Alright, it’s now 9:43 PM. I’m back home so it’s back to normal people time for a bit. It’s 9:14 AM at my other home. I’m sitting at my mom’s house, gonna sleep on the sofa tonight & tomorrow night. It has been a long time since I’ve slept here. Kinda different but then nothing has been normal today. On my way up here, I realized that I couldn’t find my wallet. Suddenly I remembered that it had been under my leg on the plane. I was holding my book between the wall of the airplane and my leg and it fell at one point. I picked it up and must have knocked my wallet off the chair at the same time. If that’s the case, who knows when it’ll be discovered or beyond that, if it’ll have any of my money left in it. I sure hope I do!
I realized something on this journey while walking around the airport. I do not miss being constantly surrounded and bombarded by “stuff”. We have a little PX at Dwyer and we go in almost every day just to see what’s new. And when I want something, I can go online to get it. I don’t have to pass hundreds of different shirts, watches, shoes, or anything else that can distract easily distractible people such as myself, which is really nice. It really has been a great experience over there so far. I’m lucky, I guess. It’s not the same for everybody. I’ve been listening to people constantly talking about their frustrations and annoyances with the company or with being overseas. What is the point of all that? If you can’t be happy, why not just go home? One of our guys had a wife who broke her arm while he was here. I’m sure he was plenty frustrated about that. Another is sitting there while his wife deals with a bout of breast cancer. He is very unthrilled about that. He and I joined a “cancer f*ing sucks” group the morning I left as we were talking about his wife and my stepdad. He told me that his wife has heart problems too and is on medications for that. The money that he has to spend for her medical issues is the reason that he’s in Afghanistan. Given the expression on his face yesterday, I have no doubt that he’d much rather be home with her but he’s doing something very important to take care of her from a distance. I do not envy that man. It must be awful to be so far away.
I like getting to hear about people’s reasons for being over there. I’m about the only one I know who isn’t doing this primarily for money. I’m not planning out college for kids. I’m not trying to buy a house. I’m not dealing with medical bills. I’m having fun. I wonder if that’s why I have nothing to complain about. Who knows.
So the latest on my stepdad. It was believed that he was coughing up blood last night so they rushed him from the convalescent hospital to the ER. Did a scan and didn’t find anything that could be causing it. He wasn’t eating much but it still coherent and was able to talk to me a bit. I am very glad that I got here when I did. It’s very good to see the family and to be with him right now. I wouldn’t even have begun to expect something like this happening when I left two months ago. Not my stepdad. He was such a healthy man. I think, to put it mildly, this caught a lot of us off-guard.
Anyway, I should get to bed. It’s so weird to be sleeping back here again. The houses mostly look the same, but many of the people inside of them are different. Many of the stores have changed. Restaurants are gone. There are now stop signs where there weren’t before. My bank has changed its name and look since the last time I was in there. But some things are a total time-warp. Some things show absolutely no evidence of 15 years passing since I lived here. What an odd feeling. This sofa? Not an ounce of change. I love it.
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