It’s so strange to be so close to my deployment–I don’t have exact dates yet (expect to this week), but I should be leaving the States around the 20th of this month. I will probably only have one more full week of work here in Alabama, this week. After that I’m going to be driving out to drop off my cats and my car with family in Tucson, and then I’ll head back to tie up any loose ends and head over to Baghdad. Where did the time go? And where will I be in a month?
Accordingly, I seem to have become progressively less capable of getting anything (worthwhile) done. I made yet another one of the mosaic what-if hairstyle pictures for a couple hours today. Procrastinating from procrastination . . . at least I haven’t quite gotten to the point of hand-picking lint off the closet floor, the way I did once in college!
I have all these “need to-dos” and “want to-dos” rolling around in my head. I need to get my car registered here, I need to call my cell company and cable/phone/internet provider to see if they’ll allow me to put my accounts on hold (since they’ll be of no earthly use to me when I’m in Baghdad). I’d like to get my house cleaned up so that I don’t come back to all this clutter after six months away . . . but that is just a bonus, if it’s going to happen.
I had a bit of a “white night” last night–I woke up around 1 a.m. and realized I wasn’t going to go back to sleep after about 45 minutes awake, with all these thoughts running in circles through my head. So I got up and went to watch TV in my living room, where I turned on The Pentagon Channel and watched “Freedom Journal Iraq”, which was interesting but definitely not something to make me less anxious and more able to sleep. I seem to have loads of adrenaline pumping through my blood now. I can tell this because, aside from feeling twitchy and like I forgot something important, all my muscles are aching because I’m consistently tense for the moment.
Eh bien, c’est la vie. It’s really not bad, per se, it’s just sort of annoying. I’m mostly feeling anticipation, but my body is interpreting it as anxiety, which isn’t too uncommon–when you’re heading into the unknown that’s pretty typical. I remember about a month of feeling this way before I finally made my way to OTS back in 2002. Unfortunately for me, there are no convenient Winter Olympics to distract me now the way that there were that year. Hmmm. Interesting–the Winter Olympics this year actually distracted me from the ugly reality of my (then-recent) breakup. I like those Olympics, I think . . . though I shudder to think what the 2010 Winter Olympics might distract me from!
But, be that as it may . . . I shouldn’t stay up too late tonight because I really should try to sleep like a good girl. I could probably while away the hours on the Internet in many interesting and non-productive ways, but I do need to get up early so that’s not in the plan. Though it sounds tempting . . .
I hope that once I have my plans solidified in my head this week, you know, all the necessary appointments made and travel plans in motion, I’ll be able to relax a bit. I somehow doubt I’ll be able to relax for real until I’m in place overseas and familiar with what I’m doing/where I’m living over there . . . and then, the strangeness of living in a war zone may prohibit me from true relaxation there. We shall see!
Posted by Kjirstin 
