Some people swear I was never a child. They talk about me like I came out of the womb already irritated with humanity—scowl pre-installed, voice warmed up and ready to yell at strangers. And honestly? I get it. I spent over twenty years raising my voice for a living. Hard to picture a guy like that in a onesie, getting hyped over stickers and suckers.
But I remember it.
I remember rolling my eyes with the kids and grandkids—performing the whole too cool for this act—but also hoping, in that quiet place you don’t admit out loud, that nobody ever broke their hearts or stole their joy. There’s something about watching innocence that makes you want to stand guard, even if you pretend you’re above it.
Still, none of that made me feel grown.
Not the early milestones everyone swears matter. Not the first kiss, the first heartbreak, or the first time I put on a uniform and pretended I knew what I was doing. I hit all the checkpoints without crossing the threshold.
Adulthood didn’t sneak up gently.
It came as a year—a tight, unrelenting twelve months—where mortality stopped being philosophical and started breathing down my neck. I remember one night in particular: stepping outside after an incident, dust still floating in the air, adrenaline refusing to let my hands settle. That was the moment I understood life wasn’t theoretical. It could vanish, just like that.
And somewhere in that stretch, something inside me shifted. Not a big, cinematic revelation. More like an internal fracture you can’t ignore once you hear it.
The kid in me didn’t disappear; he just stopped driving. Maybe he stepped back. Maybe he grew quiet. Maybe he finally understood the stakes.
Because once I walked onto a battlefield, I knew I wasn’t a kid anymore.
You feel the ground vibrating under your boots, and it rearranges something in you. Permanently. After that, youth stops being a phase and becomes a memory.
People love to believe adulthood is a choice—something you claim, or celebrate, or ease into with birthdays and responsibilities.
For me, it arrived in the dirt and the dust and the dark.
A draft notice I never signed, delivered on a day I can’t forget.
I didn’t grow up.
I got drafted.
Memoirs of Madness 