This is my old bar. Everything about it, from the broken dartboard on the wall to the waitress with the cigarette voice who knows what I want to drink before I even open my mouth, is the same as I've ever known it to be. My buddies have only aged a year since I've last seen them. They're holding an impromptu party for my return. it's basically just a few beers and a discussion of old times. A few of them have changed jobs or gotten new girlfriends. Some have packed on a few extra pounds or grown a beard. Not that much has outwardly changed. it's no different than if I'd gone away to college or gotten a job transfer cross-country. I know that I'm just supposed to act like "long time no see."

I can't really talk about what I've been up to. No one wants to hear me answer, "Killing people, seeing people get killed." They probably wouldn't mind hearing about the things that don't matter: like how hot it is in Iraq, how boring most days are, and how I tried and failed to learn a little Arabic. That stuff is socially acceptable. But the guy who would talk about those things isn't inside me any more. I'm someone new. I don't blame them for not getting it. They're just kids. (They're the same age as me.) They can't understand war. (Neither could I, but I do now.) Rodriguez relates that he "couldn't forget that schooling was changing [him] and separating [him] from the life [he] enjoyed before becoming a student"...

He goes on to say that he never spoke about it, even with those he was closest to. His change, as mine, is entirely internal and personal.
The noise of everyone talking at once in the bar creates a hummmmm that escalates and dies down in a rhythm. I'm lost in my own thoughts. Instead of living for this moment, like the bell at the end of the school day, I'm wishing this part were over. I wish that I didn't have to pretend to be like everyone else. When your life changes, you shouldn't have to go on like it hasn't. But these friends, that I've always known, are frozen. They're like a new species, encased in ice miles deep into a glacier, and I'm like the intrepid explorer who discovers them and is now tasked with understanding just what exactly they are.

I go on with my life. Not unlike Rodriguez, "I evaded nostalgia. Tried hard to forget. But one does not forget by trying to forget. One only remembers" (53). I feel like I have two things to forget: before my service and during my service. My life now is totally different than both of those times. I try to incorporate my old friends into my life in all the ways that I can. I try to make new friends that are on the same page as me. Neither of these things is easy; memories get in the way.

Works Cited

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: the Education of Richard Rodriguez: an Autobiography. New York: Dial, 2004.