I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday afternoon. This week (and so many others lately, too) has just zoomed by. Here it is the weekend and I'm still not getting anything done around here (home). *Le sigh* I am, however, neck deep in Alcott stuff including his brother's 10th birthday yesterday, bowling with Alcott this morning, a Voices event this afternoon (Squeals on Wheels - a Halloween rollerskating party), his sibling visit tomorrow morning, then dropping him at Qualcomm Stadium for the Charger/Chiefs game. The boy and some of his foster kid friends will be watching the game courtesy of LaDanian Tomlinson, running back for the Chargers. Not a big Chargers fan here (Go Raiders!) but I really like and respect LT for what he does with kids.
It's like what Genevieve (the CASA for Alcott's siblings) wrote in my birthday card: Did you have any idea last year on your birthday that this year you'd have a wonderful, supportive boyfriend, five fabulous kids that love you, and tons of new friends from all of your volunteer work? No, I definitely didn't and I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me I would. Crazy what a difference a year makes!
Got to run, time to pick up the boy for roller skating madness - more later.
Wednesday morning. Wow, I really am so very lucky! As I sit here, surrounded by my baby kitties (Dave and Abby), with the sunshine warm on my neck and my tummy full of healthy blueberry pancakes, sweet potato hash browns, sausage, and strawberries, I realize that I'm happy. Yup, still have the enlarged food baby (my stomach) and it's got company now with my backside and legs enlarged to match, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy. And I am.
[Note that this post is most assuredly not motivated by or in response to anything that has been written by the lovely people who read this site. This is just my thoughts about things that I've seen.]
Tuesday night. I have a very bad feeling that I'm going to regret this post later, but I just don't feel that I can stay quiet any longer.
Today in Iraq, the United States military lost its 2000th service member since fighting began. I think it important to make the distinction between "soldier" - which is sort of a catch-all used in the media - and "service member" because there are airmen, sailors, and Marines serving in Iraq (and around the world), too. In any case, I feel that I may have something to add to this discussion because I am blessed to have a very special sailor in my life and, through knowing him, I have met and come to know many other sailors and Marines.
To a one, they are all ready to go to Iraq or Afghanistan or Korea or Somalia or the former Czech Republic or wherever they're needed. The fear that I had when I heard that TCB was to be deployed to Iraq? That was my fear. TCB was matter-of-fact and resolute. He wanted (and still does want) to be there for his "guys" and faced the thought of being away from home for an undefined period of time with absolute, unflappable calm. He's a sailor and that's what he does.
The young (early 20s) wife of TCB's bike commuting buddy, Sean - pregnant with two little girls under age 5 already - facing her husband's upcoming deployment to Iraq in March? "I knew what I was in for when I signed on," she told me on Sunday. No talk of fear, no remorse, no anger, just support for her husband and those he serves with.
The good-looking, single, early 20s Marine from Detroit, Michigan who lives down the street from TCB and comes over to the "block parties" on the weekends, and who will be deploying with Sean (above) in March? "It's part of the job," he tells me, as he details the preparations he will make before leaving his home and everything he loves, perhaps forever. I ask if he's scared and he tells me that anyone who says they aren't scared is lying but he says that courage isn't the absence of fear, it's doing what needs to be done even when you're scared. "When I signed up, I knew that I would be asked to go overseas to fight and possibly die - that's what Marines do." (I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget.)
The boy who couldn't have been more than 20 and needed a ride from TCB and I on the day his unit was leaving for an eight month deployment (first to Louisiana for three weeks, then straight on to Iraq)? He was leaving his newborn daughter and wife (she looked like she was in high school, seriously) and, while he cried softly in the front seat, he talked to TCB about checking in on his family while he was gone and taking care of things around the condo for her, if possible. TCB assured him that he needn't worry about it. I noticed that he carried rosary beads with him (his kit was in the back of TCB's Jeep), so I asked if he'd brought his Bible to read on the long flight over and he told me that he had. I gave him the pack of gum I'd just picked up, for the flight, and asked, very quietly, if he was scared. (I know, stupid question, but it was a 30 minute drive and I couldn't just sit in silence.) "Yes, ma'am, I'm scared s***less, but this is my job. This is what we do." (I didn't have to write this down. Even though they were only a whisper, his words are seared on my brain.)
I'm not sure what my point in writing this is, other than to give voice to a group that I rarely seem to see in the media: actual members of our armed forces. They're proud of what they do, of what the emblems on their uniforms stand for, of the 200 year long tradition of courage under fire that they represent, and they're ready to make the ultimate sacrifice if that's what their destiny holds. They mourn fallen comrades, too, but they do it quietly, out of the public eye and without any political agenda.
It's their job, it's what they do.
I've turned comments off for this post because I'm not trying to start a flame war, I'm not making a political statement, and I won't argue with anyone about their beliefs on the topic. This is just me, finally, letting something out that I've been thinking and not writing for far too long.
Monday morning. I had a really nice weekend after a very scary end of last week.
Thursday night, I was at the Cheesecake Factory, having dinner with Genevieve (the CASA for Alcott's siblings) and a couple of her friends, prior to departing for the Gwen Stefani/Black Eyed Peas concert, when I got a call from TCB. He told me that his boss had just let him know that he'd need to get more desert camoflage because he was being sent to Iraq in March. I struggled to keep the tears out of my voice as I asked if he was kidding and he assured me that he was not. I couldn't enjoy the concert, I couldn't enjoy my cheesecake (that's how you KNOW I was not myself!), and I cried intermittantly on the way home later that night. How could this happen? I'm almost 40, so what are the chances that I'll find another fabulous guy in my lifetime? And it hit me, most strongly, that I do love this man and that the thought of his being taken from me is just not something I can bear. The next morning when I called to check in with him, he told me that his boss had been "just kidding". I wanted to kill or maim both of them!
After I'd simmered down a bit and savored the sweet release of tension, I realized that I needed to acknowledge how much the thought of his departure from my life had affected me. To that end, I'm reintegrating this site with my Ramblings About a Boy site. I'd originally created that alternate site just to keep this site from becoming All About TCB, but last week's events proved to me that he's a huge part of my life and that he belongs here with everything else that's important to me. If you don't want to read about "will he? won't he?" you'll just have to cross me off of your list, I guess, because he's here and he's staying here!
