About 8 hours ago my ship was suppose to leave the dock and head out for 7 weeks on the open seas. Instead I'm sitting at the local USO surfing DA due to technical issues with the ship. So yeah for a free day! I'm going to go eat pasta.

When my ship pulls back into Japan late November I'll be only a matter of days from moving into my very own Japanese home (crosses fingers). The initial excitment has worn off and now I'm left feeling . . . whole. To be able to go . . . home, a home not made of steel and as cold and impartial as the ocean is, it's a wonderous feeling that has quitely been breaking free something lodged in my heart for a long time.

I imagine the first night there and even though the loniliness will be steep I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be then in my small empty house in a tight neighborhood where my closest neighbor can't even communicate with me.

For years now - years - I was sure the Navy was killing apart of me. The part of me that I had relyed upon for the better part of 25 years to keep me sane. Only recently has that part of me begun to break the surface, to come alive in what feels like decades.

I have become the person who smiles and laughs because no matter what she expects to get shit on and if the Universe is going to keep laughing at me then I might as well laugh right on along.

This is something I expect people to notice when my artwork and writing suddenly appear again after years of silence because my hands itch to write and when my eyes close I see colors and images trying to become alive again.

It is strange to think that my life could suddenly shift to something better in 7 short weeks, but then again, why should it? It took 8 weeks of boot camp to dampen my creative impulses even if I didn't want to admit it.

I'm reminded of a promise I made to my readers before I joined the Navy - that I would come out unscathed and still find that creative outlet I'd come to think as unbreakable. It saddens me to think how naive and wrong I was.

I only hope that these experience enrich my writing and that whatever skill I had developed is lying dormant somewhere deep inside.


Sarah