Thanksgiving Turkey and a Mortars Attack...

I woke up this morning knowing that I was going to completely dread this day. This is the first holiday since the split and I had no idea how I was going to deal with it. Up until today I didn't have to thinking about it. The one good thing about being is Baghdad is that it is very easy to forget about your problems. First off, is is easy to look around and see that your problems are minor compared to others and second, when your working 14 hour days you don't have a lot of free time to think about those sorts of things. You march on an dhope like hell there are no significant breaks in the day. However, on days such as this, you can't escape your own memories.

My day start off slow. The alarm went off only to be complete ignored. I simply laid there staring at the ceiling thinking to myself, "why am I here?" "Is there a purpose?" When I left DC five weeks ago I was in absolute bliss. My personal life was in order, I had been selected for a coveted project, I even felt that I was evoloving as a person; I was finally growing up and I had a plan for the future. I was focused on our future. However, as I lay there this morning I realized that its just me now, it is my future and I have to decide what I want to do with it. Most can relate to this, but when your a couple nearly everything you do or every decision you make is a joint effort. When to go on vacation, what car to buy, where to move, should you take this job, etc. Personally, even with myself, I always saw it as a crutch; an excuse in the event you make the wrong decision. However, you grow to rely on this counsel.

An hour and a half later I roll out of bed. Considering I have not taken a day off since arriving here, I did not rush out the door. After an hour or so of prep work, I head into work. Usually I am one of the first into the office, so rolling in two hours late was a bit intimidating. I was anticipating a certain degree of razzing, but I got now. Instead as I turned into the office all of my Iraqi team members approached me one by one to shake my hand and wish me a Happy Thanksgiving (of course there variations in pronunciations). This folks made my day! I really like these guys! After an hour or so of work we all convened downstairs for a catered lunch and a disucssion on what Thanksgiving means to us Americans.

So, my day is getting better. It is about 5:00 and I am meeting with the Office Manager to go over our web application and all hell breaks loose. I have heard car bombs go off several times, but this was no car bomb. Because we are in an environment where gun fire and blasts in the distance are common, there is little conversation. But as we sat there and heard the first explosion - we paused - then the second - we paused again - the third....the look in one anothers eyes indicated that the meeting was over. As we ran out to join the others huddled in a stairway I wasn't afraid, rather curious. It wasn't until the lock down was lifted 3 1/2 hours later that I realized how terrified I should have been. (if your interested in hearing the specifics then e-mail me)

I find the day has come in full circle. I am sitting here now thinking about my life hoping like hell that tomorrow will be another 14 hour day.