Goodbye Wife. Hello darkness,my old friend.
To you Jensen, the person I used to hold most dearest in my soul.
When I take a moment to reminisce, to ponder on what the years have have done to me both physically and mentally, it really all apears as if i was on my death bed. My life flashing before my eyes. Visions so clear, scents so bold and fragrant, the sounds of our joy and misery so vivid.
It’s always so cheesy and corny when you hear a stupid clichés but they are only relevant once you find yourself in a situation where they just fit like a glove, as if they were written just for you. It is better to have loved and lost then to have never of loved at all. When I close my eyes at night, when I’m at my lowest, I can almost see it branded in the darkness of my eyelids. But I have respect for my anguish, like a sick and twisted agreement. Because I understand that all of these emotions that I hate are the result of what I used to experience. The joy I once possessed, its unbelievably more valuable than anything I could ever have or will ever feel again.
I remember seeing you around the halls or lunch area from time to time. So shy and timid as you made your way around the school. It wasn’t until you began to date Matt Solis this i took any sort of interest in finding out more about you. It so happened to be that you were a close friend of the person I was dating at the time. Then sooner or later it happened. It’s one memory that i haven’t lost over time. I was getting dropped off by the light right next to the football stadium and you and Kara were waiting to cross the street. I do not remeber the exact coversation, but I know it was the first time you ever acknowledged my existence.
School let out for the summer and we were both available. I think it was ol’ MySpace that did the talking for me but I got your number. It was so comforting to find another Mars Volta fan, or someone who understood that King of the Hill was actually a reality show about the everyday life of a white person. You had my teen body all scrambled up. On one hand you were a babe, on the other you so interesting.
From that point on until you turned eighteen , it’s just a vast ocean of snapshots. A mental photo album to remind me of the life i lived. Walking at night thru Willow Walk. The drive to see you after my shift at Subway. Ditching class to spend all day at your house. The list goes on and on. Then came Shadow Lane. The rough times.
That was the very first time we really had any turbulence in our relationship. I can still feel the frustration of not being allowed to see you. To be so young and still under the rule of “mom” ha ha ha. But we were in love, oh we were so in love. The long walks you would take baby on. It’s so obnoxious how long that was believed for. The turkey avocado sandwiches from Starbucks. The storming nights we spent at The Ramona Bowl. The Little Ceasars pizza we shared with Athena. Simpson Park. Then came Anthony.
The introduction of Anthony into our lives was a blessing and a curse. I remember not having a job, being so desperate for money and living at your moms house. It’s crazy to look back on it right at this very second, it’s almost hard to believe that we live there with all our animals but we made it work because we want it to be with each other. It used to be very miserable to be locked up in Anthony’s house every single day and not be able to leave anywhere because of the work that was going on there. But it also gave me the opportunity to be with you every waking second. I got to know the in and outs of you. It was such an interesting adventure to go through with you and the fact that you stayed with me through all of that was one of the many reasons that I knew that I wanted to be with you forever.
Our marriage came after that. I can’t help to smile just thinking about how young, stupid and naive we were. We thought we had the world all figured out. Then after that came the decision to have a kid which I will consider has been the only thing I have ever been. Having Emery with you is truly the one blessing that I have been given in this life. Once I knew you were pregnant I was also aware that the life we were living with Emery was not one that I wanted for you or my child so here’s what a roller coaster really begins I suppose.
I know my decision to join the military was devastating for you. The lack of information, not really knowing what to actually expect, just the giant mystery surrounding what our life would be like. Then can basic. That was a very interesting time for me. But I could only imagine what you went through. You had to deal through the toughest part of your pregnancy all on your own, the only person to help you with your family and your mom. It never ceases to amaze me the courage that a person can show when they are forced to. You did everything possible to take care of our little one while I was gone and it just made me love you even more.
The joy of coming to Fort Riley Kansas. I wish there was more to that statement but we both are very aware that there is none. Personally it was a giant culture shock to go from living with civilized people then having to move to hillbilly capital of America. So we were getting ready for Emery. And then finally she came, just out of nowhere wanting to show up uninvited right before my birthday. If I remember correctly we had just ravaged through some enchiladas and after we were lustfully expressing our love for one another when you started having contractions. Watching you give birth has been one of the most intimidating moments of my life, to literally watch a child come out of you was… I have no idea how to explain it I am at a loss for words.
