I got offered the director spot, finally. The one everyone’s been gunning for, the one I’ve been “positioning myself” for, for… well, forever, it feels like. And I said yes. Of course, I said yes. It’s what you do. The money's good, real good. Enough to finally get the spouse that thing they’ve always wanted, to put a serious dent in the mortgage, maybe even a vacation that isn't a three-day scramble to some shit-hole resort. This is the brass ring, right? The promotion, the next rank up, civilian style. It should feel like a goddamn victory lap, a proper homecoming after years in the trenches. But I'm just… flat. The kid, the little one, came up to me yesterday, all sticky fingers and sunshine, asking if I could build a fort with them. And I just stared. My mind was already on the presentation for next week, on the travel schedule they laid out, on the fact I'll be gone at least two weeks a month, maybe more, sometimes cross-country. Missing school plays, missing scraped knees, missing the "Tell me about your day, Dad" questions. The older one, they’re already pulling away, just a little. Soon, they won’t even notice I’m not there. I’ve seen it before, guys who just… disappear into their work. Become ghosts in their own homes. Is that what I’m signing up for? This cold calculation of income versus… everything else. It feels like a trade-off, not an achievement. I remember thinking, back when I was deployed, about all the things I’d missed. And how I swore I’d never miss anything again. But here I am, willingly putting myself back in that same goddamn position, only this time it’s my choice. It’s a comfortable kind of despair, almost. Like the feeling when you’re numb from the cold, and you know you should feel pain, but it’s just… not there. I keep telling myself it’s for them. For their future. But what if their future doesn’t have me in it, not really? What then? What the FUCK then?