Fear
So here I sit...only a matter of days before I climb aboard a C-17 and make the long ride over to the sand box. My friends and family keep asking me, "How do you feel?", "Are you excited?", "Are you nervous?", and ofcourse, "Is there any fear?"
Anxious. Yeah. Not really. Nope.
To be honest, I'm rather ambivolent about the whole thing. I mean, sure, I'm getting ready to fly into a war zone...on purpose. But all in all, I'm really not too concerned about it. I'm more concerned about being away from my daughter for three months. You want to talk about fear? Fear is not knowing if your beautiful little girl will know who you are when you get back. That's what weighs the heaviest on my mind. Not the bombs, bullets, and bad guys...but the confused look on a little girl's face when a strange man walks into a room.
Everyone tells me not to worry about it, that even if she does, within an hour of me being back, it'll be like I never left. And you know, I really want to believe that. I really do. But it doesn't quell that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. It just doesn't. And what's worse, is I have absolutely no life experience to fall back on...no internal wisdom to ease my conscience. For the first time in my life, I'm completely and utterly on unfamiliar ground. For almost thirty years, I've trudged through life, picking up experience here, there, and everywhere...and about everything.
But this.
If only there was a way to slit a hole in the universe and slip back and forth; sandbox by day, daughter's bedside by night.
Unfortunately, there's not. So, I've done the next best thing. I dug out a tripod, set up the video camera, and gave her a good 40 minutes of my neurotic babbling, conveniently burned to a DVD. If anything, she'll have a permanent recollection of some goofy guy rambling on about the same thing over and over for three months. Poor thing...she'll probably be scarred for life.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Anxious. Yeah. Not really. Nope.
To be honest, I'm rather ambivolent about the whole thing. I mean, sure, I'm getting ready to fly into a war zone...on purpose. But all in all, I'm really not too concerned about it. I'm more concerned about being away from my daughter for three months. You want to talk about fear? Fear is not knowing if your beautiful little girl will know who you are when you get back. That's what weighs the heaviest on my mind. Not the bombs, bullets, and bad guys...but the confused look on a little girl's face when a strange man walks into a room.
Everyone tells me not to worry about it, that even if she does, within an hour of me being back, it'll be like I never left. And you know, I really want to believe that. I really do. But it doesn't quell that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. It just doesn't. And what's worse, is I have absolutely no life experience to fall back on...no internal wisdom to ease my conscience. For the first time in my life, I'm completely and utterly on unfamiliar ground. For almost thirty years, I've trudged through life, picking up experience here, there, and everywhere...and about everything.
But this.
If only there was a way to slit a hole in the universe and slip back and forth; sandbox by day, daughter's bedside by night.
Unfortunately, there's not. So, I've done the next best thing. I dug out a tripod, set up the video camera, and gave her a good 40 minutes of my neurotic babbling, conveniently burned to a DVD. If anything, she'll have a permanent recollection of some goofy guy rambling on about the same thing over and over for three months. Poor thing...she'll probably be scarred for life.