Fade Away
"Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
It's hard, living like this. I tell everyone I'm going to go and lead a normal life, but I can't. I try, I really do, but I just can't. I've lost too much, seen too much, done too much that I regret and would give anything to change… I can't go back. I'm so fixated on going back to normal, to the way things were, but I can't ever seem to get there. It's not until I'm laying awake one night, tangled in sheets and trying to slow the pounding of my heart after another nightmare, that I realize why I can't.
I don't have a "normal" to go back to.
It scares me, and yet at the same time, I'm relieved. I can't be normal because I never was. It's one less thing to keep me awake at night. No real loss, though, because I have hundreds of other worries to think about.
Some days, I miss it. The traveling, the friends, the exhaustion, the memories, the pain… everything associated with saving the world. I know it's terrible, but I wish something would happen so I can try to save the world again. Maybe this time, I'll get it right and die trying so I won't have to live afterwards. Surviving the battles and the losses is hard, hard as hell, but at least I knew that it would end, one day. I'd die or win, and move on either way.
Surviving life, after the fight… that's the hard part. Waking up every morning and knowing that I'm facing nothing but emptiness and lonely years, a hero that no one remembers, once the glory fades. The thought makes me smile, sometimes; I didn't even get the glory.
I've often wondered why I haven't just killed myself yet. I've thought about it, but something always stops me. I feel obligated to keep on living, I guess. I saved the world, I'm supposed to enjoy it. Even though I can't, and I know it. They don't, the ones who love me and care about me. Yes, they were with me, but… it was different, for them. Some of them had homes or loves to return to. Others didn't, but they just hadn't lost as much as I had.
They hadn't lost a part of themselves.
I know something's missing from my soul, and I spend some of the sleepless nights going over everything, piece by piece, trying to find out where it disappeared. Maybe, if I knew where I lost it, I could go back and find it again, and maybe feel whole.
It's a shame, though. I just can't figure out what I lost.
