Come back alive

Not sure where to start here, but this phrase has been echoing in my mind for a long time, sometimes a soft, muffled echo like rain hitting the outside of your window and sometimes like the striking peal of a pinball getting batted about by the bumpers and levers. 

When I first left home at 18, this was my mother's wish. Off to bootcamp I went, and I made it through and came back alive. Later, as a deputy sheriff, this wish was spoken by several people in my life. My family, even my ex-wife, wanted me to come back alive when I was deployed to Iraq in 2004. This is a common wish for many people in the world: when we are separated from the ones we love, we wish them the best and they do the same for us, with some variation of this request to come back alive.

I have managed to pull it off many times. Come back from some disaster, come back from some horrific human tragedy, come back from a dark place so easy to get lost in. And I've been rattling around in one of these places lately, trying to figure out how to go forward, how to get home. 

Newsflash: You can come back to a home every day and hug your wife and children and still not be aware that you are alive, or that you are at risk of dying in one way or another. Lately my past and present have been colliding and I've been trying to plan a way back to the present. To be.

I went to a counselor today. I haven't been able to manage it on my own. My wife is a wonderful person, my children are wonderful, and my coworkers are wonderful in various ways, but they weren't up to the task of pulling me up, perhaps because they don't know how far I've fallen. 

Well, I think my wife is beginning to understand: a few days ago, she said somethiing to me intended to get my attention and something inside me snapped. I began to wail like a wild animal; I had to get away. I ran to my bedroom and shut the door and continued to unravel. When she came to comfort me, I recoiled, jumped into my closet and closed the door so she couldn't see me like this, but she persisted and we ended up in a hug.

I knew then that I wasn't going to pull it off this time. I wasn't going to make it back alive. At least not by myself. The stresses of work and home and everything in between have finally begun to get the better of me. I had to get help. Today was the first day: I went to see a counselor. I will meet her again next week to work out a strategy, a way forward.

So many people I've loved have given in to life's challenges. I made it through many years so far, and I'm not ready to give up. I just need a little help. I needed a life preserver thrown down so that, at least for now, I can keep swimming until I reach shore and know I am finally on solid ground.

Hello, I am Louis. I am not an alcoholic like my father. But I need help.