Another week has gone by here in Fort Riley. Time here seems to be flying by which could be good or bad—depending on how you look at it. Many of the people that were with us in the Captain’s Career Course are getting ready to leave,—or are leaving today—giving our team the loud and clear message that our time is up really soon. It is an eerie feeling to see so many people that you know deploy. I can only hope and pray that that they get to come home safe and that their tour is not met with unfortunate events.
As for us,—our team—we have been waiting for higher up to tell us when we are going to be able to go to see our families before deploying. The word was that we might have at least a week to see our loved ones but now—as everything in the Army these days—our deployment date has been pushed up and consequently we will be lucky if we get four days at home. Since the news, all of our training is being jam-packed in our schedule and now we seem to be scrambling to get out stuff together.
My sentiment on all these changes is ambiguous. At times I am glad that we are leaving sooner because that means that our time will start counting down and this means a day closer to come home but sometimes I am sad and disgruntled because I wanted to spend more time with my family before I have to leave them for so long. I have been living on my own since August of 2006 and by the time I come home, it will be 25 months that I have been gone away from my home. I often wonder how I am going to be able to make it or how my children are going to deal with it.
Distance can be a real nuisance in somebody’s life. Most people change when they are apart, especially when they are apart for two years. Most people learn to get into a routine that will aid them get through the day and this is often hard to merge with the routines another one brings home. As I sit here, I have to learn to make it through the day without listening to my children laugh or even cry. I sit here living with memories of what it used to be when I was home like if it was a distant dream, something that I cannot experience for a long time. I wish I could be home…
All I can hope for is that this distance and this loneliness that forces me to scrutinize my life, my actions and what I thought was important to me, transforms me into a better person. I know that like things in the Army, I will have a different outlook on life when I come back. I know that I will have seen and experienced things that the majority of Americans cannot fathom; I just have to figure out how to turn these experiences, these two years, into a positive change in my life and hope I never think of it as a wasted years.