In the early month of May 2012 was around the time before I will say that I lost complete touch with reality. I had forced myself to believe that I would never see you again that was never going to come home again and it was the hardest thing I had ever forced on myself to do. Then one day it just happened I was completely disconnected from my life in Kansas and I just became primal I suppose is what can best describe what happened to me.
When I came home I was miserable. I had adapted to being alone. All I knew how to do what was to please myself in order to make single day go by. To just feel OK with myself until I went to bed and close my eyes then nothing else is relevant. I never planned out even waking up to be surprised every morning that I was still alive was still something very new to me. I made the biggest mistake of my life by not snapping up of a selfish deployed mentality. I knew the instant I saw you, in your leather jacket and jet black hair, waiting for me in the redeployment center, that I should have
died in combat. It should have been me not Cody not Todd who didn’t make it home. Being selfish and wishing to be dead does not ecuse the disgusting sins I sold my soul unto.
It just never felt the same again no matter how hard i tried to feel normal. I was mentally not home yet, not ready to accept that I wasn’t free to be a human again. We fought constantly and I could see the damage that I had caused. The agony I saw in your eyes when you looked at me, when you had forced tourself to be around me. I broke you, I destroyed you. In my mind I did everything I could do to make it right again as if that was ever possible.
So I was asked if I would go to Africa and I figured the money would help us. I couldn’t find it within myself to tell you I was once againg going to abandon you and Emery for the money. It hurts, to live a life defined by hunting the next bonus. But I did it, Sgt Garcia never having a fear to take an order. Out of all the Sargeant in Battle Company, I was the only one who was so distorted with reality that I offered to go. I was in Air Assault school when they called me to tell me I was going. I was such a fool to think we could as a family overcome. To just keep taking these blows life had presented to us and not need any time to recover from then.
When you called me about the mice in the house I was lost beyond belief. How was I to help you from such distance? I was so upset that you expected me to have a solution for you. Selfish I know, to think that you relied on me. I could see how much misery you were living under. You reap what you sowe. I had invested myself in such a dark sin that expecting anything other than my complete destruction was so nieve of myself to belive. Now we both are aware of the current lifes we partake in. We live searching for a fix, for a solution to the unsolvable riddle that is life itself. What is the purpose of our existence? How do we know if we are on the right path? Will we ever be happy?
I had the opportunity to meet my soul mate. The one person in life that was designed just for myself. But I was not ready for you. Million upon millions of people will die without ever experiencing the emotions I have with you. I am forever grateful for you. For getting to know you and being able to live the way that i did. I used to be alive when I was with you. I chose to completely drown myself in filth so now it’s only fitting that I crawl myself back into reality. Life will always be unpleasant I suppose. No one ever has true joy I suppose. They just fake it until they either die or they just give up along the way.
You will be fine I can promise you that. You possess the qualities that are nearly extinct in the avarage human being. I think about you all the time, both negatively or positive. You have become my shadow in life. During the day its always with my. Sometimes I lose it during good lighting but im aware it’s around, but at night that shadow devours my light. It fills the room with no manners, not a care in the world as to how unwelcoming it may be. I am learning how to become accustomed to thinking of you my old friend. You are my blessing and I am the curse. I am so scared of what I will become. The thoughts strangle me every second I am awake. What will I become now? Will I ever feel happy again? What purpose do I serve in life now? One day I will know.
“I guess love’s a funny thing-the way it fades away without a warning.
It doesn’t ask to be excused.
And when it’s gone-oh, it’s gone-and it ain’t ever comin’ back.
There is nothing you can do to save it,
to make it breathe the way it did when you were sliding on the ring.
Trust me: It’s gone for good.”
There will never be any closure between us. Nothing in this life or the next will ever extinguish the acid that eats away at my mind and my soul day in and day out. Nothing will ever end the thoughts that have been raped into me. I only hope that when my life is finally over, I msy finally be able to have a break. Even if for only a split second I welcome it. I will embrace it ever so dearly like an old friend. Peace, either physical or mental, men give their lifes for this. The desire to never have any conflict is the most beautiful and serine idea our simple human brains could ever fathom.
It is with an unbearably heavy heart that I finish this letter. I wrote this with the ideology in regards to my feelings and emotions towards you. To just repress it all within myself until I return back into the cold and dark hole from which I was ment to decompose into. So I will end this with a quote. The only way I know how because I recall someone in a movie explain that why try to say something witted when someone has already done so.
“ It’s hard when you miss people. But, you know, if you miss them you were lucky. It means you had someone special in your life, someone worth missing ”
