It seems that everywhere I turn people are getting together, getting engaged or married, making babies and settling into domesticated bliss. It seems like that is the price I am having to pay for the career ambitions that I have.

Start dating a nice person - get deployed.
Get dumped via text message - get sent home from deployment for promotion.
Get ready for promotion course that will run for 6 months - get posted.

Not sure where I am meant to fit in meeting someone and starting a relationship.

Hell I can't even work out how to meet someone just for some no-commitment-consensual adult fun.

Maybe I am destined to be exactly like my mother - alone, workaholic, unable to commit myself to someone.

Who the fuck knows.

Home

So I am home now - have been for a week.

Struggling with insomnia. Can't seem to get to sleep at night then waking up late in the morning. When I factor in the 5-6 hour time difference between here at Afghanistan it makes complete sense, it's just going to be a pain in the ass when I have to go back to work this week.

I'm still angry - I can't seem to shake it. I'm getting better at swallowing it down, at smothering it with other things but I find myself sitting here at night, alone in my house, looking at all the things I have and no one here to share them with.

I am all alone. 

Deployment Entry 14

Well it's 2300 hr local time and I'm contemplating a nap before I have to be up and checking into the plane ride home. The last few days have been interesting. Did an RnR run with B3 on the Sunday. The city part of Dubai reminds me a lot of the streets of Penang - just a little bit cleaner. But the cheap trinkets and bartering was just the same. Australia really is a beautiful place. Did a lot of walking around and even managed to go to the gym that night for some PT. Need to do something to shift the 7kgs or so I seem to have put on. Fuck knows where?

Monday was a day of appointments. RTAMS was pretty straight forward. RTAPS was something else. It seems I am very angry/pissed off still at being sent home so early. Thankfully I haven't bumped into my replacement here because I think that would just fuck me off even more. The up side is that the psych says feeling like this given my situation, is completely normal and that it's ok to be angry and frustrated. I am sure it will be alright once I get home.

Went on a night RnR Amenities run to the local shopping mall. Holy Shit! Now there's the fancy snobby Dubai everyone talks about. It was a very high end shop - though it did have Cinnabuns! So I got to see what all the fuss was about. OMG amazeballs. Bought a box for P but since I couldn't get  a way to get them in country to him I ate them myself. Shared them with an American officer so I didn't have to deal with eating them all myself.

Today was uneventful - just straight forward dekitting, some more PT and then a lot of sitting around. Not looking forward to the long ass flight home but it will be good to get home and back into a routine, I think. Since my deployment was so ridiculously cut short that I am not going to fill this book I might use it as a diary for my time at OTS as well.

Write more when I am back in Aus.

Deployment Entry 13

The last few days seem to have been a real blur once I knew I was going home. I'm sitting in my transit accommodation back in Al Minhad, Dubai, having flown out of TK earlier today. It was strange - I felt a sense of loss, a disconnection from 'family' as I left Afghanistan. I know I'm doing the right thing in going home early but didn't make leaving any easier. Everyone kept asking me if I was excited to be going home. If I had been in country for 13 weeks already then maybe I would be, but having only been there just over a month all I feel is a deep sense of disappointment and incompleteness - like I have left something unfinished.

The days leading up to my departure were interesting. Played my last game of TK poker - only managed a 4th this time and somehow, knowing it was my last game, it just wasn't as much fun. The same could be said about the indoor cricket. I played well but it was not as much fun as it has been, because it's done now. To top it off I seem to have inadvertently thrown out my deployment bracelet! Bin diving to no avail - so that totally topped off my morning this morning. Fucking Afghanistan!

Work was strange. Tasking after tasking was systematically taken away from me or just overtaken, by C, until I felt like I was just sitting around doing nothing. I understand taking some ongoing things off me, since I won't be there to see it through, but things like the badge applications was something I could have kept doing right up until I left. Ah well. Fucking Afghanistan!

Last dinner in TK was alright. Went to down Cole and tried friend Catfish for the first time. It was actually pretty tasty. The boys from the Badge Office came to dinner so I hung out with them for a bit. Was really nice of them to come to dinner and see me off in their own way.

Had my first Role 2 a few days before I left. A young 12 yr old and his older brother (25) brought in with gunshot wounds. I had to watch as the older brother, guts falling out, died in front of his little brother while his father sat outside waiting for news. Nothing like helping out someone's insides back in as you're trying to scan him after he's died. Was a pretty crappy thing and kind of surreal really. Shot by the ANA - the fucking people who are meant to protect them and look out for them when we leave. This country is just fucked up and will go to shit again soon after we pull out. I hate to think the last decade has been for nothing but a part of me can't help bit think we have made very little difference really. The people here just don't want to learn a new way of life. They want to be primitive stone age people regardless of all the things we try to teach them.

The CO came and saw me off today which was pretty nice. She presented me with an Anzac Day Coin even though I won't be there on the day. I think the WOD had a lot to do with that but I am grateful either way and will cherish the coin and the short time I spent in theatre.
B and I are going on an RnR run into Dubai tomorrow which I am looking forward to. Going to see about getting some Cinnabuns for P and some proper chai to take home for myself. I'm really just looking forward to getting out and seeing the city. Other than that it's just dekitting and relaxing to be done here. I will probably go to the gym Monday and Tuesday. Nothing much else to do here really. Then it's the long flight home early Wednesday.

