I Can't Stop Smiling

I just opened a package from the knitsters and I can't stop smiling even though someone is waxing the floor and this office stinks so horrifically that I want to vomit.

Thank you all. Yarn and journals and kind notes are potent medicine for what ails me.

I Can't Stop Smiling

I just opened a package from the knitsters and I can't stop smiling even though someone is waxing the floor and this office stinks so horrifically that I want to vomit.

Thank you all. Yarn and journals and kind notes are potent medicine for what ails me.

I Won't Eat Ice Cream In Public Again

When I slip into bed at night I fall asleep quickly. I’m exhausted so the fast sleep is sound and the dreams emotional. I dream of death and separation and of figuring out a way to make do. Several nights a week my mother leaves me.

I spend my waking hours placing stakes, checking elevations (the bridge is 8 feet too low, it’s the fault of the last battalion, and we’re going to push foreword with the low bridge which means welding cross braces 4 feet under water), and solving triangles without adult supervision. I’m putting a lot of faith in triangles and using them to place steel I-beams in the middle of the river later this week; the water is murky and deep, the river is wide, and there isn’t a way to pull a tape measure, so triangulation is all I have.

I'm without a confidante. I don't know anyone who is able to talk about the dirty little secrets of triangles much less understand how much anxiety they cause me. My mind swims in a bath of numbers.

I've been told that on this base there is one military woman for every 70 military men. I'm not sure if it's true, but the numbers seem probable. What I do know is that the men are sex-starved and on the prowl. Today during lunch a steel worker watched me eat ice cream and responded by moaning audibly and telling me how sexy I looked. My second and third bites of vanilla elicited the same response. I was the only woman in the galley and the men at my table laughed. A few hours earlier one of the men from the contracted crane crew that is placing our I-beams asked me out to sing karaoke. In the late afternoon an attractive civilian walking off the ferry caught my eye, smiled, and started coming towards me. When these things happen I always look down, not knowing what else to do; I'm unprotected, vulnerable, and constantly feel like I've done something wrong. The attention makes me feel ugly and ashamed. During my twice daily ferry rides I burry my head in a book.

I haven't heard from my husband in three weeks. He's in the backcountry and has only a Park Service radio that he uses to call in the weather from his remote location. To reassure myself I pretend that he carries it with him on his daily solo hikes and could use it for emergencies but I know from my vacation that even if he has the radio in his pack headquarters rarely hears more than static when he calls.

Because I'm overwhelmed by almost all aspects of my life I need an outlet. I'm short on free time so I use what the Navy gives me to work through anxiety: 5 am runs. For some reason we're not allowed to run in formation here and so I always get to run alone. I like that. The route we run is hilly and I push myself to go fast. This morning I finished fourth out of 23 men and 2 women.

I know that six months is a very short time and I take consolation in the fact that when I'm working on my own, turning angles and placing stakes, I like my job. But even so on some days the afternoon seems to take forever. I'll be glad when this deployment is over.