It’s gotten cooler here.  I guess it’s “winter.”  I hesitate to call it winter when we occasionally have air temperatures (that means the temp without the wind-chill to those of you in southern climes) in double digits below zero back at home.  I don’t miss that, but I promise I will do my best not to complain about it when I get home.  Which is soon.  We welcomed the change in weather here, because it means it’s just that much closer to the end.  We won’t have to endure the cursed heat of this country again before we’re frozen in our tracks by the icy winds of Wisconsin.

So winter here means low thirties in the morning, warming up to the low sixties by afternoon.  I throw on an extra layer or two and I’m more than comfortable.  We’ve even turned the heat on in the CHU a couple of times.  Today the sky is as clear blue as it always is, little cotton-ball clouds hanging here and there, warm sun, cool wind.  Our replacements arrived a week and a half ago, and we’re trying to make sure they understand that now is the time to train, while it’s cool.

They are a good bunch, stoic New Englanders with easy senses of humor.  The sergeants that we have been working with directly remind us of us, and it’s good to have some new energy.  They’re excited and nervous and anxious to get on with it.  Ready for us to leave so they can take the reigns and do their jobs.  They’ll be busy.

We, on the other hand, are not busy.  We’re pretty much done.  Now we wait.  Again.    Surf the internet.  Play guitar.  Watch movies.  Work out.  Think about home.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.  Home is an entirely abstract concept right now.  It feels as if this – this Army thing I do – is my real life, and that civilian Skinny is but a long ago dream.  Sure I can picture my apartment, quite vividly in fact.  I talk to The Dane (my lovely lady friend) almost daily through video chat.  I’ll still have a job.  All my friends are excited to see me. 

It’s more about the intangibles.  I can’t remember what it feels like to snuggle.  Get a hug.  Kiss.  I don’t remember what Minnesota smells like.  I don’t know how it will feel to not have ten Soldiers to worry about.  All I’ll really have to worry about is me, and The Dane.  We have a Mexico trip  planned.  I’ll buy a new(ish) car.  We’ll buy a house.  We’ll get married one of these days.  We’ll continue the life that’s been on hold since a year ago June – or longer.

So yeah, I’m short.  As in short-timer.  So short I can dangle my legs off a dime.  So short I have to stand up to drive.  It feels good and I can’t wait to get home and remember what home is.  Wherever it is, whatever it is, that’s where I’m headed.  And that’s where I’m staying.