Aug. 16, 2002 ~ Do you ever feel
like you are close to the breaking point, and just one more thing, just one little thing, could send you over the edge? Across the line? I don't quite know where the edge leads, or what is on the other side of the line, but surely it is a less sane place than the one where I currently reside. Then one more thing does happen, and you think, "Okay, this is probably it. This is all I can take. In fact, this is MORE than I can take, so I guess that's all she wrote." So you wait for the really bad stuff to happen, whatever it is that happens when one crosses the line, and you wait, and then you wait some more, and nothing happens. Surprise, surprise, it didn't quite do you in. As we get older, I think, we definitely grow stronger, and we can handle much more than we expect.
Last night Soldier Boy called, during the middle of the week, which is not a usual thing. I was suspicious.
"Has anything exciting happened?" I asked.
He hesitated. Didn't answer right away. So of COURSE I thought something was up, because isn't that a mom thing? If our kids take too long to answer a question, isn't that, in itself, an answer?
He didn't admit to anything big or bad, but did say that he had to do training exercises in the field every week, in the woods, which means that he constantly has poison ivy. All the time. Yuck. But the mom radar was still whirring... "Danger, danger, Will Robinson!"
I asked if there was anything he wanted to tell me. Again, he waited too long to answer, and even though he said, "No," my heart started beating just a little bit faster.
"Oh!" he said. "I found out when we get our leave!" His unit takes a block leave, meaning they all have to take leave at the same time, for reasons I've never completely understood. His leave is in October.
October. Hmmmm. No Christmas? No Thanksgiving? This did not compute. No, it did not.
He talked to his father, and then to his brother. Husband told me excitedly about Soldier Boy coming home in October. And then... then he said, "And he is leaving for Afghanistan on December..." quoting an exact date. There are orders, it seems. But Soldier Boy did not tell me this, and since I didn't hear it directly from him, I can only assume that Husband MISUNDERSTOOD. Clearly, he is a little bit confused. And no, I am NOT in denial, not at all. But don't anybody say one word to me about THAT place, because as far as I know, personally, Soldier Boy is coming home in October, period. I have no further information. Period.
What edge?
What line??
That's all she wrote.
All rights reserved
_______________________________