Always Greener

So I left California on Friday to take 2 weeks of well deserved leave at home in Washington. I couldn't wait to get away from Port Hueneme, up where the air and tap water are clean and the temperature is not in the triple digits. I'm also hoping to see some good friends from high school and catch up with some people whom I grew up with. But not yet.

I drove up with my sister and have been doing the whole "family thing" since we got here, which is great, I love my family. However I've seen almost every relative in the last 3 days and I've had enough. On Saturday we stopped in Oregon and visited with my dad's side of the family, and today we went to the local mental institution to visit my mom's dad. Now I like to think that I can handle most of the more unsavory aspects of life, violence in america, plague, famine etc. But one thing that I am not equipped to deal with is crazy old people, and I mean clinically crazy. Grandpa has always been a cantankerous old man, but some of these other people put him to shame. I was yelled at by one old woman who took a break from her coloring to ask me what I was doing, and I helped an old man with crazy hair put on his sock while I was trying to escape to the car so I could smoke.

I was so excited to get up to Washington for a break and now all I want to do is go back to California and tease my wife, pet my dog, tease my cat, and pet my wife. For all the time I've spent growing up here (we've had this house since before I was born) this isn't home anymore. Home is my small 1 bedroom apt in "Little Mexico." Even more disturbing is the growing rift I feel between myself and my hometown friends. It's hard to relate their work problems to my upcoming deployment to the middle east. It's harder to listen to them gripe about being away from a boyfriend or girlfriend for 5 days and only being able to call at night when I'm hoping the camp I go to will have e-mail so I can maybe send a letter home twice a week.

It reminds me of a point DKC brought up as we were driving back from here grandma's house last weekend. Your hometown is always special because it reminds you of all the good times you had there back when life was easy. The problem is that once you leave it, that feeling is always just a memory. No longer can I just walk next door and hang out with someone for a few hours. No longer can I go to the park and just happen across someone I know.

But then I think about the 80 year old man at the institution who fell out of his wheelchair bottomless while trying to piss in the potted plant and think that for all the problems I have now, it could be worse. I don't ever want to get that old.