Dear Deanna,

I came back from the war with a sound mind. I left for Afghanistan because I missed you. The City of Angels had nothing for me but jadedness from the constant socio-political positions of irony and hypocrisy. I had nothing in common there and could not make a decent living. The point is that I didn't want to get hurt or to stay in one place. Being in limbo is a very strange feeling. It feels like all that you wake up to every morning is noise.

No matter how hard I fought or how many social evils of violence and war surrounded me I still thought of you. Did you go to Mexico, like you planned before? When you were so upset that you could not go to Mexico in order to help others, was it my fault? Did my impulsiveness, angst, and rowdiness get the better of me by putting me in a position to accidentally become an enabler of you?

Sometimes I have mixed feelings about leaving and volunteering to serve our country. I felt like I had to do something when I didn't have the skills or talents elsewhere. At the same time, it made me very sad and angry to see so much violence. I wish people could just talk and listen to each other. I remember how you told me you loved me and I never got a chance to say it back. That event made me feel that communication is so important.

When I returned, nobody would offer me work. They considered how I wouldn't be dependable for a 9-5 if I would be called out to the Middle East again. They also looked at my lack of education, lack of skills, and lack of civilian work experience and turned me down. It's very hard to adjust when you come back from a war and employers aren't so sympathetic to your plight.

I've been put in way too much debt. I couldn't pay my rent and my lease was up this week. It was perfect timing because I felt like there were parts of my surroundings that did not fit me.

I've decided to take the journey that a close friend of mine from ten years ago took. After he returned from the Vietnam War, he gave up all of his possessions to enjoy a life of enlightenment and solitude.

Like him, I can join a Buddhist Monastery to pay it forward in order to give back to the community where I had taken away from it before. I've just sold all of my items at a yard-sale after I was evicted. I finished a cheeseburger as I squatted, crying and reflecting, under a nearby bridge. I cried a good cry and not a painful one. Now I'm on a computer from a library where a driver dropped me off from hitch-hiking to take a bathroom break. He'll be back around in about 5 or 10 minutes to complete the drive up to the monastery in San Francisco.

And the funniest part is that now I feel peace. Where I felt like everything was "noise" before, I realize now how that state of mind was indicative of disillusionment. But suddenly it's different, I feel a state of inner "silence" that is indicative of so much clarity- like a lone pebble skipping two skips ever-so-softly on one of the stillest, cleanest, crispest ponds before it gradually droops into the water on its third skip. This is what it feels like to find a purpose. I now have the feeling of "inner peace" and, knowing what that is, I hope that you find it someday.

I Love You Deanna,

-Tommy