Even after all this time I can't think about it without shutting down because I can't handle the emotions that come with it.
More than a decade later and I'm stuck on this. More than a decade later the dead have stayed dead, I get to experience the gift of life. Sadly they're the ones who would actually have appreciated it. The longer I go on the more of an insult I am to those that aren't here. It feels like having been given every last dime someone had to make something good of myself, then pissing it all away at the bar.
Worse still, it wasn't their choice to give it up, theirs was the name pulled from the unlucky hat. I've been ungratefully wasting something someone probably didn't want to give me in the first place. How can I look myself in the eyes ever again?
They don't understand the self-hate
They really don't. I don't think most people really understand what hate is. Anger, injustice, insult, injury, malice? Sure, but hate? No. Hate is so much more. To really hate someone, you have to understand them, get to know them like you know yourself and see, really see, that there are no redeeming qualities laying buried beneath.
I don't understand why they don't see it. I suppose that's why their encouragement doesn't hold much weight. If they really understood, would they still be forgiving? Should they be?
It feels to me like.
"If you knew me as I do, you'd feel as I do. So you don't know what you're talking about. If you don't hate me, you don't know me, so why would I take your word for it?"
my guilt for "allowing" things to happen.
With this, I don't know which is worse? That I allowed something so horrible to happen, or that I believe that the kind, benevolent God I grew up believing in, could really be so cruel. It must be one or the other, I just can't accept that random chance could put that scenario into play. Random chance isn't cruel, nor is God supposed to be, so I must be the weak link in the chain. Even if I didn't do anything wrong, I should have dome more right.
it's simple --- I did what I did so I stayed alive.
For myself, it really kind of was that simple. It's living with it after the fact that is complicated.
They just don't get it. And I have no idea how to explain it.
That's the real bugger of it isn't it?
I know I didn't "get it" when I was told by someone that
"You are going to see some horrible shit out there. You're going to be putting yourself in situations that are dangerous. Be prepared." I really thought about it, tried to imagine a scene that would truly horrible and terrifying. I tried to cut out the bravado and ambition and try to look at it from a pragmatic perspective. I tried to not be an FNG or rookie or whatever you want to call it.
HA! I had no f*cking clue.
The sheer hubris I possessed about what it would feel like to see someone die right in front of my face. To think I'd somehow shrug it all off as 'just another day'. That knowing I did my best would somehow be good enough. The utter niaevity, no. Ignorant stupidity of thinking I could never be scared so f*cking badly I would react like a regular human and choose my life over someone else's. I never imagined it would be a baby. I never imagined having to live with it.
I never felt towards anyone the way I feel about myself after that. It would be easier to explain colour to a person born blind.
