Personal Narrative Essay

As time passed, I seemed caught in a rigid routine. When I woke, my crazies made it hard to shower. During the day, I worked as an accountant for two small businesses in town. After work I came home, got high, and sat alone in my house. At night I watched Johnny Carson, and on the weekends, I visited my Aunt Claudia. Because my routine remained unknown, my bosses and aunt believed that I was adjusting smoothly to civilian life, but looks are deceiving. Except when I was looking at the numbers in my ledger, my nightmares occurred at any time. If I was working in my ledger, I felt as safe as I felt before my overseas duty. Outside the comfort of my office, I lived in anxiety over my crazies. Unexpectedly, I could step on the other side of

Inside the box was a shoe box of baseball cards, a trophy for participating in little leagues, and a white earrings’ box. It contained two of my Army meddles. One medal was for being a sharp shooter and the other was for serving in Nam. I recalled how mad mom was when she learned I buried my glory medals in Nam. She couldn’t see that my teenage soul was buried in Nam along with my medals and any memories of the great lie found in John Wayne movies. After I removed the smaller trinkets, I found my high school diploma, the four letters I wrote from Nam, and my high school year book with The Class of 1965 written in sparkling letters across the cover. I held it and rubbed my thumbs across the cover. I was afraid to open it. Instead, I looked into the box to see if I had missed anything. In the corner was a small napkin from the airport bar. On the napkin, Bao wrote his address: 1776 Lakeview Blvd. Stow, Ohio. He refused to learn his zip code as a way of rebelling against the government. I smiled to myself because when Bao and I left Washington the Zip Code was relatively new item. Laugh In made jokes about it, but now it was a normal part of ones