All I Need

"All I need is the air I breathe
And a place to lay my head..."


I've just spent the past 5 days in camp.


It's as though I walked out of this world into another, and after gathering courage there, facing my demons and winning my battles, I find myself returned to this world. But like the kids who returned from Narnia after becoming princes and princesses there, I found myself very suddenly in the real world with no way of reconciling what I just went through with where I am now.

It was as though time passed slowly in that other world. Hundreds of things happened there in a single day, as compared to the meagre 18 notifications on my Facebook account in the real world, after 5 days away. I came back as though no time had passed. I came back as though I had missed nothing.


This is why guys can talk about the army for the rest of their lives, though they only spent 2 years there. So many things happen in a single day, each a tale to tell, that there never is enough time to. Girls wonder how they can go on. They try to follow the conversation or the experiences of their boyfriends in camp, but because time passes at different speeds, they can never fully comprehend the extent of the experience guys feel.

"It's just 3 more days till you're out, it's so fast," a girl may think. But the boy in camp could have sung songs counting down to the book out 3 times that very day, awaiting and enduring the agony.

Did I find the training tough? No. Did I think I would have a problem completing it? No.
I knew I could do it, it's just that I didn't feel like doing it.


Still, I love my times in the army because of what they have made me.

I talk to God differently there. My priorities there are different.

And most of all, I came home realising there's more to life experiences than 140 characters. And that I can live without Facebook. And that... and that...


My asthma is returning. My lungs are failing me. It was the worst in camp when the smoking point was right outside my bunk. I need some air. Clean, unpolluted air. And I need some rest.

And I need to meet God and listen to him say more than 140 characters.

Goodbye daily Facebooking. Hello nature.


"All I need is the air I breathe

And a place to lay my head...

Do you know where to find it?"