“I’m young and happy. I’ll never die. I’m skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blasts, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy’s life with a story.” p246
O'Brien closes his story with a fascinating image, revealing his personal man against self conflict. O'Brien touches on the natural inclination of youths to feel invincible. To help distinguish between young Tim and current Tim, he refers to his naive self as Timmy. Timmy has no strong feelings about the war, other than the fact that he does not believe in it, and he has trouble picturing himself a part of it. The image of Timmy skating through his life and history reflects on his inability to accept the idea that his life is fragile. The "loops and spins" that Timmy does shows him dodging responsibilities, not thinking things through, and enjoying life without war. The "dark" that O'Brien speaks of symbolizes the war and the relationship strains that he faced because of it. This includes when he returned home, feeling alone and lost because he could not tell his story in a way that would warn others like he wanted to warm himself. Thirty years later, Tim recognizes the dark in his life and clears his problems through therapeutic writing that led to The Things They Carried.
I like how you attributed the "loops and spins" Timmy does as him avoiding his responsibilities. When I read about young Timmy skating with other ghosts from O'Brien's life, it makes me think that O'Brien sees his youth and innocence as being dead. The war has robbed him of his youth and innocence. I agree that it was therapeutic for O'Brien to write this book. I think dreaming about the friends he's lost is also therapeutic, "I'm young and happy". O'Brien is able to find happiness in his dreams that he lacks in real life.
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