems improbable, but in my life I have always had to allow for the possibility of greatness. This has caused some hard times, leading with your heart instead of your head is always a tricky undertaking, but it also brings great joy and millions upon millions of moments of absolute perfection. It becomes those moments that you hold onto, but eventually, when there is nothing else to add to that jar of memories and trinkets its those moments that begin to slowly fall away.
I cared for Utah, in most ways I still do, but there is a huge difference between responsibility and inability. It is an odd twist of fate that I just happened to meet Camper and we just happened to get so close and he just happened to be leaving. Utah had a choice, he could have stayed, he could have given his life in the states a chance, but in the end he took his contract with DRS and when he said good bye he literally never once looked back. He never turned his head or waved as he descended the escalator. The moment he picked up his bag and headed towards the gate he had mentally closed the door on his entire life here. I remember looking back at his mother and his sister, and they both wore the fatigued look of painful familiarity in their eyes, they were used to being left behind. They were used to saying good bye. They were used to this upended and uncertain future that Utah handed them, and it is these exact things that I have refused to accept. I have traveled the globe. I love new places and meeting new people and the solitude of feeling like you are standing at the edge of a great big world, but I also crave the feel of my roots. I crave my home.
I cannot tell you how Camper and I became so close so quick. While I have dated since Utah and I broke up I have remained guarded and anyone who ever threatened to get too close made me automatically pack up camp and run. I was in control. I said when and where and how much. And then I eventually said no and walked away. Thats how it always was, and for the most part there was safety in that, I never had to worry about getting my heart involved or hurt bcs in my eyes, my heart was already involved, my heart was already hurt. I was already surviving someone.
I dont want to survive someone. “Something” maybe. I can survive a deployment, but that was never it with Utah and I. It was us and every day was something else I was supposed to live through… and yes, I met Camper quickly, and yes… Im crazy about him. My walls fell the second he picked me up for our first date, it was something in the eyes, the way he handled himself, the confidence in which he spoke, the way out of the corner of my eye I would catch him watching me as I spoke while my body was facing away from him. I had slipped off my shoes, my feet were curled around my body, my hair was down around my body and my sunglasses were shading my eyes from giving away too many secrets, the way they tend to do. And I saw him, committing every word to memory and I knew that he was listening not to figure out what to say next but actually listening. And when neither of us had anymore words to say we watched the water and sighed as the sun played games across our skin. I felt like I had known him forever and while I wanted to learn everything there was about him I also never felt hurried. I was actually scared the first time I held his hand, the gesture so casual and yet so intimate. And so I began to fall.
Cartelli once called me a coward for not seeing the greatness in other opportunities, I never took risks in love, and while at the time he was trying to get me to come back to him and leave Utah Ive always wondered if he was right. Am I a coward for giving up the possibility of Utah for the assuringly solid bedrock of Camper? No, I think I would be a coward to follow a fools dream than to face the blaring reality. Maybe I am no better that Utah, whose name is not really that, maybe it was more that I liked the idea of him, he was a boyfriend on paper but a stranger in reality. And when Camper, whose name is not really that, came to me and said he wanted to build something not based on the physical but on the mental, I signed on the dotted line.
I need something I can count on. When Camper walked down that jetway he slowed several times to look back and smile. And I knew I was right. This was fact, not fiction.
Today is the second day he is gone and already I feel stronger. Already I know that this is going to be a quick 6 months. Right now Im smiling bcs already Im planning for him to come home.
Filed under: Camper, Deployment, Good Day | Tags: Camper, Deployment, Frustration, Happy, Marbles, PTSD
Today seems like the last normal day I will have n a while. Around 3 am tomorrow morning I wake up in Camper’s bed for the last time and drive him to the airport where he will begin 2 days of flights before he reaches his base in Afghanistan. It seems somewhat impossible to me that a week ago this very second I was reeling from our first amazing date, unknown to me whas the fact that he was leaving, and I was wondering how in hte world I was going to keep htings moving forward. As with all things there was a moment -ours too early but that could not be avoided- where one decided to take the risk or to just walk away and when that second came all I could do was hold my head up high and agree to hold on for dear life. So, we are doing this. I find it funny that he wories about weather or not I can handle this and while I see where his concern stems from I keep having to remind myself: You have done this before.
I myself have been worried. I wanted to make sure that this was not a rebound from Utah but he has been gone for 9 months, and we have been “officially” broken up for much of that time. Yes, we have attempted to work on it, and Yes, there is still a lot of unresolved mushiness left between us but none of that can be taken care of until he comes back. IF he comes back and therein lies the rub. I feel like I stopped waiting for him a long time ago but was stuck on pause while I walked out the door. I could say that it was Hoss who broke me out of it but in the end it was Camper and the ease at which my guard crumbled. I felt with him something I havent felt in a while: Calm.
One of my few claims to fame has always been the fact that I am not “That Girl”. I am very protective of myself and while I love to mess around and have a good time, I do not drop my pants for every guy who takes me out to dinner. What sometimes shocks me are the skyrocketing percentages of women who actually do give it up on the first date, or very shortly thereafter. I, on the other hand, choose to wait. This sometimes shocks, sometimes annoys, sometimes pisses off, but in the end it does one of two things; weeds out the guys who are in it just to get in it or it shows me the true colors of those who truly do respect the decisions a woman makes. With Wrestler, Tattoo, even Hoss, I feel like they have put so much pressure on me to give in that I stress out when we are going to get together and eventually make excuses not to see them anymore. But Camper made a point to address the issue with me, saying he wanted to wait, he wanted to build something more substantial, something not built on sex but on mutual trust and respect. And this is probably the biggest reason my guard fell immediately. It was no a line to win me over, ti was a statement about where he is at in life and what he is looking for. It was meant to weed out those who are incapable of building a relationship, and we were both fascinated to find out that we wanted the same things.
I find it absolutely hard to fathom that we have known each other for little more than a week, and that he is leaving so soon. I find that already Im unsure of how the next 6 months are going to be and yet we are already making plans for his return to the states. I suppose for me the perk is that I know he is coming home, there is no questioning about contract hopping or returning to a different state, Camper’s life is here and he wants to come home to me. Utah, I think he would like to come home to someone. But thats the thing, Im not looking to be a someone for him, I am wanting to be THE one for the right person. Im not making any claim to that effect with Camper, but Im also not going to let 6 months of separation ruin the one week of pure simple bliss that he and I have shared. My only hope is that he does not come back as horribly changed as I have seen in the past.
PTSD is something I have seen in many of my friends and past lovers, and because of where he is going to be I fear for Camper. With Utah it was the talking in foreign languages in his sleep, the way he would wake up in the middle of the night unsure of who I was or weather or not I was someone who meant him harm. It was the way I needed to be careful how or where I touched him when I tried to wake him . It was the far off look he sometimes got in his eyes when for a second he was reminded of something. With Turpin it was the crippling nightmares that required serious medications, it was the slowness in his speech, the pills he needed to take just to get through the day. And then there are the others, all with their laundry lists of ails and issues… I worry that this will affect Camper and he will come back hardened, broken in some way that is almost unfixable. This is the scar war leaves on you when there is no cut to see.