Can't wait to see my boys. Miss their adorable faces so much!! Feeling a bit tired and flat so might sign off for now. Oh - did enjoy a 10 minute shower tonight for the first time in over a month. Looking forward to a massage and maybe a pedi/mani when I get home.

P.S. Might even be tattoo time soon.

Deployment Entry 12

It's getting very hard to feel like I have been robbed of an experience that will truly be once in a lifetime because I have made the choice to go home early. It appears that I will be departing TK this coming Saturday - and I will be flying out of AMAB Tuesday of next week. So not only have I been denied Anzac Day in Afghanistan, it now appears I will be denied Anzac Day in an operational environment full stop. I have marched with my MWD every Anzac Day since I joined, and I told myself missing it this year was made up by the fact that I would be experiencing it in a deployed location. Well apparently not!

I know I am going home to begin a new chapter, to more into a new phase of my career, and I am excited to do that. But I cannot help but feel robbed of this once in a lifetime thing. Does that make me selfish?

Already I fell a sense of disconnection with the team. They're already putting aside shirts and the like for my replacement, and talking about her in front of me. I haven't even left yet! What feels like salt in the wound is that all along WDW stressed that she had to seek my replacement ASAP because she couldn't hold a gap. Yet I leave this Saturday - my replacement will still be in Australia. So apparently she can hold a gap when it suits her, but it doesn't suit her to keep me around for an extra week? I honestly don't understand!

I wish it wouldn't upset me so much though. I'm tired of being emotional and crying over this crap. I'm going. I can't change it, so now I just want to get home, enjoy a ridiculously long shower and spending time with my boys. It will do me good to see them. I have missed their cute little faces and waggy tails. I still don't know what to do about M. I no longer feel like a k. I no longer get that buzz when she calls me "Mine" and it seems unnatural now to call her by any title. Now she is just the net friend I have in the USA that I talk to a lot. Maybe this was always going to happen? Maybe we were always going to grow apart like this? Maybe I was always a fool for thinking it just might turn out differently?

Maybe I deserve to feel like this?

Maybe I can't do it anymore?

Maybe it's all just in my head because everything else is going to shit - why shouldn't the best thing in my world go to hell too?

Maybe I subconsciously sabotage the positive thing in my life so that its all dark and black and full of pain?

Trying to arrange an RnR run into Dubai for Sunday so I can see what the city is like before I go home. Fingers crossed.

For now though I am going to try and shut off my depressive mind and sleep a dreamless sleep - I can't lose her. I love her too much.

Deployment Entry 11

It's the 13th today - yes I know... slack! I had a rest day from the gym. Will see tomorrow whether that was a good idea or not. Also had a nice long shower tonight since I missed the water cut off the last two nights and had to baby wipe and ENJO fibre wash with a bottle of water. It's interesting how nice it feels to have smoothly shaved legs again.

B2 was supposed to organise an FPSS photo today before the boss goes on leave but of course he didn't.  His ineffectiveness is mindblowingly obvious. Not sure how he will go as the acting OIC. And of course B1 has only been back a day and already the laziness is evident. I typed up 3 IR's this afternoon without so much as a helpful comment or anything from him. I suppose I should expect no less really.

Not long now until I head home. Had hoped to have more to write about and more to experience here in TK but the limited pages of my rambling will have to suffice.

Trying to work out now what the best career path and posting plan is for me. I have a feeling I might be headed for a posting to Darwin. Will be strange to be out of Brisbane and away from everyone I know and love. But then it's all part of life in the military I guess and people have always said that the travel is one of the best parts. Haven't truly experienced that yet because I've been in the same place for my entire career.

Really not sure what to do about M. Tested the waters a little last night it would seem, in my overly tired state. Made the mistake of mentioning the terrible V word - visit. Shot me down pretty damn quickly which was like being cut open and then kicked in the wound with salt covered boots.

"I love you" - but I never want to physically be in the same place as you. "You're my love" - but I will keep you at arms length and be reluctant to share too much with you. "I miss you" - but I won't ever call or let you hear my voice. "I need you" - but I'll never actually send you the things I claim I will. "I own you" - but I won't trust you enough not to be guarded and distant.

I must be the biggest idiot on the planet. An idiot with a permanent reminder of just how naive and lame I really am.

Deployment Entry 10

So I keep apologising for being slack and not updating in here often enough. It's not so much a case of slackness as it is just sheer exhaustion. The days here are long. I am used to long hours at home but those are generally done at night where I come home and fall straight into bed to sleep for god knows how many hours. Here I am up at 0445 hr to go to the gym, then at work from about 0730 hr right through until generally somewhere around 2000 hr that night. Wouldn't be so bad if I then went straight to bed but my brain doesn't work that way.

It's been an interesting few days. We all got our asses ripped by the boss on Friday and none of us can seem to work out why. Think its got something to do with someone back home talking out of shop or something because it doesn't seem to be from our end.

Getting a good crash course in picking my battles. C decided to throw around her CPL weight today and alas, being the lowest rank here, for now, meant I suddenly became a gopher to her laziness. I understand that as a new CPL she needs to learn to delegate tasks and to manage troops, but there is a difference between delegating out of work efficiency or necessity, and delegating out of laziness. Had a good chat to P about it though so it didn't phase me too much.