Rain already

Oh, right, the . . . blog.

So, remember when I used to post updates with some regularity? Even starting one out right now feels like teetering around on a literary unicycle.

Here's the only thought I can come up with: I'm done with the deployment. The deployment itself is not done, I'm just done with it. We're approaching the half-way point, which in our world is a capitalized event that involves all the spouses meeting up for a big dinner in something other than jeans and getting personalized (I think) videos from our loved ones on the boat. And all of that sounds like a great idea, but in another universe where I wasn't already crushed flat by exhaustion that quickly soured into depression which has become a flaky scum of complete apathy. (Irony: it just took me ten minutes to write that last sentence because I had to pause and stare out the window, apathetically).

I had goals for this whole thing. One was Get Involved! And I did get involved-- with a million labor-intensive squadron tasks, with my hydra-beast of a job, with my classes, with my extracurricular club shit, with going out with friends. Get Involved became Get Over-Extended. Another rule was No Drinking Alone! Unfortunately, this became Cultivate Drinking Buddies and Routinely Overdo It. And the last was Sleep, Exercise, and Eat Healthy! Which became Nope, Nope, and Nope. So it's really no surprise I'm where I am right now. Start off with the best intentions, and then some choade shoots up your neighborhood at the busiest damn point in your school and work schedules...

Pants and I email, that's how we stay in touch. Email has its limits, especially when both parties are hunting-dog-focused on handling each successive emergency. Missives start to read like triage lists, and at the end of each crisis, there's this stilted wrap-up that feels like a performance evaluation. Well done, team-- this will be noted favorably in your personnel file. On to the next thing.

I was looking through old pictures last night trying to find some sort of logical storyline in how I got to be this person. That's what I do when I get this tired-- it's like I'm dozing off in the middle of my own life and I have to reread a few paragraphs till I pick it back up again. I recognized this grim, guarded look that surfaces on me every once in a while. I did a lot of teenage scowling at the camera, but this look is different. It's the kind of look that asks, flatly, "Really? You actually want to document this moment?" I think I may be giving life that look these days.

There have been really good things that have happened recently-- I got something published for the first time, for instance, and three different people in my life decided to send me "it's going to be OK" flowers. And I'm going to see Pants soon, briefly, in a far away place. These are the things I should be recording. Instead, all I can think is half-way means there's that much more of this to go.

It's supposed to rain today. Google's weather predicter icon broke out the lightning bolts. Still, I have stubborn bars of flat sunlight lying across my desk and none of that bodily electricity that comes from falling barometric pressure and the anticipation of a good yell-down hell-ride of a storm. Rain, already.