Home?!

So, the struggles of PTSD and attempting to get out of the army alive have been put on the back burner for the weekend.
Yesterday, my whole life was turned on it's head after a conversation with a very old, dear friend revealed that I'm not the only one who has had romantic feelings and hopes in that particular friendship. Suddenly, life seems a lot clearer, if not especially easier. I discussed this situation and my newly rediscovered intent to move back to the place I was living before I joined the army with my closer friends and, of course, the man I was dating. Yes, was.
Never in my life, until this moment, have I been among the category of people who have "dumped" one person for another- but I assure you the word dump is an accurate description, because, no matter how nicely or gently you do it, and no matter how pure your intentions and reasons- that's exactly what it feels like. It's a crappy feeling.
So, today, I struggle between being very happy that I finally have the man that I have adored for over five years now as a long-term part of my romantic life, and feeling guilty that attaining that happiness required me to hurt someone else's feelings.
The strangest part of it is that I'm enjoying struggling with a conflict that doesn't make me question my own sanity and ability to function. This isn't a PTSD thing, for a change, and this situation doesn't reflect any of my past struggles in any way- it's just a situation humans find themselves in once in a while.
Ultimately, though, the struggle is handled- there's little to nothing left I can do to soften the blow on anyone hurt by all of this. I did the best I could, and still am. I am very happy that I have this chance with someone I know so well and care so much for, in a town where I have several other friends, and where I'll be able to go to school to teach special education. Also, a friend of mine has contacts in the modeling world up that way, so, even though this will require a move on my part, it has some serious benefits that I cannot deny, even if it weren't for the amazing romantic situation.
I spoke to my wonderful friend for about three hours on the phone earlier, and I despise the telephone, but it was so good just to hear his voice, to be able to talk to him about life and our plans and what we've been dealing with. He's wonderful, and he's always been one of the best friends I've had, even when our friendship became strained at some points. I'm really, really looking forward to finally looking at those gorgeous brown eyes and knowing that I'm not imagining what I see looking back at me.
Feels like a love story, and I am so grateful.

Family????

I've never had family.
Yes, I've known people I was related to by blood, but the ones in that category I ever felt like I could really "go home" to if I needed to are long gone now. I've never had that relationship with either of my bio parents, and my relationship with my stepdad was much healthier and happier, though strained for very different reasons, in very strange ways.
Sitting here and wondering if I gave up too soon, if I wasn't as right as I thought, even if I wasn't wrong, maybe I wasn't completely justified in my actions at that particular point....
But I'll never know, because gone is gone.... because some parts of your past will never be willing to return, or maybe they're not supposed to, I don't know...
I'm lucky to have what I do now, and yet, all I can do is look back at my past and wonder if I'd do it all again, knowing what I know now. I just wish the answer was yes.
How do I look at my closest friends, and know that walking away from them is WRONG- that these people are FAMILY and they would not give up on me no matter what, and yet know that this is knowledge I didn't have to be able to apply it not so terribly long ago???
How can you ever move forward when the past is so painful, and still clinging so much to your very soul? I don't want to lose what I have today, I don't want to lose the hope I have for my future, but my past just hasn't really left me yet.

Setbacks

Just when I was so close to being set free from this military life, I get knocked on my butt again.
My paperwork sat on someone's desk for two weeks, got improperly "finished" today, so I was sent back to get the same paperwork done all over again- only to be told, oh by the way, we added something else to the list of things you need to submit that paperwork you submitted two weeks ago, so you have to come in two hours early tomorrow and hopefully you can get everything taken care of, because right now you're not good.
Oh yeah, then there's that memory that keeps popping up like some bizarre cross between a stabbing pain and an addict's craving for a part of my past I'm barely even beginning to understand. I have it so good right now, why is this tugging at me when there's nothing to be done, and no way to fix it? I'm hurting so badly and I don't have the first clue how to even explain it to MYSELF, let alone rationalize it out loud. It was a very long day, I am hurting, I am tired, and I don't even want to deal with myself right now.
I got a new tattoo today in a somewhat-effective attempt to dull the impulses- a bullet-riddled heart. I'm sure there will be people who give me the "Why would you get THAT?!" bit for this one- but, really, I have a corndog tattoo. My body is the last thing I'm going to stress out about. It's a vessel for things far more important, and, really, maybe if I can see these memories and feelings, maybe I won't need to go through them inside anymore.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But maybe.

