Transition

I am tired, exhausted, getting ready to move to yet another city (I’ve lived in Zichron Ya’akov, Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael, Tel Aviv, Kibbutz Zikim, Ashdod and as of next week Jerusalem in what amounts to a glorified hostel), behind on emails, lacking any and all energy, overloaded with work, burdened with training a new commander, his deputy (since she’ll be taking over for me since I’m not signing contract) while also training (and in some cases re-training) three soldiers…lacking nutritionally satisfying food, attempting to not panic about the work situation in the US, refreshing my inbox and waiting for a letter to come to say I’ve been accepted into the M.A. program, waiting to hear back from the Plainview Volunteer Fire Department in the hopes that I’ve been accepted as a volunteer so I don’t have to pay to be an EMT, am both excited and slightly bummed that the next round of EMT training I can do will be in September, I was hoping for August, am reflective on my army service and slightly sad that I wasn’t really able to do what I wanted over the past three years, proud however that I gave the army what it needed and always did my best, overjoyed that I got to become an NCO and a specialist…because if nothing else five of the six guys I was on course with became my brothers and literally made my entire army experience, sad that I’m not leaving the army as an officer despite having letters of recommendation from two of the former commanders of the officers school and recommendations from a half dozen people, including Lt. Colonels…all because one very small man stood in my way and didn’t want me to leave, which wound up with me leaving anyway,  but happy because this entire experience stopped me from making the terrible mistake of ever wanting to work in an office environment because if I’ve learned anything over these past three years it’s that I fucking hate working in an office…and need to be doing fieldwork…happy I got to build the first Ground Forces Wide ESL program, sad that there’s no one to continue it…and just a mixture of a hundred other emotions that I know will hit into a brick wall on June 19, 2011 at around 14:00hrs when I once again become a civilian…and my days filled with missions, important phone calls around the world, constantly keeping up training to do emergency evacuations and a dozen other things will, with the snap of a finger, become totally irrelevant…and the only thing I’ll be doing in July is re-integrating and relaxing…and de-stressing…and much like the small steps necessary to achieve anything in life, August I will find a job, September I will enter the EMT program and October I will enter the M.A. program…and hopefully by November I’ll at least back on the dating scene because it’s been too long and life is too short.