The Return

by Nicholas Sparks

family is like your shadow on a sunny day, always there, just over your shoulder, following you in spirit no matter where you are or what you’re doing. They’re always with you.

The clerk there said he could help the “next person in line,” which was me, but the man behind me rushed over instead, taking what was rightfully my place. No big deal, right? Maybe an irritation, but what was really at stake? A few minutes? On a day when I wasn’t really doing anything at all? The point is that it shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I was bothered, then angry, and then, as the emotion continued to build, enraged. I stared at the back of his head with death rays, and I ended up walking out the door less than half a minute behind him. Watching him in the parking lot, I had to fight the visceral urge to chase after him and tackle him to the ground. I imagined pummeling him with my fists, even if I could make a fist with only one of my hands; I imagined driving a knee into his kidneys or his stomach; I visualized ripping his ear off, just as I’d lost mine. My jaw was set, my body bracing for confrontation as I began to walk faster when all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I was experiencing a symptom of PTSD, one that Bowen had repeatedly warned me about. I’d been in therapy for a while by then, and like a steady voice of reason amid an orchestra of emotional noise, Bowen was telling me what to do, telling me to change my behavior. Stop and turn away. Force yourself to smile and relax the muscles. Take five long breaths. Feel the emotion, and then let it go, watching as it dissipates. Weigh the pros and cons regarding the action you want to take. Check th...

“Oh, I’ve got a new joke,” I said. “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?” “I don’t know.” “Only one. But the lightbulb has to really want to change.”

“Anyway,” I began, and proceeded to catch him up on the basic goings-on in my life in the past week. When I’d first started therapy, I wondered how any of this could possibly be useful; I’d learned over time that it allowed Bowen to have a better idea about the stress I was under at any given time, which was important in my management of PTSD. Add too much stress, remove the skills and healthy behaviors, and it’s either kaboom, like I felt toward the Home Depot guy, or way too much drinking and Grand Theft Auto.

And while it may be normal to feel guilty, it’s also important to remember that guilt is simply an emotion, and like all emotions, it will eventually pass. Unless you choose to hold on to it.”

To try to revisit it against her wishes would likely backfire and make things even worse.” “I don’t think they can get any worse.” “Oddly, things can almost always get worse.”

“Keep in mind that as hard as things are, it is possible to find things to enjoy and to be grateful for the opportunities that life presents.”

My hands hadn’t trembled in the immediate aftermath of my wounds, either—it wasn’t until after all my surgeries that I began to notice various symptoms and that realization brought with it a ray of clarity. The explosion in Afghanistan blew up my future, and on some subconscious level, Natalie’s rejection—which blew up a different sort of future—was manifesting in the same sort of delayed reaction.

“If you want your parents to forgive you, then you’re also going to have to forgive yourself.” “How?” she demanded. “After what I did?” “Forgiveness doesn’t mean you forget, or you stop wishing that you can change the past. Mainly it means that you accept the idea that you’re not perfect, because no one is perfect. And terrible things can happen to anyone.”