Landslide

I can't help but feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Perhaps it was the fact that for work this week, I have done literally nothing but stay in a 4 star hotel and drink fine scotch in a very comfortable bath robe in not to far away Chapel Hill. In my four years in the Army, I have never been privileged to such good treatment.

But pointing my finger in that direction doesn't explain it all. I've had a lot weighing heavily on my head, and am finally feeling like I'm lifting some of it. I've always been in a constant forward motion, but yet somehow still stuck. Today I feel like I can see through to the other side. The lights cracks through the blackness of the unknown and I can start to guess at what an immediate future beholds.

This week though, it might have been the turning point. I finally was able to understand what the writing on the wall meant, and took it to heart. I can't help but feel like Stevie Nicks wrote part of my life years ago, and I could hear it in one of her songs. I search around iTunes for a little while, but can't find anything to concrete.

The rain is pitter patting just outside my window and I find the sound all but relaxing. The monotony is constantly broken up by my youngest roommate. Ava, my roomies one year old cutsie pie. She's absolutely adorable sans the crying, but she's sick so what do I really expect? Her smile reminded me of earlier this afternoon.

 I was on my way to get some frozen yogurt, and had just got done with my work and was still in uniform. I was in Chapel Hill still, and a uniformed man up there is kind of rare. Especially compared to Fayetteville. As I approached the famous YOPOP frozen yogurt bar, I noticed the table with girls in brown vests with their merit badges showing proudly. Girl Scouts, my arch nemeses. Not really, but they are so gosh darn cute that I just want to buy all of their cookies. The little blond girl kind of messing around at the front of the table, dancing or twirling or doing what any little girl does to pass through the boringness of selling her sugary delights, looked up and saw me walking towards her in uniform. Her eyes lit up with an excitement I feel I only once knew from my childhood. She spun around and ran towards a sign sitting at the bottom of the table. She picked it up, blond hair everywhere, and a smile that could melt your heart and gave a little giggle as I walked by. The sign said something along the lines of 'buy our cookies, the proceeds help to go support our troops.' Sometimes, life reminds you how precious it can be. How wonderful, how pure, and how remarkable a world we live in.

You might think that made her day. That her and her friends had had a slumber party and written some signs with the help of their mothers, and that a soldier, who part of their sacrifice was for would walk by. That it couldn't have been a better dream come true. It wasn't her or her fellow Brownies who were best served by my random appearance. It was me who had my day made. If that happened to me everyday, I don't think I could ever take off that uniform.


I climbed a mountain and I turned around...