Failed Transactions

The lady on the other end of the phone told me she'd cleaned out all my failed transactions so that I wouldn't have any more problems with my ATM/Debit card.
As I sorted out the problems and bills, a song called Modern Day Prodigal Son by Brantley Gilbert came on my radio.
I began to cry before I understood why.
I cried because I haven't allowed myself to trust anyone enough for them to become my family. I cried because I don't have a home to run back to. I cried because I've worked harder to protect myself from losing the two things I never had than to build them.
I cried because I have the chance to do it now, to not blow it this time, to have a home and a family, and I've already come so close to turning away from them.
I cried all the way home from the bank, in uniform, scared and overwhelmed at all the things that had just sunk in. I'm sitting here now, shocked that I'm not still crying. I'm almost numb now, mostly from being totally overwhelmed, I suppose.
I have a chance at a family and a home- people who won't mistreat me, people who I can- and have- corrected when they do something that hurts me who will fix their mistakes and neither of us have to walk away because of those mistakes. Forgiveness- that's what that's called. Acceptance. Love. How have I been so blind all this time not to realize what I was lacking?
So, I guess it's time to clear out all my failed transactions, too, and start fresh, one way or another....

Daring To Hope

Life has gotten very scary lately, and, I think, is about to get a whole lot better.
I have recently met a wonderful man, one who is almost exactly what I would have dreamt up for myself, but so much better than I could have imagined. He is older, stable, wonderful, and doesn't seem to have a lick of trouble dealing with the likes of me or my particular brand of stuff.
For the first time yesterday, I visited his home- but this wasn't just another house in a cul-de-sac with a white picket fence. Outside the city limits, ten acres, horses, dogs, a cat and a guinea pig. His bills are paid, he has a job, he has enough experience in life to know what he has, and what he wants, and we get along awfully well. We actually met through mutual friends- and this time that phrase isn't a cover story for a guy I met online but don't want to have to explain that about. He's also a biker, though, for those who are familiar, not a 1%-er, but part of a more family-oriented club. He's also near my university of choice.
This feels like a dream- so much so, I find myself very, very scared to allow myself to believe it could all be true. I have been very cautious about trusting him, or believing that maybe he's as on the level as I am, but I think I can start now...
Life is interesting, isn't it?

My Cold Day In Hell

I've been pretty stuck the last year or so- things have moved forward, but at a PAINFULLY slow rate.
Until today, I didn't even think I was CAPABLE of accepting that I do, indeed, have a disability. My disability does not require a wheelchair, crutches, a seeing eye dog (more on that later) or any other physical assistance.
It does require me to be very, very careful with myself, to take a MAJOR step back when I stumble on something new that puts me into a meltdown, to forgive myself on a daily basis for not being able to do simple things I swear I should be able to do- and alone.... I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. I have seen/done/been through/experienced/learned a LOT. I have had friends who were in what most would consider the most brutal portion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saw things over there that I can't even describe without wanting to cry- and two of these guys have looked me in the face and told me they wouldn't trade pasts with me for anything. Today, though, I am happy to be alive. Coming from someone who spent a week in the ICU when it all got really, really out of control for a while, that is a VERY big deal.
I don't have just one story as to why I have PTSD- some people do. I don't have any reason to think my symptoms are likely to just vaporize or even get a heck of a lot better.... but the fact that, today, I walked into the bathroom in a public place (I don't like public places, either, as agoraphobia is a stressful part of my symptoms) and didn't kick myself for going straight to the big, spacious, safe handicap stall. I heard the door open and heard myself explain in my mind why I wasn't wrong for using the handicap stall- a rehearsal of sorts, for the ever-lingering fear of confrontation by people ignorant to invisible disabilities. As I'd been out with my biker family, I wasn't able to have my service dog beside me, and she alternately creates and dispels a lot of unwanted questions. As I've been working hard to transition out of needing her constantly (which is a much, much harder task than one would immediately assume, I might add) this was a mostly-welcome opportunity for me to give it a shot. I really, really hate crowds. I made it through, though, and, when the lady that came into the bathroom after me opened a conversation I didn't want to have- there wasn't one I would have initiated myself at that point- I was rewarded to have it be a surprisingly positive one. It ended in a compliment about my skin and the fact that the motorcycle club had just given certificates of appreciation to some local vets for the Veteran's Day holiday.
I have two really wonderful married friends, K&K, who have two wonderful teenagers, M&M, all of whom I have known a couple years now and whom I love very, very much. K&K are the funniest, most honest and completely country interracial couple I've ever met. There is no "I'm mixed" or explanations- just straight up he's-Black-she's-White-they're-happy. M&M are from her previous marriage, and both are very, very attached to KDaddy. They still see their bio dad frequently, but both seem to take the attitude that they accept it but don't have to like it. They're both good looking, intelligent, funny, honest and very-together kids.  They have become my family. Not in a claim-you-as-my-sister type of way, but in a true, can't-deny it way. i spend almost every weekend there, MGirl gives up her bed happily for me to use it, and I am never focused on stress or fear there. I just am home. We all look out for one another, though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disproportionately spoiled there.
And now I have a boyfriend, too.
For someone with as many trust issues, and as much discomfort as I find in being obligated to anyone, finding this balance with people who will remind me as often as I need that they aren't leaving me, they aren't giving up on me or changing our friendship because of my issues or bad days... This is HUGE.
The boyfriend has been through some things, too, and, between him and K&K, I could NOT have survived the last week financially or emotionally. I've been really, really lucky, and I am really, really proud of myself for not insisting that they go away while I have my issues. I couldn't be happier that these people are in my life the way they are. I am truly blessed to have all these things fall together that I never thought could- I truly feel lucky to be alive today.

