It's a weird thing to be in the middle. MY deployment is about to begin, but it hasn't. I have however already left my home. I wanted to make sure I saw everyone I cared abotu at least one more time before heading out to the sandbox, so I'm spending a little time out here in Temple Mount.
It kind of reminds me of being on summer vacation as a kid. I really don't have much to do but hang to with my friends and family and dread the upcoming return to being under somebody else's thumb.
But oh, I miss Liberal Icebox. I was just checking weather.com, and I happened to click onto LIberal Icebox's 10 day forecast(Shockingly, it was quite cold now, and will be quite cold in the future). SOme times I have trouble thinking of the military stuff as part of my "Real Life." It's so much easier to think of it as some sort of weird hobby that happens to take up a huge amount of time and that was one of the most formative elements in my life.
I guess that doesn't really sound like a hobby.
In my life there's the Lord(or my fumbling attempts to chase Him, Her, my friend, all the names), there's the church, there are the people I love, there are the adventures. I've never exactly know how to fit the military into the scheme of understanding my life. Some folks I know, being a soldier is where they start and finish. No matter who else and what else they are, they are soldiers.
I don't know if I'm like that. I am blessed to be in the military, no matter how hard it can be at times, and I am thankful to be able to do it, but... Sometimes it feels a little less than real.
Of course, that feeling will be gone after a week or two constantly in uniform. On long stretches on missions, I often get that same feeling of unreality when I think about the civilian world. Once during a training mission, the convoy stopped at a truck stop in Connecticut. I ran in to hit the latrine and grab a coke, and standing there by the soda cooler, there was somebody I knew. I didn't know her well, but she occasionally attended my church. She was on a business trip or something. It was very, very odd to talk to her in that situation.
But I guess we're all just passing from one reality to the next.
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