Walking through a large department store after spending seven months in Afghanistan · 1:17am Sep 26th, 2014
When you first get back to America after a long time spent elsewhere, everything feels a bit surreal.
You walk through the mall, recognizing everything. You don't stand there, gaping at the shelves like you've never seen them; you aren't overwhelmed by the choices or surplus. You remember, somewhere in the back of your mind, that this is normal. This is what life was always like before you left. The strange, indescribable feeling hiding just behind your eyes, that none of this is real, is like a veil upon your thoughts, shrouding them, but even through it you still see. Seven months was not enough time to forget what walking through a department store is like, or how it should feel.
While you were gone you made a list of all the things you wanted to do, to see and to buy when you got back. You may have kept a word document on your desktop with all these things, or just emailed them to your personal account so you would have them ready when you got home. The list was like a talisman back when you were in country and the days seemed endless. If you had time, you could open it up and imagine each one come to life, or dream of something new to add. The mere imagination of them helped banish the tedium of deployed life.
But now you walk through the department store, and you can't remember half the list. You found one item, a favorite drink or snack, and you carry it with you through the store as you try to remember the rest, as you try to remember what was so important that you had to come home. You turn down the next aisle, scanning the shelves, wondering if this is where you will find it, though you cannot recall what it is. You turn the corner and look, and turn the corner and look, and again and again.
At some point, as with all the previous deployments, you'll realize that it wasn't the list or the stores or your favorite drink that brought you home. It was your friends, and they never really left you. They were just harder to talk to while you were gone.
I'll be getting home tomorrow, and as such this will be my last 'deployed' blog post. Thank you to everyone who wrote or watched or even just read something I made over the past seven months. You guys are great, and there's rarely a day that goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am to be part of this fandom.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Welcome back, CiG, and as always, thank you.
Welcome home, brother. You've been missed. Take a load off and grab a beer, we'll get the pizza.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Now, I'm not military, never have been, but I did once spend two weeks in the Boundary Waters with the Boy Scouts. Everything seems strange when you get back- the once pretty city is ugly, the growl of the highway unbearably loud. Too much grey, not enough green.
I know that my experience was only a fraction of what you feel, but it's a pretty interesting feeling all the same. It just felt so strange to have to go to a tap to get water instead of straight out of a lake, or not having to carry 75 lbs around everywhere I went.
Glad to know you'll be coming back stateside.
You happen to be one of the people I admire most in this fandom and in the internet, in general. It's always good to read your blogs, and to know you're going home.
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Thanks, man. Honestly I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have so many people who care about how I'm doing during adventures like this. It helps make them more bearable.
Welcome back, and thank you!
Welcome back
Welcome back, hon, and thank you so much for your service.
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Fimfiction wouldn't be Fimfiction without people like you, Cold. Good to have you back.
Now get back to writing horse tragedies, damnit.
It's always grateful to hear from you, and as always I can't wait to hear more. Welcome home, Gardez. Pone awaits you unabated.
That was deep, real deep.
Welcome back, man, and thank you for both your service and your insight.
That feeling - at least as I've experienced it - is like a lucid dream in reverse. With a lucid dream, you know that it's a dream, but everything seems so real. Instead, you walk through a world that you know is real, and yet it has a hazy out-of-sync quality of a dream to it.
I suggest heading to Build-A-Bear and buying Princess Twilight and Rarity. Might as well go full-on surreal while you're in the zone, and get some bonus plushies out of it.
Welcome home, CiG.
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Welcome back home sir. You have most certainly been missed.
Welcome home. Take a load off. Let someone else get the watch for a bit. You've earned it. o7
Welcome home, CiG! Glad you made it in one piece.
It's not adding any new content, which I feel weird about, but welcome back nonetheless.
So glad to hear you are back safely.
Welcome home. I hope you'll have some time to take care of yourself and those you love.
Glad you're back safe and sound.
Ahhh, vacation's over. Never went to a department store right away, but I did find out that Bill Cosby and Angelina Jolie were, in fact, still alive.
Welcome back.
Good to have you back!
Oh, no, CiG. This is the dream. You're still back at your FOB.
I can never seem to grasp that feeling, even though I have heard of it many times before. Being a military brat, I've talked to a lot of people coming back from deployments and most of them have said things very similar to this. I guess it's one of those things that can't be described, but only experienced for oneself.
Thank you for your service, sir, and welcome home.
Good to hear you got back alright. Hope coming home is everything you wished for and more.
Welcome back, Gardez. Do you follow sports at all? After a lengthy deployment in tumultuous territory overseas, watching grown men play utterly meaningless games in the grand scheme of life sounds like a good way to take the edge off.
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What can I say? ColdinGardez is a man of his word.
Glad that you made it home safe and sound! Remember to watch both ways when crossing the street.
Having randomly caught a few of these posts of yours now, I have a random question.
Did anyone else know about your pony hobby while you were out there, or did you keep it to yerself?
Purely out of curiosity.
These blog posts have been enlightening. Thank you for writing them.
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I am very careful about keeping it to myself. I don't see any net positive to my professional life being entwined with my love for this fandom.
Glad to hear that you are coming back.
Sorry it's black and white; old movie and couldn't find a colored version.
Welcome back, man.
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Indeed! In the same sort of vein though, did that love help you cope with the ordeal of being deployed out there? Sorry, last question I swear!
Well, then, allow me to say a slightly belated "welcome back."
I'm always happy to read your blog posts. It's amazing to me that you managed to keep to close to this community overseas. You're a great writer, and every time you post, I'm a little reassured that nothing terrible happened to you out there.
Glad you're coming home safe.
Glad you are home! Hope you won't have to go again....But I know the drill....maybe you will just "understand the Question" next time and keep your hand down...heheheheh! (That how they got me for my second tour of Iraq....I.E. Hey? what? Raises hand...What did you say? What do you mean I just volunteered? ) Have Fun!