Dealing with NORMAL…

“Assuming I was like most women was your first mistake…”

It’s been exactly a month since I returned home from Battle of the Nations in Prague and my trip to Denmark.  As always, it has been difficult adapting back to a ‘normal’ life…one that does not revolve around fighting, adrenaline and extremely high cortisol levels.

Coming down off the high of a Fighting Campaign is like weening yourself off a drug addiction.  You spend months preparing, pushing your body to its limits and beyond and then you are there, surrounded by like minded individuals who ‘get’ everything you are saying, who understand your need for violence, who accept you as a fighter, as a brother, as a friend, simply because you are part of their tribe.  You instantly bond, you find family in places you never expected and make friends that truly span continents and will last for years.

Then you come home, trinkets, gifts and pictures galore, only to find yourself missing the chaos, the comradery, the kinship that you can only get going on campaign.  It is surprisingly hard to go back to a normal, everyday job, even one that you love, at first.  You will feel ‘off’ and anxious.  Not quite knowing where your place in the ‘normal world’ really is any more.  You have people around you, just like you did before, but now it all seems boring or useless, even though it never changed…only You did.

Thankfully I have wonderful support from my husband and he gives me the leeway and time I need to re-adapt but that is partially because this is the 3rd time around for this whole scenario and he pretty much knows what to expect, as do I.  Now I realize what it is, why it’s happening and there is no mystery illness that is causing me to feel melancholy, it’s simply lack of proper stimulus and abnormal chemicals still being released in my body.  It happens to first responders, military and police personnel when they come home from being deployed or having long, drawn out shifts with high and low extremes for long periods of time.

It causes you to feel blue, be down, crave carbs, sweets & junk food and basically reverse everything you did to get yourself ready to go overseas in the first place.  The best solution for us is to fight it out and burn it off.  Do what it takes to bring your cortisol levels down and your body will level out eventually. Eat properly, get more than enough sleep and realize this too will pass.

It is interesting the conversations you have with other fighters.  We all seem to go through the same things, mostly.  But there are significant differences being female lol, or maybe it’s just me.

I always find myself torn between being one of the guys and remembering that I am still a girl.  And if I’m torn…holy hell what must it be like being one of my brothers at times when they are around me?!?

I do not like being treated differently on the field, and it makes me crazy if any of my fighting brothers pulls shots or doesn’t hit me as hard as he hits another guy.  I am not a china doll, I can take a hit.  Hell, men who threaten to punch me in the face and do a take-down on me have a higher chance of turning me on…than actually offending me.  It is just my nature to be violent. I enjoy it.  I crave it…

Yet…

Today, something ‘normal’ happened that has not happened in a very long, long time.  I was asked out on a date and it shocked me at first.  I was giddy like a school girl, I didn’t know how to react at first and I was stunned into silence.  Not because I am married, I can go on as many dates as I like, see who I want, sleep with who I want, that has never been an issue with Greg or I.  No, it was because I hadn’t been treated like a ‘normal girl’ for so long, it felt odd to me.

My normal is being treated like one of the guys.  From the way I talk, to the way I respond to the way I initiate a flirt even.  I respond in kind to what I get, and usually, it’s bawdy & loud or its hushed & secret.  Rarely is it anything different.  I am who I am and let’s face it, I would rather flirt, fight & fuck than almost anything else.  Especially when I am surrounded by alpha male fighters.  That switch gets flipped on and I am hard pressed to figure out how to turn it off until I am no longer around that stimuli.

So when someone actually asks me out to dinner on a date, it’s not my ‘normal’, even though it’s perfectly normal to civilized folks.  I can be marginally civilized…but usually only because work deems it necessary.  Otherwise, again, I fall back to the 3 F’s.

So here’s me, an eternal Lost Boy…trying to figure out how to be ‘Normal’ again, how to be civilized again…and figure out how to act naturally on a date again.  We will see how it goes.

Somehow I manage to find Neverland every year and this year it was the best trip ever…but the pixie dust never quite lasts long enough.

Until next year…

Bangerang my brothers…Bangerang!