Transitional Weirdness – Home

Home.

Is it strange being home after serving thirteen months in Afghanistan as a non-combatant engineer?  Were there any reintegration issues?  Was the transition difficult at times?

Yeah…

Picture it.  For the past thirteen months I lived in a small room with just a small room-worth of stuff.  People were everywhere and privacy was rare.  There was constant interaction with other civilians, Afghans, contractors and the military (ours and others) in your face and on the phone.  You worked in a crowded office, ate in a crowded dining hall, recreated and worked out and went to church in crowded tents or other structures.    If you were lucky like I was for the last part of the deployment, you actually had a room to yourself – a box, a can, a trailer, a conex that was just yours.  But even so you could still hear the strange and foreign world around you outside – hear every conversation, every truck rumbling past, every stray cat rowling for attention, every door slam, every plane, helicopter and drone which  took off or landed or flew overhead.  Oh yes, and every explosion whether it be near or far, friend or foe.

But back here in the good ol’ USA, back in civilization, back at my normal job, back home – all is well of course?  It will be.  Eventually.

Being back home is strange.  The first few days in the States were fine – spent all of about half a day at the Deployment Center in Virginia for “reintegration processing” then headed on to Louisville.  Stayed there at my Mom’s for a few days, caught up with my son, got my hair cut, ate at real restaurants, took baths, organized all the boxes I had shipped home, went shopping, bought a Mazda.  Surrounded by family and friends.

Then I headed back down to Russell Springs, to the house I had closed up in early May of last year that had been unoccupied ever since (Goodbye House).

A house all of my own, completely filled with terribly important stuff that is all mine own (and my son’s).  Modest and plain and less than one thousand square feet but a palatial mansion compared to my previous living arrangements.  Overwhelming?  Read on…

After unlocking the front door and doing a quick walk-through it did not take long to realize the house had been taken over by the local wildlife – mice, spiders and dust bunnies.  And mold.  And very smelly mildew.

The overgrown and gone-wild shrubbery around the house nearly blocked the front entrance.  The grass was being mowed fairly regularly, but due to almost daily rains it hadn’t been done in a while so was knee-high (to me at least).  Half of a huge maple tree in the back was laying across the entire yard where it came down in a bad storm a month or so earlier.  Justin’s old Jeep sat in the driveway with a dead battery and at least one flat tire.  I think there is moss growing on the north side of it.

The ceiling in my son’s room was covered with big brown splotches where the roof (less than three years old) had leaked.

Every piece of clothing, every sheet and blanket and towel smelled musty and needed washing.  The pillows were all molded and mildewed beyond keeping.  Anything made of leather was thickly coated with dusty mold, including the couch.  Every drawer in my bedroom furniture was swollen shut because of the moisture and I could not get one of them open.  The window-unit air conditioners (and in season the space heaters) had been left on appropriately, but I failed to realize that when a storm or whatever knocked out the power for however long, the air conditioners remained off afterwards.

When I started the long process of washing everything, I discovered (after the third or fourth load) that the washer seals must have dry-rotted in my absence and wash water was leaking all over the carpeted floor.

There were mouse droppings in my bed and under my pillow.  In my large queen sized comforter exactly one quarter sized hole had been gnawed.  There were droppings on the clothes hanging in the closets.  Droppings inhabiting every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen so every utensil, pot, pan, glass, plate and bowl had to be hand washed (no dishwasher).  The fridge had been emptied and unplugged and propped open, and so the mice decided they needed to party in there as well.  Spiderwebs were draped across every corner of the house like some over-enthusiastic halloween decorating scheme.  Every surface in every room every where in the house had to be cleaned.

I wanted to get back in the car, drive away and never return.  Call my boss and volunteer for another overseas assignment.  I didn’t.  But I wanted to.  Still do.  Sorta.

In addition to the above, there was a tremendous sense of isolation.  No one called me (they knew I was busy, needed time to adjust, etc), no one else was at the house (etc), no one was demanding my attention or needed my input on anything.  I didn’t know what to do with myself and felt restless, skittish and very jumpy.  It didn’t help that people near by were setting off fireworks unexpectedly days before (and after) the Fourth of July.  Or surprise thunderstorms.  Booms mean something different here in rural southcentral Kentucky, but it took some getting used to.

Bit by bit the knives and forks and spoons and all got washed.  The laundry got done using the washer and dryer up at my rental trailer which is currently vacant.  The surfaces have been dusted, wiped down and disinfected.  Eventually the dust bunnies were vacuumed up as well.

My wonderful pastor came and trimmed all the bushes back so the house has ceased to look condemned, chainsawed the remnants of the big tree and will haul it off.  He also fixed the leaky roof, unstuck all my drawers and helped with the cleaning, all while I was gone to work one day.

Since I no longer feel the need to own so much stuff, many (many) bags of clothes and other things have made their way to Goodwill.

Getting used to being home again is not an overnight endeavor.  At least the smell around here is improving.

~~~~~~~

Lessons Learned:

Ask for help when you need it.  People offered to help clean and all but no, I could do it all by myself.  Not.  Don’t wait until after the melt-down – invite people in to your new old world early on.  Pick up the phone, send a text, email, post on Facebook – even if you are an anti-social engineer. 🙂