I have felt disconnected in many ways. I think it's a side effect of this profession. I believe that we get so caught up in the support and helping of others...in the giving of ourselves and our well being at times to give back and help another...that the side effect is a loss of self. A disconnection to even our own stuff because we are so distracted and caught up in the stuff of the other. A battery that gets drained.
I thought about taking a trip away to isolate and sit in my dreams...to sit in reverie and play in my head. But when an invite came out to me last minute I decided to take a trip. I decided not to do what needed to be done for me physically, but instead what needed to be done for me mentally. More on that later.
I meet up with my old marine corps friends about one time per year. It's been that way for years. Every time we get together we cannot help but fall back into old behaviors. We joke. We drink. We eat. We play. We dance. We are us.
I say this because it is in these moments that I feel the most comfortable. The most confident...and I know they feel the same as well. Now, it's not only because these guys would take a bat to anyones head that messed with me, or that we wouldn't carry one of us back to the room when too drunk to walk and draw penises on their face so that over the course of the night the marks end up on the white pillow case...it's because when together, we are comfortable with who we are. Confidence.
Side note: I believe this is the definition of confidence. Confidence is comfort in who you are. Accepting of your story.
Back to it...
Both of them are married, kids, big families, work, responsibility, etc...
This is important because our getting together is not about women...it's not about partying...it's not about vacation away from our families...it's about an acknowledgement and understanding that we are together despite the distance. We are connecting to one another. More importantly, we are connecting to ourselves and who we were BEFORE we had all those above things. Reliving and revisiting memories that made us who we are today. Highlight those last sentences. Once a year we open safe boxes to revisit.
But back to connection, we have all felt it. You can be separate for years but as soon as you get together- it all clicks. No topic is too intimate or shallow. We connect because we can recognize parts of ourselves in one another.
They bring back to me what it is to laugh without fear, what is it to feel safe, the memory of military days, the collection of stories that we continue to build as we talk about their kids and wives and sitting on porches. We play in fantasy and they remind me of all the things that I am and what I want for myself...even some things that I don't want for myself. They are part of my history because we all share the same memories. Back up singers to my Alesha Keyes. Hmmm...that was a weird reference.
Anyways...
I believe that we can get so lost in our everyday that we forget what it is like to be us. The person that our friends know and love. Not only that...I feel like we lose sight into who we are outside of our patterns...our everyday. We lose perspective when all we see is our everyday...when all we see is the same. When we are stagnant in pattern and not challenging or reflective enough to know that we are stuck in a pattern...we are stunting growth.
Seeing something or revisiting memories of the person that you were before, or the stories that you've made with others can be a reminder and a respectful gesture to make to yourself...it is a revisiting of who you are now because of where you have been. Read that again.
Thank you gentlemen for my reconnection. For reintroducing me to me...
Until we open the safe box again...
"da, da, is tamandong...why does the horse thing look like me?"
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