Inventory

Promotion to NCO, 2005, American Embassy Australia

Ten years a Marine. One dead friend. One divorce. One kid. One failed suicide. Still here.

Brain lies. Says I'm nothing. Friend disagrees. Therapist at the VA nods along.

I talk to airplanes all day, one hundred feet up, wondering how I got here. Voice never cracks anymore, not even when I want it to.

I'm writing a novel. No surprise. I knew it would happen because there's no other way to make sense of my insane life. How does a man process what he's done and what happened in such a short time frame? I've done more than most men dream of in a lifetime. But something doesn't sit right with me. My brain tells me it's nothing. Just normal shit everyone does. Run-of-the-mill life stuff.

Except it isn't.

I submitted to the Corps. Guarded embassies and toured fifty countries where no one knew my name. Three deployments. Buried friends without breaking. Watched my marriage crumble like sand castles. Held my daughter while fighting the urge to disappear. Divorce papers. MBA. Business built, then crashed. Another business. Published book. Became a coach. Started an MFA. Working on another fucking book.

Normal, right? Just everyday life.

Then why does my friend look at me like I'm some kind of marvel when I list it all out?

The Marine, the father, the man surviving—they're all here. Not separate people. Just me in different chains I've chosen or rejected.

I write it down not because anyone gives a shit, but because forgetting is how you die twice.

Last year I won my pro bodybuilding card. Today I ate three cannoli with powdered sugar on my fingers. That's real power—choosing pleasure when the dead can't taste anything at all. Life's short. Stop pretending you're above simple pleasures. The ghosts don't care what you eat. They just care that you can still choose anything at all.