This time it feels different. This time it feels familiar. Like last time my goodbyes were few--this time it's even fewer. The only thing that hasn't changed is how people feel about it. But then again, when was the last time I ever gave a shit what other people think? It's not in me. It's why I can make so many connections with so many people. It's why so many people always say they feel like they've known me all their lives. Or perhaps in another life; like they are meeting with long lost friends or family or perhaps even a lost soulmate. But nobody ever really knows me I just let them think they do. I am a ghost--but a figment of their imagination. A shape shifter that can turn into anything they want or need me to be. I am their hopes and desires and dreams; and I am their pain and insecurities and worst nightmare. It's why I have never made that "one" connection the way that every institution conspires against me to do. I know too much. And not in a book worm fact check kind of way. No, I know what to say and when to say it. I know when to nod and make you think I care or seem interested. It's in the way I touch the back of your neck and caress your hair. I know when to drop off the face of the earth and when to reappear out of the shadows again. I know what to say to lift your spirits and I know what to utter to make the weight of the world come crashing down on you. This time like last, they have criticized me. They have pointed the finger at me and told me that I'm part of the problem. If only I got my act together God would this world be a better place! But like last time I go not because of what people will say--either positive or negative. For all the clichés and inadequacies in the English language I can only offer you a simple truth: I go because I have to. This deployment feels different. Yet in many ways it's reassuring in the same way old rivals meet on the football field to give it one last go. My closest so called friends and family will not know what's at stake. Nor would I want them to know. Because what they don't tell you growing up is that knowledge is a burden. "Heavy is the head that wears the motherfuckin' crown" Chief Petty Officer Jones use to say to me. Wiser words have never been uttered in peace nor in wartime. I wouldn't wish our burden on my worst enemies. Our burden is sacred and eternal. We are the only ones that can even begin to fathom what is truly at stake in this fight. I use to wonder to myself if I had a choice when and where I could have been born why I would choose this life. Why now? Why here? Recently, I have finally begun to understand. Against all odds, and against the mountain of "better judgement", I finally have my last puzzle piece. And so within an unspecified amount of time, you as a dutiful follower of this blog for so many years will seize to see any more activity. I might make a que or I may not. Who knows, but what is certain is that just like you have all clicked on that " follow" button (for reasons I have yet to understand) you will start to "unfollow". And this place will become a hollow home. A graveyard of memories both good, bad, and indifferent. I don't have much. Most of my wealth I have accumulated in memories and in shedding blood, sweat, and tears with a select few I can proudly call my brothers. If it is not in my cards to return I leave all my worldly possessions to Vet Ranch in Texas for their work is truly one of angels. Humans have tainted everything we touch, but animals have no fault. They are innocent in every sense of the word and they deserve all the help and love we can give them. If there is anything I will burden you with it's with this burden of true love. If there is anything you can do for me in my absence it's to go out and adopt one of these beautiful souls. I don't promise much anymore but the one thing I can promise you with certainty is that everything you put into these bundles of joy you will get back ten fold. This time it feels different. There is no sense of bravado or revenge anymore only awe and humility. I go into harm's way not because I am better than anybody, on the contrary I put myself in that position because YOU are better. You have always loved deeper than me. You have always accomplished more and have shown more compassion and creativity. You have shown me that I can try to spend the rest of my life trying play catch up to you and it would all be a wasted endeavour. And so I put my path on a different trajectory purposefully: To deflect and shield the oncoming catastrophe as much as I possibly can so as you can go about your life as normal. In the hopes that the inevitable tremors of this great clash will remain just that and not the potentially devastating earthquake that it can turn into and that would surely shatter everyone's lives into pieces like it has so many countless times before. Let it only shatter me. Let my brothers go free and unscathed. Let the people I leave behind know nothing of this calamity. Let them not see the great evils and monsters that lay at our doorstep. Let them not hear the howling of the wolves just beyond the hill. Let the music continue to play, and let lovers love forever. Bandit2-1 out.
