It's been a little more than 2 weeks since my exhausted return to the US. Thinking about how much I went through to get home still makes me cringe. Nonetheless I triumphantly got off that plane, nearly dropped to my knees and kissed the ground at Lambert Airport but hygiene issues stopped me from doing that. But I didn’t bother hiding my joy for being back at home, it’s a feeling I hadn’t experienced before and hope that the memory of it stays with me.
I also can't get over that feeling of joy to be around friends again. It might be because many friends are just now realizing that I'm back and calling me to hang out or, I'm hopeful, the feeling will never fade. Either way I'm going to relish this feeling as much as possible, especially while I don't have to go in to work. To be a little selfish, I think I deserve this time off to adjust to civilization again. Going to the grocery store is still a bit overwhelming.
The Tuesday I got back to the US I had an interview with another program at the company. I didn't feel as if it was my best performance, although for most of my interviews I've felt about the same way, but a week later there was a job offer sitting in my inbox. Obviously I accepted because if I were to be redeployed I'd have to wait another 6 months before trying to return to engineering. (I'd also like to point out that my interview to job offer ratio is 1:1. On the other hand my application to interview ratio is still sitting pretty low.)
Before I left I told everyone that this last deployment was going to be my finale and when I first started on the program I thought I was probably only good for 2 deployments. After Afghanistan I didn’t really want to head back out but inside I knew I wasn’t ready to stop yet and the promise of going to a site with friends ushered me back out. After the midpoint of this past deployment I knew that it was the end and when I couldn’t get out of country it was just an additional nail in the coffin. I was very fortunate that all the stars aligned and I was able to find a new position so quickly.
Thus starts the next chapter in my autobiography. It won’t be near as exciting in all ways but it only means we’ll have to be more imaginative. I can still feel that voice in my head that calls me back out to the field with all the guys I left out there but I’ll try to ignore it as long as possible for everyone else’s sanity, if not my own. Don’t be surprised when I start talking about how much I want to go back, especially if I go to Oregon to hang out with all the guys up there. Until then I’ll try to keep myself as content here as possible.
