The Me That Once Was

It’s interesting to reconnect with the you that once was, but is no longer. I had this opportunity recently, when I discovered letters I had sent to my mother, now some 40 years ago. I don’t know why she kept them, but that’s what mothers do.  At least my mother.  Daughters, however, don’t do that.  At least, sadly, not this daugher. But reading these letters was like opening a time capsule. It became a new journey, like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said.

What’s really interesting is that I no longer know the person who wrote those letters. If you had asked me a week ago if I’ve changed over the years, I would have answered no, except maybe for the grey hair and wrinkles. But oh, how I’ve changed! Evolved, grown, morphed, into someone else, someone not anything like that someone from 40 years ago that I don’t even recognize. It’s an odd feeling. Not good, not bad, just odd. Well, good in one way. I realized that the person I once was, was independent, strong, curious, adventurous, unafraid. Not any more! Still independent. Still curious. Smarter? Perhaps. Wiser? Most certainly. But not as strong; not as  adventurous, not as unafraid. Which seems weird somehow. Because when I look back from my vantage point today, I don’t remember being those things. As if the way I am now is how I’ve always been.

I think what eludes us from our past are the details. So yes, I remember leaving home when I was about 20 years old, working at a couple of horse stables, joining the Army, enduring basic and advanced training, being stationed in Washington, D.C., and Germany, and the state of Washington. What’s missing from my memory are the daily activities. The routine of feeding, watering, cleaning, and exercising horses, all before noon, and just how much work that really was. The falling through a hole in the hay loft and slicing up a leg, or slipping down the steps from the hayloft, sliding the rest of the way on my back, and how much both of those accidents hurt. It was tearing down buildings, and ripping an aging tin roof from a barn because the guy I worked for was apparently afraid of heights, so the 20 year-old girl had to it. It was watching horses get sick, get an IV, get stitched up, or worst of all, die.

When I joined the Army, the details of basic training I’ve forgotten weren’t those of running 5 to 8 miles every day, or firing weapons and tossing hand-grenades, or being subjected to mild nerve gas, or being assigned to the position of squad leader. Those are strong memories, and still intact.  No, the details I had forgotten involved spending all my free time following my squad around to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to, and being chewed out by my drill sergeants on a regular basis when they didn’t.  It was the long, grueling marches under the hot August sun, just to get to a firing range.  It was the exhaustion I felt at the end of the day, but it was also how proud I was of myself for surviving it all.

When stationed in Germany, it wasn’t the the field exercises we had to endure every month or so that I had forgotten about, but rather how hard it was to find my way around in the dark, in the middle of the night, to relieve guards and post new ones.  It was the scare of finding one of my duty guards suffering from hypothermia. It was living in the barracks and being told I was now in charge of 30 women, who really weren’t even women yet, but girls, far away from home for the first time in their young lives, and lonely, and scared, just like me. It was being assigned to teach classes on things like the effects of nerve gas, to other soldiers.  It was providing weekly briefings to my Battalion Commander and his company captains on legal issues going on within the unit. It was the daily work of separating soldiers from the Army when they had proven they were incapable of adapting to military life for some reason. It was riding in helicopters with the doors open and thinking how much fun it was. The lack of fear I had, doing all those things, and so many more, that’s what I’m in awe of.  Now? I almost cringe because I know I probably can’t – or wouldn’t – do any of them any more.  I’m not that young, brave woman I once was. And I wonder where she went. Heck, I wonder when she went. I never saw her leave.

But age is a real thing, right? A number, yes, but a thing as well. We become more cautious as we age. At some point we realize we are mere mortals, subject to the laws of the universe. We have come to the realization that we will not live forever, and it is worrisome. We didn’t worry when we were young. At least, I didn’t. I just lived. I did things and went my merry way because I could, and I wanted to, and I had no fear. And while I have changed, and have aged, and have become more cautious, it makes me feel happy, and almost young again, having had this opportunity to meet that young woman again, the me that once was, and she makes me proud. Thank you, Mom, for bringing my young life back to me once more, albeit rather unexpectedly!

~ jwb ~