Well, I haven't posted here in months. I am still in Iraq, but I moved back to my old stomping ground, because my old friend from last year is top dog here now, so I got a promotion to #2 in the dept. and transfered back here. I went home for Christmas, and we all had a good visit. But just a visit it was, and my relationship with my wife is starting to tell that I have been gone too long. In the first year, letters came often, wafting of perfume, and unrequitted love, emails were long and full of feeling, packages came to the point of jealousy from co-workers. But now, as the 2nd year is coming to a close, I do not recall any letters, packages have to be coerced, and emails are a scant two sentences, with little more than apologies for nothing to say. I know it is my fault, not hers. Whoever coined the phrase that "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" obviously did not mean to the extent that I have stretched it! I am kind of between a rock and a hard place here, I know I "need" to go home, and salvage what is left, but I also "need" to stay here to finish accomplishing what I came here to do to begin with, which requires another 6 months, minimum. She has always been strong, and supportive, a quality which I greatly admire in her. But I fear it may be dying, and by the time I get home, there will be no "home" to go home to. Maybe I'm just over reacting to a bad phase, and it will work out fine. Time, and relationships seem to stand still from my angle, there is nothing here to hold on to, except for what was in the world of reality. But there, time marches on, and life continues...without me.
A Snider Squibbled in the Jungle,
Somebody Laughed and Fled.
And the Men of the First Shikaris
Picked up the Subaltern Dead...........With a Big Blue Hole in His Forehead,
And the Back Blown Out of His Head. RUDYARD KIPLING
I finally got a break from my own personal hell (Iraq), and went home for a much needed, much too short R&R. It had been a full 5 months since i left home to come over here again on my second tour here. The ordeal of getting from here to there, and back, is almost not worth it. Notice i said "almost". This place is very dismal, and drab, and after 5 months, i think i would have walked home to get out. The trip began with a windowless blackhawk ride from my camp to Baghdad in the middle of the night, then i spent 2 nights there waiting on a charter flight of 2 hours to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai isn't a bad place, except everything is priced high. A beer is $5, but after 5 months,it's worth the price, and once you get trapped in the airports of the world, $5 for a beer is actually a bargain. They go for $7-$10 in the airports. Anyway, from Dubai, it was onto a commercial flight to Paris, 7 hours, with a 4 hour layover, then a flight to NYC of 8 hours, with another 3 hour layover, then, on to a 3 hour flight to Tampa. Finally home!, after 4 days of moving and waiting. My lover/wife picked me up and we went home and chilled for a while, got reaquainted, drank martinis, made love, and just held on to each other for dear life. Even at that early stage of our being reunited, i couldn't keep out of my head how soon it would be over. She was thinking the same thing. After periods of long separation it is almost surreal when you are reunited, and it takes time to get a feeling of "normal" again. It is almost a state of denial that you are actually there, where you can physically touch each other, after all those months of having to settle for talking about it. We just crashed into each others embrace, and held on for dear life. It was wonderful. 2 days later, we drove over to the beach, where i had rented this nice house for a week, and all the kids/ gf's/bf's, came and we had days filled with sun and sand, nights partying, and eating/drinking. Everyone had a good time, and i got to connect with my daughters again and spend time with them. After that, we went back home and too soon, it came upon the time for me to leave again. My 20 year old daughter had to go to the emergency room on the day i left, an appendicitis, so i spent the last hours home at the ER, waiting for tests to confirm that she needed surgery. I called the airline to try and get my flight changed, but they told me it would be 3 grand to change my flight, so i had to leave, not knowing how she would fare, and not having been able to spend the last hours home saying the proper goodbye to my wife. She took me straight from the hospital to the airport, and i watched her at the window of the airside from my window seat as i taxied away from life. Back to NYC, then on to London, where a 4 hour layover turned into an 8 hour one because of plane trouble, I got into Dubai at 6am, went to my hotel, and crashed all day, got drunk one last time that night, and got back on the charter to Baghdad that morning, spent 24 hrs. there, and then back on the chopper and my old routine....party over. I feel like an amputee descibes phantom pain. Like a part of me has been chopped off, but i can still feel what was there, yet it isn't. I long for the touch of my lover again, not specifically the sex, just the touch of someone who loves you. I am now back in the land of drab, apathy, and hate, counting days again until the next time. The love of all who i left behind is the only thing keeping me sane. One day this will all be over, and we will laugh together again. Until then........tears flow. Nothing to do but suck it up, get hardened again, and live for that day.
