There he is, sitting in the chair, shirt soaked with sweat, controller in his hand, locked in on the firefight. He seems unstoppable. Not many can pull off a 30+ killstreak. It’s as if he’s a natural at this.
The game ends. His spouse calls from the other room, “Are you hungry?”
No reply.
He loads back into another game.
She looks down, shakes her head. She doesn’t fully understand what he’s going through yet. He’s becoming extremely lazy, only plays that game. He hasn’t eaten, showered, or even come out of that room.
To be completely honest, I thought I had a story going here but, this was reality for me.
And I’m sure many of you may have already misjudged me.
You see, this was my military transition back to the civilian world.
I didn’t leave that room for nearly six months.
Looking back, I think part of the problem was I really had no clue what leaving the military was actually going to feel like. On my last day of active duty, I interviewed for a job, got hired and went straight into civilian life.
I’m a Marine after all, I thought. Nothing can stand in my way.
But I kept coming to a blank every time I reached this part of the story because I didn’t completely understand what had happened to me.
The military introduced me to a world of people who treated each other differently. It wasn’t perfect. Far from it, but there was a level of respect and responsibility toward the people beside you that I didn’t fully appreciate until it was gone.
In the military, you learn quickly how to respect one another. You suffer together. There were plenty of times our squad would be sitting in our own misery but somehow, we were laughing, smiling, and having a good time anyway. We learned to “embrace the suck” or for better words “embrace the suffering” and we did it together.
In the civilian world, it felt different. Suddenly, I was out here on my own. Sure, I had friends and family who cared about me. But they had their own problems, their own responsibilities. In the military, we didn’t really get to think that way. We lived together, slept together, ate together, and trained together. Your problems affected the people around you and theirs affected you.
You knew somebody always had your back.
I think that’s part of why I disappeared into video games. A game gave me a mission. It gave me a team. It gave me something to improve at. Something to accomplish. Something I could win. I could log in and immediately know what I was supposed to do.
Civilian life didn’t really feel that simple.
Now I’m not saying I have all this figured out. Most days, I probably don’t. Maybe there is a lesson here. But I understand that guy sitting in front of the screen a little better now than I did back then.
He wasn’t just playing a game. He had lost a team, a mission, and a way of life he had spent years getting used to. He didn’t know what was supposed to replace it.
If you’re still here, thanks for reading. I appreciate you.
-KB, The Sideways Mind
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