I haven't contributed any of my thoughts to my blog in over two months. The weight of the war and the immense loss of lives and souls washed over my heart and held me under my tears of sorrow and grief.
I haven't written out of shame and guilt for feeling so deeply and out of fear of being labeled weak. I am a Marine and should be able to suck it up and move on. Perhaps it is my age or perhaps it is because this is my second war experience.
At any rate, I'm swimming through a river of memories I can not reconcile, feelings of absolute betrayal, and deep sorrow for all those that remain here with me in the borderlands between war and home. Many of us long to go back to Iraq where life is easier and simpler and well defined. Here nothing seems real or relevant.
But I can't go back and leave my daughter again for an entire year. Nor can I leave the country like I did after Desert Storm. This time I am forced to face this hollowness, this cavern of sorrow that seeps between the cracks of my numbness.
All I know today is that some wounds go too deep and you can't pick up the threads of an old life once you've been over there.