Last year, in late spring, my wife Michelle and I met in Athens Greece for our honeymoon. We had gotten married 4 days before I left for Iraq, so I flew her into Athens from Florida, and I came from Dubai. We stayed the night at the hotel at the airport, and the next morning we flew to an island in the Aegean Sea for 9 days. We stayed at this nice resort, and rented a car for the week that would make a Ford Focus look like a limosine. You could drive the perimeter of the island in about 2 hours if you took your time. After a few nights of romantic bliss, we decided to check out the night life, so we went to the port town there and walked down the shorefront until we found a bar that looked promising. It was the typical european bar, and soon we were buying shots for strangers, and they were in turn buying them for us. It was unheard of there to tip the bartender, but it was obvious that he was a struggling younger guy, maybe 20, so we were tipping like a dollar (euro) everytime we bought a round, which was every 15 minutes. So, soon he started giving us free shots, and we were well on our way to a good time. Shelley and I have always had a knack for making people feel at home around us, and although there were probably 4-5 different languages being spoken, we got along good, and were laughing and drinking with the whole bar and the place was getting more crowded by the hour. They started playing dance music, and sure enough, that one drink put me over the edge of being rational enough to know I can't dance, so there we went. I have this style I use where I make a fool out of myself, and laugh at myself more than anyone else does, so I get the spiritual benefit of dancing in public, while everyone watching thinks I'm trying to put on a comedy show. I think thats one of the things Shelley loves about me, is that i am not afraid of being foolish in public. Well, these Armenians, and Greeks, and whereever else these partiers were from, had never seen anything like us middleaged people who are not afraid of humiliation. Shelley just dances normally, like a sexy woman does, and I dance around her like a sex starved primate. But they all must have enjoyed the show, because soon they were actually trying to imitate, (hell, I can't even imitate it! No two dance moves are alike) and they were buying us even more drinks in between dancing. The place was packed (it was a small bar), and we were all getting drunker. One time we went out on the floor, and these guys were getting real friendly, too friendly if you know what i mean. One of them started dancing with Shelley, no problem, and the other one started dancing with me. I tried to like dodge around him and ignore it, but he was persistant. I know, in Europe, thats how they do it, but i'm not a european, so it felt weird. Soon he was actually trying to like do the grind and shit, so I called a time out, took Shelley to the bar and told her it was time to go. We shook hands and said our goodbyes, and left. Shelley was so wasted she almost didn't make the walk to the car, I thought i was going to have to carry her. I felt extremely toasted too, thankfully there was only a mile to get back to the resort. I soon discovered why we were so fried after the adrenaline from the party had worn off. It was 430am! The bars where we come from close at 2am and they chase you out, we were having such a good time, we didn't realize we had literally drank and partied all nite. So, as we climbed(fell) into bed as the sun was coming up, we told each other we were too old for such behavior and we were not going to do it again. Well not tomorrow night anyway.
I AM NOT YOUR ROLLING WHEELS, I AM THE HIGHWAY
I AM NOT YOUR CARPET RIDE, I AM THE SKY.
