Routines

I’ve been home for two weeks now, and have spent most of the time getting moved back into my home. I’d had a house sitter, who moved out a couple of days before I returned. She has lived in my house longer than me, by a few months.

I’m finally up and on line, so I hope to catch up on postings. I won’t be seeing too many other soldiers for a while, so until we start to drill again, I’ll be writing about things that I couldn’t write about while on active duty. My leave ran out yesterday, and I am today, for the first time in 18 months, not on active duty. Thus, I am not subject to many of the restrictions I used to have to obey.

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A master sergeant from my unit lives around the corner from me. We saw each other almost daily in Iraq, since our CHUs were near each other. I drove by his house a couple of days before Thanksgiving, and he was standing in his yard. It was fairly warm, and he was in a short sleeved t-shirt, drinking a Corona. As I passed, he grinned and thrust the bottle in the air, part wave, part salute, part celebration of being home. Over this last weekend he was up on his roof, bundled and hatted against the cold, putting Christmas lights on his house.

It feels a bit odd to me to be taking care of the usual household chores. All my little routines disappeared, and I’m feeling my way back to them. I suppose the sergeant felt a bit strange to be up on his house, in the cold, stringing lights.