Try is a thing, damn it.

It's been a while since I've written.  I guess I just didn't have anything to say for a little.  We've just been taking things day to day.  John just finished Air Assault School.  There was a 12 mile ruck on the last day of it and his heat injury triggered.  He gets warning signs like tingling hands and if he doesn't realize in time it can trigger and he will experience some of the symptoms of his heat injury.  He didn't have another heat stroke, but his temperature went up to 105 degrees and he had to have fluids put into both arms and he was taken to the hospital to make sure he didn't go into another heat stroke.  So, he wasn't able to attend the graduation ceremony, but he did graduate. :)  He recovered from everything pretty quickly.  His temperature went back down and he has felt alright.  His blood panel came back showing his organs are healthy and his blood count is good.  Because he is a heat casualty, he can go into it more easily.  However, he can also handle it better now.  The only change I've noticed is that he sleeps very warm now and sweats a lot in his sleep, just like when he got back from Afghanistan.  Even that is already getting less and less, though.  What is obnoxious about me is that I react to it stupidly.  I distance myself and push him away instead of pulling him closer.  Because it scares me so much to think of losing him.  He was dead for a few seconds in Afghanistan and that kind of broke something inside me.  (And I feel like a jerk - "your near death experience has been hard for me."  What a tool I am.)  He's been in my life for half of my life and imagining it without him makes everything colorless.  But it's like I can't stop getting ready for it to happen.  And every time he needs to leave for a few days it's harder than it should be.  I was able to go for 13 months and you'd think I'd be used to it now and it would be easier.  But, it's actually harder for some reason.  It's like I don't know how to prepare for short times apart.
It's been just over a week since his symptoms triggered, but he's worked a lot since it happened.  He worked over the weekend and pulled a 24 hour shift on Tuesday so Wednesday he had a day off to catch up on sleep and that helped him a lot.  But, getting a weekend together is wonderful.  There are things we should do to be responsible adults but today we're having a slightly lazy day.  We did have a kitty grooming session, though, to combat the shedding of winter coats.  Zoe loved it and felt pampered.  Patches loathed it and felt truly victimized.  They have very different fur - Zoe's is coarse and all in one thick coat while Patchy's is a fine double coat and it can pull more on her fur and hurt to brush through it.  A catnip toy and not touching her for a little while so she can repair the damage (she likes her fur a certain way and we ruined that) is helping her.
I've adjusted to my nerve medication well and am functioning better these days.  It still makes me tired; I take it before I go to sleep at night and if I wake up during the next several hours I feel very sick but if I get a little more sleep than the average bear (not human, I think I sleep more than hibernating bears do) then I do alright. :)  The only problem is we live in a place that doesn't quiet down very much.  Even just last night we heard gun shots a few minutes before 1 a.m.  John went outside to see what was going on (we've called the cops about gunshots before and they were unconcerned... though they have suggested we get a gun for the household) and there were 8 police cars at the annoying little bar close by.  The bar tends to be loud until very late on weekends and after it closes its patrons loiter around in the parking lot for hours with music blasting from their vehicles and drag racing or whatever else drunk people probably shouldn't be doing in a residential area.  At least the cops actually came this time.  No one was hurt, the shots seem to have been fired in the air from a shotgun.  Shots happen pretty regularly and one of our neighbors thinks it's funny to get drunk and set off fire crackers on his wooden deck right below the overhanging tree.  Because a fire is something we all want to deal with.  So, while seeing different neighbors being hauled away in cuffs is an enjoyable time, we are looking forward to moving this summer.  John has lived in scarier places and dealt with shadier characters, but I am one of those people that thinks wearing a hoodie makes me totally "street." lol  The sad thing is driving around this side of town actually shows that we live in one of the nicer spots.  It's really sad, actually.  When you go downtown you can tell there were such good times.  But all the buildings are empty with broken glass.  I wish some kind of big business would set up shop here and help rebuild the economy again.  I guess I think cinematically.   I could write that movie.  Danny Glover plays a big time business tycoon that sees potential in a small dying town and moves a new branch of his business there, reviving the town.  But the former big frog in a small pond is resentful and tries to sabotage the progress at every turn.  PG13 rating for language and drug use and general adult-ness of too much reality.
