Dirt?

I am getting old.

I know that I’m older than most of the Captains here (and maybe even a few of the Majors) but I try not to act like it. It’s hard not to when I overhear conversations from young twenty-somethings about how they were born in the 80’s around the same time I was trying to find where Mrs. LaChance’s math class was at Franklin Jr. High. It is a challenge to relate to the younger folks sometimes, although the fact that I just made a statement like that makes me feel like I’ve prematurely joined the ranks of coffin dodgers and silverbacks.

We got to leave work a little early last night because of the bi-monthly “bug spraying”. During this happy event they kick everyone out of the offices early and lay down a fine layer of poison to keep the building ant free for a few days. Normally I’m not too excited about bugs nor am I particularly excited about my keyboard coated with anti bug juice. However, I do get excited at the prospect of going back to the trailer earlier than 9pm. After tromping through the door and kicking off my uniform, I plopped down on my Texas folding chair to relax and read a recently delivered magazine before the night slipped away. After delving through pages of adventure travel essays and hiking gear reviews, I decided to call it a night and strolled into the bathroom to give the chompers a good brushing. It was then that I noticed in the mirror, sticking out like someone had jammed the “spear of aging” into the top of my head, was a long white hair. Now, I’ve had gray hair before and it wasn’t very dramatic, but this one was Casper white and considerably longer than the rest of my black mop, as if the guy who last cut my hair purposely cut around it out of respect for the follicle’s age. I couldn’t help but stand there, toothpaste foam gathering in the corners of my mouth, and gape at the horror, as if my youth was raising a flag of surrender high in the air ensuring that my old eyes would take notice.

Iraq is aging me.

The last birthday I spent overseas was when I was three as a wee lad in Korea (no, I’m not from the North!). Granted, my birthday is still a few months away, but that doesn’t explain why I’m feeling particularly old today. I think reading about these young people who climb Everest 8 times before they are 30 and knock out 10 Triathlons a year just for the fun of it made me see that I’m not getting any younger, mainly because I have not completed either one of these events, not even once (nor do I need to). I thought that maybe the pressure of being deployed to a war zone would be a major contributor to my anguish. Things are stressful here, but in the big scheme of things, they aren’t that bad. Sure, we have some pretty tense situations (people trying to blow you up can be a wee bit taxing on the old nerves) but it’s not anything like trying to soothe a sick screaming infant or maneuvering through Dallas traffic at rush hour. Plus, things have been fairly quiet (September has set a personal record for the fewest IDF since I’ve been here). So why now did my hair decide that last night was a great time to signal a blatant reminder that I’m no spring chicken?

I know it’s just banter and there are people older than I who will scoff at my rant, tell me things like “You ain’t that old” and spout similarly sarcastic sayings, but I do feel older today, as if I went to bed last night as a thirty-something captain in the Army and woke up as Rip Van Winkle. I think the only thing I got going for me is that I’m still the youngest person on my team, but seeing as how two of them have already retired once and 3 of them are grandfathers, it doesn’t give me much consolation.

In other news, today is the 5 month mark of the deployment. Only 7 more to go. This is cause for celebration. Tonight at dinner, I think I will eat as many cookies as my belly can take. Best do that kind of daring stuff now while I still have my original teeth and it doesn’t interfere with my blood pressure medicine.