Demolition.

I live in a military town just a mile from an Army installation where they develop and test rockets and missiles and whatever else. Near-constant in the sky, a helicopter—not the kind that monitors traffic or airlifts people to hospitals, but Chinooks and Black Hawks. Military aircraft ferrying big-time generals in to witness the tests. And then the explosions. Just tests. Almost daily instances of shit blowing up, so frequent that the local subreddit has a tag—Loud noises scare me—meant to both mock and normalize how often someone posts: “Loud sound shook my house… arsenal test?” or “Did anyone else hear those five loud booms (Southeast End)?”

Normally, there isn’t any warning from the arsenal. The booms and blasts are just part of the city’s milieu—part of the soundscape of someone’s hometown. Lucky for me, I’m a transplant. I know this is not normal, even though the sounds have faded into background noise, like traffic from the parkway or cicadas screaming in the summer. Sometimes I don’t even realize there was a noise until a Reddit post hits my feed. That’s the worst feeling: knowing my nervous system has adjusted to explosions, that I might not feel concern if a war started right outside my door.

I know these are war sounds because my husband lives here with me, and he says it sounds like Vietnam. Insanity—the only answer we both can come up with. Moving here.

I read on the internet that this city is in the top five targets if the U.S. were attacked. If it’s a nuclear bomb, I’m in the zone for instant death. I guess that’s nice, compared to a former coworker I’d like to call a friend who lives in the horrific full-body-sunburn, lifetime-cancer, guaranteed-disability-for-life-but-not-death zone.

But this isn’t about that—not about living in the heart of war sounds, not about how I could die fast in a nuclear strike. This is about something else.

Last week, the arsenal did issue a warning. There would be two loud explosions on Saturday—one little one and one really big one. They announced it because these would be louder than the usual tests. They were going to demolish two launch pads built in the ’60s, back when the space race felt like humanity reaching for the stars instead of perfecting the efficiency of killing each other. They said Saturday before 9 a.m., so I was ready all morning, waiting.

I see now why they don’t warn us about testing. Waiting for the sound is worse than being surprised. Even with the warning, it was still a surprise.

I was in the kitchen making soup. This winter, I’ve been on a huge homemade-soup-from-scratch kick. I was cutting carrots when the first explosion rocked the house. From the living room, my husband yelled, “Daayyyuummm.” My heart raced. My body stiffened. I panicked. That had to be the big one. It had to be. It felt like I’d walk outside and see no other houses, like I was standing in the eye of a bomb—if bombs worked like hurricanes, where the center stays intact while everything around it is destroyed.

But no. That was the little one.

The big one came thirty minutes later, as I was dicing ham into cubes. It was so loud I jumped. The chef’s knife I love for how sharp it is sliced straight into my thumbnail, and blood gushed out. Fuck. Fuck me. What a shitty injury to have—cut right through the nail into my nail bed. Not a normal little cut. I washed my hands and accepted my fate: band-aid thumb for a few days until half my nail falls off.

I don’t know much about demolishing structures—buildings, launch pads, what have you. I suppose sometimes you just can’t repair. You can’t move forward to the next phase without destroying the dilapidated structure holding you back. But if I’m being honest, those launch pads had been sitting—unused, untouched—for decades. Longer than I’ve been alive. It seems like we all could’ve happily waited it out, let nature slowly reclaim the concrete and steel beams.

Not because I think launch pads are sentient beings deserving of peace and respect, but because when we go nuclear—decide to destroy it all—we get too focused on the intended destruction zone. We forget the circles of effect radiating outward. The cut-thumbnail zone. The sunburn-and-cancer zone. Bystanders who were doing just fine.

For days now, I’ve been mournful. Sad. Crying like a little bitch—and it’s not my thumb, though it does hurt. It’s that, as much as I love the life I’ve built, there are all those lives I had to give up for it. All the lives I could have lived if I’d made one or two different choices. Sometimes I want to blow it all up. Throw it all away. Go find something new—exciting, different—passionate, captivating, loving, intimate, physical, unpredictable.

Maybe it’s ingrained self-sabotage. Maybe it’s my true self calling out. I don't know. Sometimes, I think I don't know anything. But I do know I’ve done that before. Burned it all down. I’ve destroyed so many lives just to rebuild, and I am so tired of starting from scratch. That’s fun for soup, not for a soul.

I know I want to see it through. I know that, like those launch pads, time and nature come for us all. This life I have will slowly erode at the edges, and I can live within it until the day I move forward—without reverberating pain onto bystanders who are just trying to cut ingredients for soup.

Everyone who would be trapped in the crosshairs is someone I love. I can’t do that to them. Not with a clear conscience. Not on purpose. I do know love. Love enough not to harm. Not willingly at least.

So I cry and wait, knowing that when you make no choice, eventually one is made for you.