That's a difficult question. It shouldn't be, but it is. There's a dissonance between what he really wants and what, instinctively, he might suggest as a halfway compromise. Between what he might say he wants and what he wouldn't admit.
John wants the comfort his mother used to offer him as a child, the way she used to tell him she believed in him. That she'd always be proud of him. That it was okay to hurt. The patience she showed him. The way she never suggested anything he was feeling was wrong, that anything he was doing was wrong. It was maybe unexpected, it was maybe not the life she thought he'd have, but she always supported him.
He draws his legs up toward his chest and rests his arm over his knees, presses his lips together as he tries to work himself toward an answer. He needs to circle up to it, he knows, because he's not comfortable here. He needs a little lead in to get himself going conversationally. His voice is pitched a little softer as he begins talking, wary, as if he's still not entirely sure he's even saying the right thing. As if he's anticipating being told it's horsecrap again. ]
When I first got back from Afghanistan I... I just wanted everything to go back to how it was. I wanted things to be normal, I wanted to... to know that something was reliable, I guess. Even after the... court martial, the people who died, that Nancy was still there for me and our lives could still just... go on. But... it didn't. The world changed while I was gone, I changed, nothing was... how it was. I'd wake up in the night still thinking I was in the desert, thinking she was someone who was dead. I guess I was someone else for her too.
[ Though it still stings, to feel like maybe she'd given up on him. She'd always gotten along with his Dad, after all, when John hadn't. It had felt like an additional betrayal. Like maybe she was never on his side. Maybe she was just deciding his father had been right all along. That he wasn't good enough. ]
I just wanted it to... not be a big deal. I just wanted some patience, to... I dunno, not have to have some big talk about it every time I have a nightmare.
[ To not be pressured into talking while he was still shaken up, to going to therapy he wasn't comfortable with or trying whatever suggestion it was that night when all he wanted was to cool off and feel safe again. To just be accepted as who he was now. ]
no subject
That's a difficult question. It shouldn't be, but it is. There's a dissonance between what he really wants and what, instinctively, he might suggest as a halfway compromise. Between what he might say he wants and what he wouldn't admit.
John wants the comfort his mother used to offer him as a child, the way she used to tell him she believed in him. That she'd always be proud of him. That it was okay to hurt. The patience she showed him. The way she never suggested anything he was feeling was wrong, that anything he was doing was wrong. It was maybe unexpected, it was maybe not the life she thought he'd have, but she always supported him.
He draws his legs up toward his chest and rests his arm over his knees, presses his lips together as he tries to work himself toward an answer. He needs to circle up to it, he knows, because he's not comfortable here. He needs a little lead in to get himself going conversationally. His voice is pitched a little softer as he begins talking, wary, as if he's still not entirely sure he's even saying the right thing. As if he's anticipating being told it's horsecrap again. ]
When I first got back from Afghanistan I... I just wanted everything to go back to how it was. I wanted things to be normal, I wanted to... to know that something was reliable, I guess. Even after the... court martial, the people who died, that Nancy was still there for me and our lives could still just... go on. But... it didn't. The world changed while I was gone, I changed, nothing was... how it was. I'd wake up in the night still thinking I was in the desert, thinking she was someone who was dead. I guess I was someone else for her too.
[ Though it still stings, to feel like maybe she'd given up on him. She'd always gotten along with his Dad, after all, when John hadn't. It had felt like an additional betrayal. Like maybe she was never on his side. Maybe she was just deciding his father had been right all along. That he wasn't good enough. ]
I just wanted it to... not be a big deal. I just wanted some patience, to... I dunno, not have to have some big talk about it every time I have a nightmare.
[ To not be pressured into talking while he was still shaken up, to going to therapy he wasn't comfortable with or trying whatever suggestion it was that night when all he wanted was to cool off and feel safe again. To just be accepted as who he was now. ]