Adjusting

Remember when I laughed off all those "transition assistance" briefs back at WTP? Well, they were right; adjusting to life at home is, well, not as easy as I thought it would be.

For one thing, I can't concentrate on just one thing. This is to be expected in a household with an energetic nearly-three-year-old. I realize that, while deployed to Baghdad, I had the luxury of concentrating on whatever it was that I was working on. Completely. Meals came at regularly scheduled times and I didn't have to think about what I would be eating next (well, we did ruminate on what might be on the menu and whether or not it would actually taste different).

The other thing is I keep losing everything. My lilliputian trailer made it easy to keep track of things. My two-story residence is a warehouse in comparison. All the "stuff" I kept in my pockets day to day has disappeared (digital camera, pocket knife, Fisher Space Pen, etc.). Worse still, my attractive wife in her zeal to keep things organized keeps putting things away for me. I put something down, it disappears to a place only She knows where. "Where is X?" I ask her. "In the place it's supposed to be," she answers cryptically.

On the plus side, it is wonderful to be with my family and my son seems to have fully accepted me as part of the household. In fact, it's like I never left. I take him to a nearby park nearly every day and he seems pretty happy. Also, I forgot what sleeping on a quality bed was like. Yesterday and today, I actually slept in so I think the worst of the jet lag is over.