Decisions

The ride to the airport is quiet. It takes about a half hour, and it's a school day, so I'll have to have my mom write a note that excuses me from my English and math classes. I'm in the back seat of our Bronco II, a year before my mom rolls it on the Midway Road, fiddling with my backpack zipper and looking out the window. All too soon we are at the airport, and I trail along behind my mom and dad as they pick up one boarding pass and check one suitcase. When it's time, my dad walks through the security gate and, with a final wave, disappears down the jetway and into the plane bound for North Carolina. My mom walks to the big window overlooking the tarmac and stares out. I'm sixteen, and I've never witnessed a look of profound lonliness on the face of a loved one until that moment, when my dad left from one of his visits to go back to his job in North Carolina. My mom and I are still here, and she has that look on her face because we decided to let my dad go ahead of us until I graduated from high school. He's been making these visits for a year and a half. After I graduate and start my own life, they can be back together again, they who have been together since high school, they who have lived and loved together for over twenty-five years. My mom stares out the window of the airport, her face slack and pale, her eyes bright with tears and ready to spill over. I decide at that moment that my last two years of high school no longer matter. As a sixteen year old, I decided that it was better to sacrifice my own comfort than to have to continue to see that look on my mother's face, the look that masked the pain of being alone in a world. Later that night, as my mom got ready for bed, I would tell her that we needed to move across the country to be with my dad. I was ready.

What do you do with the truth?

There have only been a few times in my life when reality has smacked me right upside the head, when all of my previously understood concepts of particular aspects of life are flipped on me, turned on my person like a thief who's gotten ahold of my pepper spray. One of those times was when I got out of high school, went to college, and realized that I was now a very small fish in a very big, cruel pond. Another was when I graduated with my masters degree and realized that English MAs are a dime a dozen, and no one was going to hire me simply because of my degree. I had to separate myself out from the pack, and that was difficult.

Speaking of difficulty, I have, within the past two days, been confronted with something that is, dare I say, life-changing. I know a guy who is going to Iraq. This guy is my boyfriend.

I know that this news is not impressive in and of itself. He's a firefighter in the air national guard. We're in a (ahem, ridiculous) war. That's what military people do. They go to war.

The truth, however, is far more complex than the mere statement implies. This whole business calls into question my ideas about war and peace, love, and what it means to commit. In a broad sense, I am displeased with this war, and it has become the quagmire than Dick Cheney himself alluded to in an interview in 1994 as then former secretary of defense (essentially, he said that removing Hussein's government, despite the fact that it is tyrranical, would create collateral damage within Iraq and among the people that we are simply not equipped to deal with). I have protested this war at the foot of the White House, outside the Pentagon, and at the mall in front of the Capitol. I am not messing around with my feelings about this war. It is, admittedly, not as easy as simply withdrawing all troops and letting the cards fall as they may. But I don't trust Bush and his cronies as far as I can throw them, so I certainly don't trust them to get us out of this thing as reasonably as possible. Yes, Cheney, you were right on at least one aspect: this is indeed a big, messy, ridiculous quagmire, and I stand in judgment against it.

But then I have a man who I love going to play a part in it, in a very real sense. My philosophy and judgment and distaste doesn't amount to a hill of beans when he's there. As far as he is concerned, I have to be support. My father said something really wise the other day: he said that the only thing I need to be concerned with is him. It's about me being someone who he can think about and feel good, someone whose love and full support is not in question. This doesn't mean that I need to change my feelings about the war, but it does mean that I need to shift my perspective and focus in on the reality that confronts me.

Another aspect of this that is kind of blowing my mind is the fact that we have really only been together for just over three months. That's obviously not a long time. He's leaving for four months. How do I deal with him being gone for that long? Is he going to change with the things he sees while he is over there? Am I going to become so focused in on my work and life here that I forget how much his love has nourished me these few months? Can there still be growth in the midst of absence?

We've talked about this, and he shocks me by his lack of worry and his immense trust in me and the relationship. In the face of what I would consider to be life-and-death circumstances, his assuredness buoys me. The simple truth is that bodily absence does not mean that the love is also absent. It also means that the hard work of the relationship continues despite that absence.

Which brings me to the last issue, which is that of commitment. I've always thought that I would be able to easily commit, that I am a mate-for-lfe type of person. At the same time, there are moments when I feel that the sinews of past relationships are holding me back. In short, relationships for me have become synonymous with leaving, and with that leaving, a deadening of emotions. How am I supposed to deal with him leaving me when the love is still very much alive and well?

I've been a bundle of emotions since I got the news that he's leaving. I have not been steady. Last night, after expressing my regret over my overemotional state (it's exhausting for me to be that way, and I can only imagine that it is tiring for him), he stated a simple truth: "The sky isn't falling in on us. Everything is okay." This reminds me of a fortune cookie years ago: "The stars appear every night in the sky. All is well." I always thought that commitment meant looking over the course of my life and saying "yes" to something for that entire timespan. The real truth is, though, that commitment is something I must do every single day. There are, of course, things that I say "yes" to over a time span, but those are mere words that dissipate like morning dew without daily commitment and nurturance. It's not about saying "yes" once. It's about saying "yes" even when, on any given day, I might feel indifferent or that I want to scream, "NO!" Commitment isn't something I'll get from someone, like a diamond ring or a new blender. Commitment is something that I must choose to do every day.

I don't know what's going to happen over the next four months, through fall and into the deep freeze of winter before I see him again. What I do know is the truth, which is far more simple than I ever could have imagined without living it.