Simply too much to ask for

So my ex left for the Air Force on Tuesday. Hard enough in and of itself, to see someone who holds such an important part of my life and heart, leave, knowing that I will probably never see him again. But, try adding on that for the past eight months he has been dating someone who was my friend for fifteen years.

Needless to say, she has decided that it is too uncomfortable to talk to me. I think she hates the fact that I was there first. I was his first for so many things, and she can never replace replace me in that regard. I think it makes her jealous. So she has said a handful of words to me on twice as many occasions, which has effectively ruined the friendship that endured most of our lives. I have tried to talk to her, I really have. I've sent emails, tried to get her alone at school. She just turns red and leaves or ignores me.

I wouldn't have as big of an issue with it if she hadn't been turning my ex against me. See, we were actually friends after we broke up. Then she came along and effectively detroyed that. He finally responded to an impassioned email two days before he left. I told him to be careful, and that I would like to know what he thought about basic training, all of that. Which I don't see as that big of a deal. He doesn't really have an issue with it, either. But this girl, Stacey*, doesn't seem to see that. She guards him like he's made of glass and that the sound of my voice will shatter him into a million pieces. I haven't seen TJ since graduation, when Stacey and I kind of got into it because she was being stand-offish for no apparent reason.

TJ and I have been through a lot together. We were high school sweethearts-- almost two years, which seems to be a feat these days. He lost his virginity to me, and we were planning our future together in the ignorant ways that teenagers in love do. What makes his leaving for basic even more bittersweet is the fact that he signed up because of our relationship. He didn't think he'd be able to afford college and made the decision to join the armed forces in a twisted effort to fund our life together. Obviously, that never happened, but by the time our hearts (namely mine) had healed and we were able to openly discuss anything and everything, it was too late to try to talk him out of it. He has been stuck with this decision for almost two years. I can't help but feel a little guilty, a little remorseful, and a little selfish.

It's not an easy thing to see friends and relatives leaving for the military in a time where you don't know if they'll ever come back. I don't even have the comfort of friends, because the one friend I have (had) with a connection to someone who was my heart and soul for so long is now his life, and she doesn't want to be a part of mine.

Sure, he's an ex-lover, an ex-he-was-my-everything, an ex-accidental-almost-father-of-a-child. That just makes it this much harder to let him go without a fight. In the past four years, we have gone from strangers to friends to crushes to lovers to nothing to lovers to nothing to friends to enemies to friends to nothing. We were just working our way back to friend status when I found out the date he was to be deployed.

Granted that I have a fear and revulsion of the military, I am finding this situation very difficult to stomach. I love TJ still-- he will always hold a very special place in my heart. I don't want to lose him completely.

Then you throw onto the flames the tinder that one of my best friends, who has been like a brother to me, just signed with the National Guard. Thankfully, he took my concerns about the military to heart and decided to stay with a branch of the armed forces that will be sticking closer to home (if all goes well). It was more than I could ever ask of him.

In past year, a cousin and six close friends have packed up for foreign nations in one branch of the military or another. In the next year and half, seven more friends will be leaving. In this time of war, I am worried for my friends in a way that I never thought I would have to worry.

But I am. I am so worried. I just want my friends back. I want all of those people that mean so much to me to be safe and unharmed by the torments and torture of the military and the things they see. These days, it seems more and more likely that this is simply too much to ask.