When i was a kid, i used to fall in love with my cousins, a fact i only knew. They were cute, and really a lot like me, being they were in the same family environment and all. I kept it secret, but at one time or another during my younger years, i was in love with pretty much all of my female cousins, who were close to me in age. Maybe infatuated is a better term. Reason being i guess, is because i was so shy back then, i could only bring myself to be near familiar faces, i ran and hid when other girls not in my family would give me attention, and peek out from afar with both fear and desire at the same time. I hated being shy, and it was a debilitating affliction, worse than any physical handicap one might have. It stuck with me for years, and even in young adulthood i still suffered from it. I believe it set me up for many unfullfilling relationships because i was attracted to girls with 'strong' personalities, who would approach me rather than me having to approach them. Those 'strong' personalities are usually people who have to have it their way and often they are selfish when it comes to being in a relationship. I am not saying that all people with strong personalities are selfish, but the ones i hooked up with seemed to be so. I was in the 6th grade when a girl in my class set me up with her younger sister, who was also shy. But the bold older sister who was my age pushed us together, and we ended up "boyfriend and girlfriend" (woohoo!) Janet, the older one whispered to me shortly after, that she would kick my ass if i hurt her sisters feelings, so for a long time, i was scared to break up with her for fear of getting kicked by a girl. I finally convinced Susan, the girlfriend that she didn't like me anymore and she broke up with me. I was 16 before i got laid for the first time, and i was so nervous and shy, that my legs were shaking to near the point of inability, there in the front seat of my 1970 Ford pickup. I did manage though, and got it in her, along with half of my shirttail, which i failed to realize was tangled up in my boner. Needless to say, she didn't agree to a second date. But i owe that girl a lot. Without brazen, easy girls, guys like me would still be virgins. I married a girl who wouldn't take no for an answer when i was 19. She was 21, and beautiful. I was a punk GI, stationed in Germany, met her in a pub, and our only means of communication was a mutual friend who spoke both languages. I was again infatuated with her beauty, but other than that, we had nothing in common, so i gave up and stopped coming around. She showed up at my dorm a few days later, under the pretense of returning my flight jacket that i gave her, (it's sort of a class ring for USAF types), and i ended up that night simutaneously taking her virginity, and getting her pregnant at the same time. Today our son is 25 years old. The marriage, which i felt was the responsible thing to do, only lasted 3 years, and we both hated every minute of it. It costed me a relationship with my son, they returned to Germany, and i went home to Florida. My son was almost 3 then, i didn't see him again until he was 18. It was more of a loss to me than anything else before or since, not to mention the pain he experienced, having to grow up without a father. I ran home to Florida, and quickly got snatched up by another 'strong' woman, who i fell head over heels for. I got married to her 2 days after my divorce was final from my sons mother. We had a daughter, and everything went well there for a while, her wishes were my command, thats the way it's supposed to be, right?, or so i thought at the time. I worked hard, gave her what she wanted, and the more i gave, the hungrier she got. 11 years went by, and she decided she wanted another child. I argued the point, she threatened divorce if i didn't give in. Savanna was born 9 months later. We divorced 2 years later anyway. Savanna is turning 10 soon. She has a strong personality like her mom. I wouldn't trade her for the world. Fact is, she taught me how to stand up to those strong type women, she is my daughter, i can call her down when she gets bossy, and she still loves me after. I should have done it all along with the love interests in my life, and perhaps they would have respected me more. I guess i allowed them to use me up, so mostly i am to blame. My oldest daughter, Rachel, is just like me. I hope she doesn't fall into the same trap i did. I'll have to kill some punkass for that. Having finally learned my lessons about how to avoid these kinds of relationships, i found myself attracted to the opposite this time. Michelle is not a pushover, but she has respect for other peoples wants and needs, not just her own. I still bow to her desires, but she doesn't take advantage of it. I have never been happier. If i would have learned to stand up for my self at a younger age, maybe the first relationships would have been different, or the table would have turned and i would have been the typical bossy, chauvanist, ass of a husband and had an oppressed wife to boss around. I guess i should be thankful though, because i would not be where i am today had it been different, and theres no place i'd rather be.
Stand back now, I'm obligated to warn you.....I know karaoke!
Have you ever tried to find a cricket that is chirping? I work nights in an office that is built into the corner of a big warehouse type building. There are big cracks in the floor, and gaps under the door where various creatures come in from the night to bask in the light. Mice, crickets,scorpions, even water bugs have found their way in. The mice multiply to the point where they are so brazen that they run around in your presence and ignore you completely, looking for scraps on the floor. Finally it gets to where you cannot ignore them anymore, so we take empty 1 liter water bottles and put food in them and lay them on the floor with the cap off. The mice will swarm to the bottle, go inside, sometimes 3-4 at a time, and you can grab the bottle and bring them outside and set them free. I think i have caught the same mice many times. I cannot bring myself to slay them, afterall, they are just trying to survive. Same with these big fat crickets. They come in here and crawl about,but them,they hide themselves in the crevices and chirp their mating calls, driving you berzerk. When you try to hunt them down though, they become silent when you start zeroing in on their location, only to resume when you leave again. They say that the chirping is a mating call, to attract the opposite sex. I think they're laughing at me.
