It's been a long time since I was here, or at least here with my fingers on the keyboard because I have thought a lot about things I want to write but I never could. Don't know why. Now I feel like I'm walking into my old bedroom. I'm done with my service, now. Yes, even with that extra year that I signed on. I'm more relaxed now, I guess. But I feel cracked right down the middle. Like there's a big hole in the middle of me. Just typing this makes me break down.
You know that we did what we did. We served in the army. Wore green. Shot our guns. Practiced, trained, cried and suffered. That we got up and did it again and that that is one of the things that make israelis who they are. What they don't tell you is what happens afterwards. Maybe you hear about their year in Thailand or India. They might tell you that they needed to chill out. They get into drugs there, usually. Some more than others. They come back just to leave again because they can't come back into their old bedrooms. There's something in there that scares them. Something they can't grasp. They aren't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. They can't describe it but everytime they try to look at it straight on they break down a little.
They told me that it gets easier with time but I can't see that yet, maybe because my eyes are all blurry. I need more distance or something. I guess that's what they do. They get distance. But I can't. I'm here. I've tied myself to enough responsibilities to make it feel like my own little army. Hell, I even take my dog for a walk every morning--my dog from the army. But as I walk with her I am 2 months out and the smell of car exhaust won’t stop throwing me into Schem. I hit the pavement face first and tumble a few meters before standing up and realizing I’m in Tel Aviv. As I climb onto the intercity bus I swing into a seat on the left side of the aisle and hold the handle on the back of the chair for support but just the feeling of the bumpy black plastic makes me reach for my clip but instead I find that I have no clip. I have a pair of jeans on. My M-16 is gone. So please make it stop. I gave you what you wanted please get out of my head. Let me forget what I saw. Let me forget what I know. My friends? I want to keep those. Why can’t I keep only the good things? Enough checkpoints. Enough Arabs. Enough screaming. Enough bombs. No more shooting. No more stories. I don’t want to see the paper. I don’t want to train. This animal that sits next to me, she is the tie I cannot sever. She will always look at me and say army. Biology Biology Biology. But now I sit in chemistry and we hear about the chemical composition of C4 and I want to be like the girl who sits next to me and doesn’t know what the hell C-4 is.
But then I realize that all my things I carry with me. For better or for worse. Would I go back and change it? I don’t think so. I loved it. So why can’t I get past it?
In three years if I apply for a job and they ask me what I did for three years what will I tell them? Do I tell them about the movie that I lived in? or do I tell them about how we built the set? It was made of cardboard and bullshit, you know. The beret is cloth, not honor. The jump wings are just cheap metal. How do you let us crash like this? We gave you 3 years, let us down slow, please. Please.
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