Really late, but I feel I'm missing 'normal' early adulthood. Whenever I see my peers, I feel like I've just grown up way too fast in the couple of years we've been apart.
I got a chance to to attend highschool at a small catholic college prep school - I took it. I was kinda the token poor kid with all these giga-rich trust fund company-owner-parent kids which, contrary to what you might think, turned out pretty cool. Don't think everyone was entitled dicks that looked down on me ; I developed a bunch of cool friendships and feel as if I received a good education with good people. I still talk to a good bunch of them on social media, but we all parted for college after graduation. Well, except me. I didn't have money for college, and was academically eh, didn't know what I wanted to major in, so I joined the Army (13F).
When I come home or even try to associate with nonmilitary my age, I just feel old, bitter, and disconnected. My friends say I walk different, act different, behave different. My homies from highschool are out at college having a blast, doing that college thing, getting drunk on instagram and I was out in Afghanistan trying to run a FiST team and take care of my dudes. Please don't think I'm coming off as trying to be better than them or trying to flaunt it, our paths were just different; But when I come home I can't even begin to translate my experiences into a frame of reference they can understand. I can't convey to them what its like to watch a JDAM go off at 2AM or how it feels to have minuscule piece of shrapnel take a tiny chunk of your forearm off, or how godawful a burning body smells. Everyone wants to hear a war story and try to understand until you tell it, and then everyone looks at you like some kind of crazy person and avoids you like a ticking time bomb.
I try to hang with them when I'm on leave, and we hit up this party and they all turn turn to me with wide eyes under the flashing lights and the blaring music, drunk, like "This is craAaaazy!" and I just feel so desensitized opposed to how they must feel. Sometimes I can't fake it and that seems like I'm not having a good time and I feel like a buzzkill. I just wanna be on the same level as my friends again. I just feel like the military made me grow up way fast with responsibilities and the like.
I feel shitty when they share their problems with me and I can't take them seriously. "So and so slept with who? Wow that's *craaazy*." Man you're really bent up about that. You're crying right now. You're seriously crying on me. I don't think this is worth crying about. You'll seriously be fine in a week or two and forget about him. Meanwhile I'm thinking back to a friend or two missing a limb or not currently with us and get irrationally and stupidly upset that your grief is focused on this right now. Inside I just get this shitty entitled intrusive thought in the back of my mind like "I know REAL problems! I know people worth crying over! Fuck you and your bullshit problem, I have nightmares and a drinking problem! Fuck you stop crying!" Its like trying to play the "Who's life sucks more" olympics and I'm obviously the clear winner because of my garbage 4 year career choice. I know it's a shit thought process and I try my best to suppress it when it comes on, but it sucks when its just sitting there in the back of your head. It sucks more when your close friends see your issues with stress and re-integrating but don't really know what to help. They don't have the frame of reference, so they kind of just give you space or treat you like some kind of fragile person that's constantly on the verge of breakdown.
Anyway back on topic, If I'd taken a student loan out and gone to college I know I wouldn't have to deal with these issues and I would've spent my early adulthood boozing and booling out with all my friends from highschool, and share the same experiences, the ups and downs, and the discovery wow-factor of shit like parties, girls, relationships, school. All that shit. As of now, it all just seems kind of eh. I feel like I missed out on what all my friends got to experience.
I feel kind of like nonexistent youth right now. That ended up being way more long winded than I planned. These are justmy assorted experiences. Thanks.