Someone I Used to Know

Sitting in the conference room and scrolling through Instagram for the third time in the past twenty minutes, I finally hit the screen that told me I had scrolled through every recent post for the past two days. The conversations around me consist of dialogues about broken fingernails and potty training children. I hear them, but I am not engaged. My heart is racing with anxiety as I think about life to come after 1200 hours. Then, all of a sudden, it’s time. “Final formation, drill hall, now!” I walk out of the conference room, put my patrol cap on, and partake in the final formation of our two week Annual Training. I sigh with relief and a feeling of freedom overwhelms me.

But why does that feeling of freedom feel like anything but freedom when you leave the armory and enter your home? The questions I ask myself and thoughts racing through my mind as I go back and forth between my living room and bedroom: Do I pay this bill? Do I check my 400 work emails? Do I clean my cat’s litter? Oh wait, let me fold these blankets. Well, how long has it been since these have even been washed? That closet is disorganized and that food is moldy. Do I remember what it’s like to be alone?

For any military personnel reading this, you have probably experienced similar feelings, thoughts and questions after returning home from military duty. Transitioning from military time to civilian time is freaking difficult whether it be from a deployment, school, training or monthly drill. I have not yet deployed in my 7 years of military service, but I imagine that the longer you are away from something or someone the more intensified the transition becomes. This transition is not one that I can explain as well as it can be felt, but I will try and make it better understood.

Transitioning to military duty from civilian life is always the easy part, and to some extent, almost a little relieving. You’re leaving the chaos of your everyday life for a while in exchange for a life of simplicity and structure. The lingering bills, mountain of dirty laundry, responsibility of taking care of pets/kids and disorganization of your home all get to be put on hold for a while. The bills, mountain of laundry and additional responsibilities are replaced with set wake up times, prepared breakfast/ lunch, and only washing the same few garments once a week. The people at your day job are replaced with your squad leaders and platoon sergeants and your friendships and spouses are replaced with your battle buddies. For a short, or maybe long amount of time, you become completely enmeshed with a culture and lifestyle that only 1% of the population has experienced and understands.

My civilian troops

While you’re away, your main daily obligations consist of the following: adhering to orders, maintaining your physical fitness and completing the mission. You have three main focuses and any other additional focuses thrown at you in the form of details are told to you. You don’t have to think; you simply do as your told while continuing to follow your daily obligations. It’s easy (yes I understand it’s not easy to be away from family and that some jobs are extremely mentally and physically demanding) to take direction and not be the one creating it. The people you spend most of your time with are not only your coworkers, they are also your bosses, teammates, friends and sometimes romantic partners. You all have this one, rare commonality (military) holding you together, so even though your conversation topics are limited, the bond you share is strong. You don’t have to worry about finding time to spend time with each other because you do it daily. You don’t have to worry about finding something fun to do with each other because activities outside of duty are limited. You don’t have to worry about looking cute because you wear the same outfit every single day. You don’t have to worry about sounding intellectual because the lingo used across the military is standardized and what else are you going to talk about aside from the work you do daily. Once again, it’s easy.

My military troops

I am writing this blog post as I procrastinate checking my work email, buying weekly groceries, folding my mountain of laundry and facing the reality that I have to go back to my civilian job tomorrow where no one day is ever the same. I am writing this blog post as I consider which friends to notify I am back in town, while thinking of topics of conversation to discuss, as they will not understand what I did the past few weeks. I am writing this blog post in solitude, while sitting on my living room couch, as I am slowly adjusting to not shooting the shit with Specialist Layne and Specialist Tran. I am writing this as I continue to receive text messages of pictures, inside jokes and updates from our squad group chat, as those people are probably experiencing a similar strangeness like I am. I am writing this as I prepare to enter the real world tomorrow for a couple of weeks to then go through this same transition for June drill on the weekend of the 15^th.

The effects of the post duty transition become more anticipated, but they never become any easier, and you often wonder if you should just choose to eliminate the transition completely by choosing one life or the other. I’m sure it would be easier, but then you wonder if you would miss one or the other. So, for now, I continue to deal with the difficulties of the transition, quickly acclimate myself to my foreign daily routine and build up the resilience that I will inevitably need one day for a different (life or militaristic) transition.

Title inspired by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdqEaU0uSPI