Special-ity

So, at nearly twenty-seven years old, after five years in the US Army, a helluva lot of experience, and many other jobs.... I've finally figured out my purpose in life, and, more specifically, what I want to be when I grow up.
I want to be a teacher.
I don't want to be just any teacher, though- I want to teach children with special needs.
I'm not a mother- I cannot conceive children the natural way, due to a very particular kind of abuse in my own childhood. I was born to two parents, who were married, healthy and stable for all intensive purposes. That's how it was then, but so much has changed.
My mother remarried a lawyer with post-polio-induced quadriplegia, who turned out to be the most stable adult in my life. His little brother had been born with Down Syndrome, but managed to dodge the crippling wrath of polio. They were the two most incredible men I've ever been blessed to love.
I have been diagnosed with non-combat related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have a complex, chronic variety- and some of it stems from the reasons I have my own experience with foster care, frequent hospitalizations and special education. I have a service dog who is very friendly, very pretty, very sweet, and the reason I continue to have hope.
I love children. I've been a nerd my whole life- and never enjoyed school because I didn't learn the way "NORMAL" kids did. I have hated that word my entire life- normal. Ugh.
My uncle was the happiest person I know- and I'd put money on the fact that he couldn't have defined the word normal if it would save someone's life.
My stepdaddy was the smartest man I know- and he was visibly different, and had no qualms about putting his, er, "quirky" sense of humor  on full display every chance he got. He simply lived- no questions, no arguments, no excuses. He drove his family crazy from the relative comfort of his wheelchair, until his mother pushed him to go to school- with no use of his hands, arms or legs. He did, and learned to type with a long metal stick with a rubber tip. He also scared the daylights out of the children who attempted to get just a little too close to his face staring at "the strange man in a big chair" and smoked- a lot. That man was out-of-control funny, and always lived as he believed. He's still my hero.
I had a large number of labels, medications, treatments, doctors and tests as a child. LARGE! Shortly before my 21st birthday, and two years after an "elective" tubal ligation, I learned that all of these labels were wrong. I learned that the 37 medications I'd been on were all unnecessary and the words I'd once found comforting- "It's not your fault"- were actually a tool of dominance, and not of nurture.
And, many years and experiences later, I am more independent, responsible and mature than many people twice my age.
I have had the blessing of coming into contact, in some way, shape or form with people with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Post-Polio Syndrome, deafness, Down Syndrome, various auto-immune disorders, various levels and types of Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury, Cerebral Palsy and various other physical, mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. These are the people who see different aspects of the world than just what the media puts on display, the ones who have lived the life based on treating others as you would want to be treated- because these are the people who's experience of being treated as they'd treat others is substantially magnified each and every time they interact with someone who is not part of their every day life, and even sometimes when they are.
I want to be surrounded by the only people I really feel I belong with, my community- those of us with visible and invisible disabilities, those of us who have struggles that nobody would expect or understand unless they were part of this community or were very close to us. I want to help others, especially younger people who still are learning their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, differences, and, most of all, potential.
My first special ed teachers still stand out in my mind- they were far more open to explaining the diversity they'd experienced to us than any other teachers we had, be it racial, experiential, or anything else within reason. I was the only girl in my class- I was in the "behavioral" special needs class- and my teachers and I had a unique relationship because of that. I was the wild card who inevitably told the boys to shut up and listen. I was the one who got payback for being tripped, tackled and taunted when the teachers "just happened" to be looking away.
I want the opportunity to help someone the way I was helped- and to be around the children who understand what it means to be themselves and accept others as they are.
So, I know what I want to be when I grow up. Go figure.