Fort Wilderness

This last night I was watching The Patriot, the one with Mel Gibson. Now if you haven't seen the movie, you really should! Plus you will understand a little more about what this post is about. So in the movie, Mel Gibson's character is this badass dude who during the French and Indian War had earned quite a name for himself by doing something (but we don't know what for a while) at a place called Fort Wilderness. Fast forward a couple decades and now the beginning of the Revolutionary War is happening and he is actually quite outspoken against going to war. I don't want to give away the movie for those of you who haven't seen it, but we come to find out that Mel did something really awful at Fort Wilderness and he fears that his misdeeds will come back to haunt him. This idea got me thinking, everyone has a Fort Wilderness.

Think about it for a second, everyone has done something that they deeply regret. It might not be as intense as Mel's but it's the something that keeps you up at night. The something that sneaks up on you whenever you least expect it. I will share with you one of mine. On my last deployment, my job was guarding suspected terrorists at an internment facility. The first day I started working there, I knew this place was unlike anything I had yet experienced and I knew at some point I would have to draw the line as to what I could live with doing and what I couldn't. I decided that I would just turn off any nice emotion until I left to go back home. No empathy, no weakness. I would do this and then when I left the area, I would turn it back on and no big deal. How wrong I was! Now to be clear, I'm not saying I did anything illegal, I'm saying what I had to do for my job and to do it effectively I decided I would just never "feel" bad about it. After the deployment, everything would be fine! I would go home and leave all the difficult stuff behind. That was almost 10 years ago, and it still isn't behind me. It pops up when I least expect, at night, watching a movie, at a wedding, whenever, wherever.

I'm finding that the way that works for me, is when the memories start, don't stop them. Get them out, talk to someone, write it down, hell post a blog! By getting it out, I find the power of the memory is lessened. It still surprises me at times but not as often and it's less intense. I still work at turning on my emotions and it really is hard work. But you know? It took hard work and determination to turn it off, it's fitting that it takes the same to turn it back on.

Now yes, both Mel's issues and mine had to deal with war, but Fort Wilderness doesn't have to be that. It can be a divorce, lying to family/friends, an addiction or the actions that happened during addiction, bad financial decisions that harmed your family, or even gossip. Fort Wilderness is what you make it out to be. So the question is what is your Fort Wilderness and what can you do to move past it? Remember Fort Wilderness was simply an action in your past, you don't have to let it rule your future.