Home, for the Last Time

As I crested the hill, the familiarity of “home” crept in. A montage of my life flashed through my mind, and a whirlwind of emotions came with it. The cognitive fog of the unknown and unfamiliar dissipated to reveal the wreckage I have spent so much of my life trying to escape. I felt the familiar heaviness and anxiety this place had always brought upon me.

My mind flipped through the pages of time. The abusive and neglected childhood. The lost and self-destructive adolescence. The search for meaning in young adulthood. The adult who felt trapped. The decades of pain and trauma not inherent to this place, but bestowed upon me here. It also brought the happy memories. The ones I wanted so desperately to cling to, but were all too often fleeting or tainted with too-familiar pain. The happiness always seemed like the anomaly. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the happiness to blow away with the violent wind of the Midwest.

The physical separation creates an emotional and mental barrier. It becomes much easier to gatekeep their access when there are hundreds of miles between you. It is much easier to forget, if only long enough to rest, when there are no physical reminders around every corner.

This place, and everything that happened, made me who I am and, for that, I must pay some respects. But I am glad to be gone. I am glad this will no longer be my “home.”

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Jake is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger. He deployed to Afghanistan four times during his Army service. For The Havok Journal, he writes from the perspective of both military service and law enforcement, often on military life, leadership, loss, and transition.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.