I can honestly say, that i am a happy person today. I can look in the mirror and say, "ya know what ol' man, your awright!" It wasn't always that way, and there's no guarantee that it will always stay that way. I have to fight for that right every day of my life. And it is a right too. Everyone has a right to be content in their own skin and like the person who is looking back at them in the mirror. Of course there are exceptions to that right. If someone is an evil person who intentionally hurts others, with no remorse, then no, they do not have that right. If you have back read any of my blog, you know i've been through my share of shit, from childhood, right on up to the recent past, and these are just a few of the memories i have stored in my harddrive. For years, i let the skeleton's of my past haunt my life in one form or another. Depression, self loathing, apathy, alcohol/drug overuse,(I say overuse because i believe everything is OK in moderation), spiritually imprisoning those who love me, letting people who were supposed to love me, spiritually imprison me, you name it, i used it to wrap my self up in to avoid facing the demons inside of me. I have been as much of a mess psychologically, as anyone could be.
I wish it were an easy thing to describe how i beat it and continue on beating it to date. A 'recipe' if you will, for everyone to follow and get the same results as i have gotten. Sorry, there is no formula, but i can share my version and hopefully help someone else construct from the pieces a way to where i am today. Everyone has inside of them a life, which lives in the physical body which you see and touch. This life is called a soul, a spirit, a personality, whatever, but it is,in my eyes, the most neglected part of every person. Because it is invisible, noone thinks to take care of it, instead worrying about the part everyone else can see, the body. How many physically beautiful people there are who have rotten souls inside. Of course there is a multitude of homely people who have rotten souls too, point being, regardless of your outward appearance, without inner health, it is all for naught. It is true, i believe, that taking care of your outer self contributes to your inner health too, but it is not prerequisite to it. The greatest tragedy in ones life, is to die without ever having had peaceful coexistence with the life inside of them. Using myself as an example, i was 38 years old before i finally realized that i had literally fucking wasted my life up until that point, feeling sorry for myself, and not finding joy in day to day life as a whole. What a waste of precious time it was. Time i will never get back. I blamed it on outside forces, things beyond my control, other peoples oppression on me, everything except what it really was, i blamed it on,so as not to have to muster the courage to fight it. I think that i did that because it is indeed a formidable entity, when you have to contemplate facing down those motherfucking demons that reside in you. It scares and intimidates you because you know it involves tearing the familiar you apart, and rebuilding yourself from the beginning. What happens if a storm comes up in the meantime and scatters all the pieces to an unrecognizable heap? What happens if i lose all the security in the miserable life that is me? Those are all valid fears, and the question is, are you willing to accept the risk in order to reap the reward. Most people are not willingly going to give up the familiar, no matter how bleak the existence is, instead hoping that outside influences will intervene and save them. I was like that. I put my faith in fate. But then i was forced instead by fate to dive off that cliff, and either i was going to learn how to fly or hit the God damned rocks at the bottom. I waited for someone to throw me off, when i could have done it years earlier on my own, and learned to fly at a point where i wouldn't have wasted all those years.
