Walking Beside the Echo

“But every one of us walks beside the echo of something.

And if you listen long enough, you might hear your own.”

Those were the closing lines of the opening poem in Between the Echoes. When I wrote them, I wasn’t just thinking about veterans, trauma, or even myself. I was thinking about all of us.

We all carry echoes. Some are sharp and painful, some are faint and almost tender, but none of them really leave us. They’re the reminders of what we’ve walked through, the people we’ve lost, the mistakes we’ve made, the moments we can’t forget, even if we try.

For me, part of the struggle has been wrestling with a kind of imposter syndrome. I hear the stories of Tier 1 guys, the ones whose experiences sound bigger, louder, more extreme and I think, why do I carry these demons when my story doesn’t look like theirs? But echoes don’t care about comparison. Pain doesn’t come with a measuring stick. We each carry what we carry, and it shapes us in ways no one else can define.

Writing Between the Echoes forced me to face that. Some of my echoes roared so loud I couldn’t ignore them. Others whispered quietly in the background, only surfacing when I slowed down enough to listen. And even now, years later, they still walk with me.

This isn’t just my story, though. It isn’t just a veteran story. It’s human. Every one of us has echoes that follow us, whether we acknowledge them or not. And sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is stop pretending they aren’t there and instead, listen.

Because if you listen long enough, you might hear your own.

What echoes do you carry?