We're just making our way through time.  Figuring out our possible futures and which one we should go with.  Sometimes we want to get out of the army and move back to Utah and start over.  But sometimes we want to just stick with it as John moves up in rank and hope it will get better because we've paid a lot of dues and really don't want to start a new set of dues all over again.  But we miss family and friends... it is giving us so much indecision.  But we are gathering information about our different options so we can make a more informed decision.  In the army, you can't really just see how it goes.  You sign a contract for years at a time - 4 years, 6 years, 8 years - and that's it.  That's what you're doing for those years.  I plan way ahead in my mind now as a result.  I need to know what's happening next year.  But I never know what really is happening because a year ago we thought John would be deploying this summer and now it's been pushed back.  It is phenomenally frustrating to try to plan anything.  The plans I had for John's birthday were suddenly changed the day before the reservations because he was now working over the weekend.  But, we were in a tough spot when we joined and the army gave us an option that we couldn't get anywhere else and there is a lot of opportunity to be had in the military.  It just would be nice to live close to family and be there for important events and have somewhere to go on holidays.  However, as we move up in the ranks and start earning a little more we could be able to visit more easily.  Gah!  We do have an option we're learning toward, but need to find out more and to see if it's really feasible.  We'll see. :)  We're focusing on learning about that option and getting ready to move.  Probably across the state line into Tennessee if we can.  It would awesome not to have someone's car thumping bass next to my wall and children screaming inches from my windows.  I'm not a people person.  Being around this many people all the time makes it harder to breathe.  I won't get my hopes up for quiet, though.  Apartment living doesn't have any quiet.  Just endless assault by other sounds: their music, their arguments, their sex lives, their babies screaming, their dogs barking and clipping across the floor above you, their inability to close anything without slamming it (seriously what is UP with that?).  Our goal is to be able to get a second vehicle - a cute one, if possible - so that I can have more of a life.  Having one car with John's changing and inflexible schedule while living in a not great area with no public transportation system has left me... at the point of psychotic break if I don't escape this world.  I clean the same things over and over again and feed the cats again and again and sleep and wake up and cook things and watch things and block out the revving engines and bass thumping and yelling and then John puts something in a different spot in the fridge and I have a meltdown over the importance of fridge organization and he looks at me like I have turned into a bird of prey that is overreacting.  That is when we go for a drive and get to an area full of fields.  And I can breathe and we sing with the songs on my iPod playing through the tape adapter because our car is that old and we feel like we can make it a little longer.  Or at least until John helps fold the laundry and folds the socks differently. I have shame.  If I had a kid I'd have more purpose and it would be different. I'd still feel cooped up but I would be taking care of that child and teaching it things and playing with it.  Maybe someday.  For now there is just the feeling of stagnation but trying to be supportive and trying not to be afraid to actually, finally write because I have the perfect opportunity to really flesh out a novel now.  I mean, I feel like I'm already the embodiment of mediocrity as it is, what do I really have to lose?  I hate waiting until we can work something else out, but Johnny is good at this.  He's a good soldier and he is progressing well and feeling accomplishment and things he never got to have before.  And I want him to have that. I want some of that, too.  It will come, though, in time.  A lot of it depends on how hard I'm willing to work for it.  And if you don't try you don't really fail.  But, you'll always wonder about the things you didn't grab onto in life.  So, I will try my best as time keeps going by.  (Okay, you Yoda-quoters, stop right there.  I get it, do or do not, I hear you.  But neither of those things happen if you aren't trying.  Try has to happen first.  And there's not just do or do not.  There's do not over here and there's do over there.  And do leads to success or failure.  It's a process not a pick the right hand or the left hand scenario, so take your wise little quote and put it back in your pocket and go have a popsicle because I live in the real world where not everything simplifies down to something that easy.  And I cannot use the force, seriously.)
I'm ready for what comes.  Whatever happens with my facial nerve.  Whatever happens with having a child or not.  Whether I become the founder of cold fusion or not (I had enormous teenage dreams).  I've been out of commission for a while but I'm ready to stand up again.  Being tired doing it, but ready, nonetheless. ;)