At the point in my life it all changed, was when my wife of 15 years didn't want to be married to me anymore. When a marriage ends, it isn't just the household goods that gets split up. Your whole dynamics of life support get unplugged. People you hung out with suddenly avoid you, they are forced to choose sides, or abandon both of you, and besides you don't want to be around them because there is nothing left in common anymore. If you are lucky, as i was, you have your immediate family to lean on and vent to. I'm sure they got bored listening to my rants and whining, but they supported me all the same. But eventually i realized that they could not rebuild my life for me, i had to do it myself. So i started out with what i had when the dysfunction all began as a child. I had my moms love, and my dads, and my siblings. Everything else had to go, not because i was brave enough to stop on my own, but because i was forced to. My wife was filing papers in court to the effect that i was an unfit parent because i abused drugs and alcohol, because she wanted to use an offense as her defense. It is true, that our whole marriage i smoked pot,used prescription drugs;i.e. prozac, pain pills, and drank, never to the point though of being an unfit parent. In fact, i quite competently took care of my family both financially and lovingly. I was never abusive in any way to any of them, my wife or my kids. But when someone who you thought loved you pubically accuses you of something, a big microscope with a spotlight hits you, and you are scrutinized for the slightest infraction or sign that the accusations are true. So, i went cold turkey on all of it. I was reduced to living in a dilapidated travel trailer so i could pay the child support and make the house payment on the house my "wife" and kids were living in, so all the material things that i had to validate myself were taken away. It was the end of the world for me, or so i thought. All i had left, was me. That's when i started really looking at "me". Who am i? What am i? How could i live without all those "things"!? The car and the house, and the friends and the drugs, and the companionship of my spouse. All those things were gone, i had nothing left, except me. I was out of shape, had no money, no bling to attract the opposite sex, Fuck...i was done. So, rather than curl up like a raid sprayed spider, i coped day to day, started concentrating on what i had left, ME. I started riding a bike and jogging like Forrest Gump on crack, not only for the health and eventual weight loss, but because the endorphines produced replaced the buzz i got from the drugs before. When visitation days came around, and my girls came to stay with me, i stuck with the basics, a visit to G-ma and G-pas house usually at suppertime, and video rentals for entertainment. I realized that my daughters were just as punchdrunk as i was about the whole thing and they still needed me to act like a dad, it really woke me up and made me realize that despite what i felt was wholesale abandonment, and by that i mean that i thought the kids were on my wifes "side", it simply wasn't true. They still needed me as much as i needed them. So there were a few tear filled,heart baring moments which we all benefitted from. It is hard to defend your own honor without calling to question the honor of the one who is trying to crush you, in this case my wife, who is also the mother of my children, so there was a fine line that i forced myself not to cross when it came to them, and that being not returning the volley's my wife was hurling at me as long as i was in their presence. Over time, as i got used to my meager existence, and i realized it was not going to change anytime in the near future, i resigned myself to it and discovered that there are simple pleasures in life that do not require money, or company. I realized that i had to start enjoying my own company and occupying my time with simple things and learn to appreciate the solitude. It was a turning point for me. What started out as a reconstruction of myself for the benefit of being attractive to others, turned into a personal thing, where i started willing myself to like me. The exercise endorphines replaced the panecea of taking drugs to feel good, i was getting back in shape and had much more energy than before, i read novels, had the love of my kids and my parents, if i needed to talk to someone, i had my sister, who was always a good listener,God rest her soul, and i was still broke, but i was ready to present myself to the world again. I started hanging out at a place, a local pub, not a meat market, just a quiet little beer bar where regulars hung out. I didn't know a soul in there, and i would go in and order a beer, and sit there and sip it, my self imposed limit was one hour, one beer. Eventually, i conversed with people i saw all the time. Angela, a young girl barely old enough to be in a bar nicknamed me quiet Brian, because i rarely spoke at first. She is still my friend today. through her and others i met all kinds of lonely people, some i liked, some i didn't care for. But the therapy was just being there and listening to them, whether i was actually in the conversation or not, i still became very enlightened to human nature and youth, and everything. I learned what was important in life by bad examples i witnessed, and by inspiration from sources i never would have dreamed inspiration could come from. People didn't really know what to think of the quiet guy who drank very slowly, but as they accepted me, i too accepted them, good or bad. Every person has something good about them if you look hard enough, and though i learned to avoid some, i also learned to embrace others, including that life inside of me. Once that finally came to be, and it did not happen over night, but once it did, the world was mine. I can love again, and i am in love, married as a matter of fact (whole other story), and i am loved by many, because i can love the life inside of me. It is wonderful. I wish i could give the gift to every person on earth who needs it, but the only one who can give it to you, is the one who gave it to me. Just look in the mirror, past the face and the eyes. The gift is there, do you have the courage, to beat those motherfucking demons?
