The family that drinks together stays together.

A conversation with my brother at the bar.

"Yeah, what a bitch."
"Yeah, but I still love her."
"It's okay, I still love Abby too."
"Time for a shot!"

Bitch, I'll cut you twice! Once to teach you and once for review.

I'm hungover, overwhelmed, confused, out of place, drinking and smoking too much, loving too little, overheated and unprepared for how it feels to be at home, but I'm listening to my music, I'm wearing my clothes, I'm drinking and eating whatever I damned well please and I feel better than I have in maybe my whole life. Everything is different. No, nothing is different here. It's all the same as it ever was. But I've changed. I don't know. It's difficult to explain. I wasn't brainwashed different by the Army the way most of my friends would think. I just realized some things and now I know I have a choice about a lot of things I thought were set in stone.

It seems that for me, to find real freedom, I had to lose all my freedom of choice. Because your circumstances don't dictate happiness. It's all dependent upon you and your choice to be happy or not - to find pleasure where you can. It was easy at Basic because I had no choice about the things I was doing whether I liked them or not, so I may as well decide to like it because... what else was I going to do, right?

I doubt I'm explaining this well. I have so much I want to explain to everyone but I can't put it into words yet and I'm pretty sure it only interests me anyways. I guess it's just a matter of priorities and being able to justify your decisions... to yourself, I mean.

Everything is weird. Music is sooooooooo good. It's better than sex. Not that I remember what that's like anyways... ah well, what can you do? The point is, I'm really happy.