The routine, pace, and solitude that comes from being on deployment is so strange. I had a thought earlier that took me by surprise and even made me jump a little bit. It was a simple thought, something normal and everyday in my life at home, but thinking of it caught me off guard, and i had to remind myself THAT is my life, not THIS. Its the little things that we dont do here, like listen to the radio, like flopping down on the counch just to flip on the tv, like daydreaming while sitting at red lights. All the little things that make up your everyday life. We dont do thoes things. We work, and eat, and sleep. And some, like me, take advantage of the EXTRA time, usually spent living my life, and become obsessed with the gym. Anyway, back to my thought, like I said, it was normal, I was just pulling up in my truck to my inlaws farm, favorite jeans on, and riding boots, going to see my favorite therapist, my horse. I have done this countless times, and that is why it shocked me that the memory seemed so foreign. We dont relive a deployment, day by day when we get home, we dont refeel the emptiness one minute at a time. We forget, we move on, and we once again sit at red lights and daydream. Its the only way we can continue to do this time and again. If we had to relive it minute by minute, I am sure its is something most would only do once. As thankful as I am for my memories of home and thoughts of everything I love, it does not always make it easier. Sometimes it makes it painful. I try not to think about everything I am missing, especially every minute with my wonderful husband that I am giving up, that I will never get back. I believe in what I do, I love our country, and I have no regrets, but sometimes I feel like I would give anything just to see my husband smile at me. It wont be long, about 180 more days just like this one.
Here is part of our group, enjoying the shade during the transit. I, armed with my spf 50 and 70, stood in the sun, being thankful that I was not stuck inside all day like usual. Boredom eventually set in for the guys and things went south quickly and ended up with Tuna (one of the guys that I work with) combing the chest hair of another guy that I work with, who we will just call Sasquatch. Thankfully, that was the low point of the day, and it didnt last very long, because even though I do not get seasick, I was feeling like I wanted to puke at that moment.
With the chest hair combing incident behind us (thank GOD), we anchored in a pretty area right next to a reef. The surface water temperture was 97 degrees, and 6 feet down, it was still 91. We took two skiffs like this one in the pic out to where the whale sharks hang out. The hardest part of the whole trip was hoisting yourself back into this boat (no ladders) when we would finish snorkeling in one spot and move on to the next to see as many of the whale sharks as possible.
This is a pic of a whale shark, courtesy of google, I really wish I would have had a waterproof camera. I was so amazed when we first saw one. Its huge fin jetting through the surface of the ocean. Im pretty sure I should have been afraid, but I was more amazed then afraid, so I followed the first few guys into the water off the side of our little skiff. I couldnt believe how huge and still how graceful the whale shark was. She seemed totally unphased by our presence. She just glided along through the water and ignored us. She was so beautiful. Our guide said the sharks we were swimming with were about 15feet long. We saw several whale sharks during the few hours that we spent away from the bigger boat. We also saw some dolphins, which was so wonderful to me.
We headed back to the big boat for lunch, which wasnt ready when we got there. So a group of us headed to the reef we were anchored by. The reef was just so neat, the extent of my fish knowledge comes from watching Finding Nemo several dozen times, so I can tell you that I saw a bunch of Doris and Angel fish. I also got to see a few lil Nemos playing around. There were just dozens and dozens of beautiful fish that I have never seen before, even in the many aquariums I have been to. We saw a sting ray and an eel as well. There was one little pink and white fishy that was so curious about me, it would swim next to me, then infront of me and look at me, and then swim next to me again, it was so cute. We stayed out on the reef for about an hour or so, went and had lunch, a quick nap, then we were back out on the reef again. After two more hours of snorkeling on the reef, it was time to go. I was exhausted, slept most of the way back. After a long shower and a hot dinner, I found out I had a meeting to go to, which led to me having to work most of the night. So I guess you can say I sortof had the day off, but not really. It was a wonderful day and I hope I can do it again.
I get it, people are different, we all have different personality types, quirks, and stresses. Like me, I tend to be a little standoffish and short at work, that’s just my personality. And like Rhino, who I also mentioned in this post about her parents, and how she rotates her plates and socks like they are produce, ensuring that they all get “EQUAL” use, then throws all of her plates and socks away at the same time so the new batch all gets equal use, that’s just one of her quirks (her many, many, possibly infinite quirks). But one thing that I will never understand are the people who ALWAYS have it WAY WORSE than you do. What is that?? Is there some kind of MY LIFE SUCKED THE WORST award you get on your death bed if you have managed to ONE UP every other persons bad day for your entire life?? Its just silliness honestly. And the thing of it that really gets me about one guy in particular that I work with is that he always one ups my statement, its not even a complaint. IE. My Life Sucks Guy (known as MLSG for the rest of eternity) walks in and says, “What are you doing Chief”, I look up and reply “Just writing some evaluations”, and for some reason MLSG responds with “Ugh, atleast you don’t have to write the evals I have to write, I would take yours over MINE anyday”… I just ignore this, who frickin CARES, I like doing evaluations, I have lots of guys who work really hard and its my job to make sure they get evaluated properly, its NOT torture, its part of my JOB… Then, MLSG sees me another day, Im minding my business walking to the gym MLSG stops me (and its early, wayyy early, before my coffee, early) and says “what time are you working today?”, I continue to walk and respond with some pointless time, just so he can say “Well, atleast you don’t have to work MY hours, I WORK ALL the time, DAY and NIGHT,” he’s a civilian guy, so I respond with “well maybe you should just quit.” A few days later I was talking with my friend Omar about how I forgot to go update my I.D. card and my health insurance for my family was stopped (I know Im a complete jerk for that, but its fixed now), and out of NOWHERE pops MLSG, like theres some version of the bat signal that only he can see when he has the opportunity to one up someone, he flies around the corner just to say “At least you don’t have to deal with my insurance, its wayyyyy worse than yours.” I just looked at him silently as I thought to myself, “Who was talking to you anyway? Don’t you have some work to do?” So that’s MLSG, I’m telling you, don’t ever wonder, HE HAS IT WORSE, even if you aren’t complaining, and you don’t think you have it bad, he will be there, right around the corner to be sure and tell you that HE HAS IT WORSE.
And then of course I have my NOTORIOUS COMPLAINER (known as NC from now on), he could win the lottery, on his birthday, on the most beautiful place on earth, and he would STILL find a way to complain about it. At a meeting earlier today NC started babbling on about “please be patient with everyone I work with, we are all suffering from combat stress as we are working all the time, we are pulling 20 hour days and its catching up to us.” Now, why in the hell he would spout this out in the middle of a meeting with our Captain is BEYOND me. Sure, we work a lot, but what we do INSIDE ALL DAY or NIGHT or ALL DAY AND NIGHT is far from COMBAT, and even if it is stressful, we have just barley gotten here and we have many many months to go, so perhaps you need to evaluate all the time you WASTE that causes you to work ALL DAY AND NIGHT because you cant stop friggin COMPLAINING!!! Just a suggestion from me, you can get a whole lot more work done if you just close your mouth.
And yes, I fully realize that at this point I am telling all of you how my life sucks and I am complaining… I see the irony, and Im done.
