Why I hate paintball

 

“Our small group is going paintballing” he tells me.

“I saw that” I reply, hoping to end the conversation with my disinterest.

“I signed us up.”

“I hope” I sigh, “that by us, you mean you.”

“You’re coming!” He laughs “it’s fun, you’re going to love it.”

We’ve been married almost 15 years.  He’s spent well over 2 of those years at war, as a combat soldier.

We were just 20 the first time he left.  The first 3 deployments happened almost like clockwork, 2 years apart.  He just returned from his 4th this spring.

He is pulling out clothes in the morning “we can both wear a pair of my combats.”

I stare at him “uh… you realize you have 50lbs on me.”

“It’s not a fashion show.”  He’s holding them up to me.  “They cinch.  Paint washes off them well.”

“I didn’t sign up for this” I huff while I pull them on.

I feel like those first deployments happened quickly and I didn’t have a lot of time to process.  Dh doesn’t talk about his time away much.  I was overwhelmed at home with the kids while he was gone each time.  By the middle of the third, it was sinking in harder.  The casualties were close to home.  I spent the last day of Dh’s 3rd deployment at a funeral for a member of his squadron.  It hadn’t been the first. I don’t know why the fear hadn’t caught me before as much as it did then.

I watch him tinker with the paintball gun he’s been given.  Mine feels bulky and awkward, I don’t feel comfortable holding it.  He looks the opposite.  He doesn’t play paintball all that much, but his body, his arms know a rifle.  He checks it over and it fits loose in his hands.  

We had more years between the 3rd and 4th deployment. I felt the fear loosen.  He was still rarely home but  not fighting, as much as I know he wished some days that he was.  One rainy day at a cabin, Dh is watching Generation Kill with my brother.  I sit downstairs with them for a bit.  Movie bullets shoot past the actor’s faces in slow motion.  I muse to myself, rhetorically, wondering if people can tell in real life if a bullet was that close.  “Sure.” Dh says, instantly regretting his uncharacteristically honest words. “It makes a kind of a crack sound when it passes your ear.”  And there’s that fear again.

As we walk to the grounds to start our ‘battle,’ I both admire and loath his swagger.  He’s confident, and he’s not bothered by any of the noises or the pops like I thought he might be. He laughs off our civilian friends as they argue who gets him on their team.  “I’m not Rambo” he laughs “you guys are going to be disappointed! It’s just a game, I’m gonna get shot too.”

We were posted eventually, and life changed.  3 years a little closer to the handle than the tip of the spear, I was sure I would let go of it all and relax.  Humanitarian work, operations and training.  Important jobs for sure, but they didn’t have that same risk.  My head knew that.  Until he had to put on that tan uniform for the 4th time.  We laughed because it’s no secret I think it’s sexier.  It also catches my heart in my throat.  My head can know what it wants, my heart doesn’t care what it thinks.

He’s pointing at them all, giving directions for our little paintball ‘assault’.  I look around at our friends, wondering how they will react but they seem happy someone is taking charge.  I recognize the little smile on some of their faces: It’s when you watch someone doing something and it’s 100% clear that it’s exactly what they were made to do.

27 months is a long time to be afraid.  How many nights did I wake up, sure I heard that doorbell?  How many times have I ran through the worst case scenario in my head, determined that nothing catch me off guard?  How many times had I answered questions about Living Wills, whether I’d need to get to Germany in the event he was wounded, about who all would receive his Memorial Cross.

My heart is pounding in my ears when the teenage kid tells us the game is on.  Dh is giving signals to our team mates to move.  I feel ridiculous.  This is just a game and I’m not one to be scared of being hurt.  I run to try and catch up to Dh, I’m pretty sure that’s not what his hand signal meant.  

While Dh is gone on the last deployment he tells me over and over how safe it is.  How he even feels guilty because it’s so low key, he’s never experienced a deployment with so many comforts and without that level of danger.  All I see in my head is the news showing the last time he carried his friend in a ramp ceremony.  All I hear is him saying ‘sure, kind of a crack sound.’

 He’s crouched behind a cement slab in the middle of the field.  I’ve got my back against a wall 20 feet away.  He motions for me where the shots are coming from, indicating I should try and shoot.  I’m staring at him, dressed in his combats, aiming out a small slit in the cover.  I try to focus on the other team, I take a few shots.  I hit absolutely nothing.  I can hear Dh laughing.  

One day while he’s gone I came home from work to find a friend, that I was expecting, at my front door.  He’s in his dress uniform.  I can’t breathe.  I almost fall out of my car.  He looks at me like I have 3 heads until I see his face recognize my irrational thoughts.  Even I know I’m being overly dramatic.  That doesn’t seem to help but it does stop me from making a scene.

I turn to look at him right when the paintball hits.  He raises his gun smiling “I’m hit!” I could swear it’s red dripping on his mask, but it’s just pink paint.  I pull my face mask up. I think I’m going to be sick.

It’s funny how time catches up with old thoughts.  I had assumed that as memories clouded old fears would drift off.  But they just become stubborn habits.

“Put your mask back on!  You’re still playing!” Dh’s voice is far away and I vaguely register something hitting my back.  “She’s done!” he says to whoever shot me.  His smile fades as he jogs closer.  “What’s wrong?”  

“You got shot!” I sputter.  

Stubborn habits like cleaning my front room for notification parties that I’m sure will only come that one time I’m not ready for them.
Like how I remove the doorbells because I can’t stand the sound.  Or how I bury the tshirts from deployments that have his bloodtype on them at the bottom of the pile because I hate staring at it when he’s eating breakfast.

 I’m already out, trying to keep a calm face on to the confused friends who keep glancing over as I walk off the field.  I shrug it off  “not a fan of being shot” I say.   I wait in the car and Dh drives home.  I curl up on the bed on top of the blankets and he lays next to me.

“Want to tell me what’s up?”

“You’re standing there in your combats with your gun and I watched you get shot” I say.  “Do you know how many times I tried not to think about that happening?”

Dh’s expression is pained but he knows it’s not the whole story.  All of a sudden I’m mad, and I realize why.

“You left me!  I’m standing there and the game is still on and you went and got shot and left me there all on my own! You asshole! I never wanted to play the game by myself!”

Life is interesting and beautiful and heartbreaking and ridiculous.

It’s just a game of paintball.

Dh scoops me up the way he does that makes me feel really small.  I think he’s going to laugh at me, or tell me to suck it up, but he just presses my head against his chest.  “I’m so sorry. 

“It’s not your fault” my voice is hoarse. “I’m acting crazy.”

I expect him to agree.  Dh is one of the most black and white rational people I know.

“You’re not.  And I AM sorry.  I hate that I can’t tell you that your fear of me not “finishing the game” with you isn’t justified.  It has been.  It is.  And I’m sorry.”

Dh is the kind of soldier that even out of uniform, you could pick him out of a crowed at 50 paces.  It’s in his walk, the way he carries himself. It’s in his voice and it’s part of who he is.  It doesn’t escape me that it makes up part of what I find most attractive in him.

And I’m okay.  Not always.  But I get back to okay after I’m not, and that’s what’s important.  99% of the time I’m telling morbid jokes and kicking him out the door for #5 because seriously, babe, isn’t there somewhere that needs saving?

1% of the time I’m hugging my knees because I don’t want to finish playing paintball without him.

It’s amazing how we think they are the only ones who are changed by their time away.

“I’m not playing any more paintball.” I mutter against his chest.

“That’s good.” He snickers. “You’re terrible at it.” 

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