The Mid Winter Blues

I have discovered a wonderful technique to cleaning the bathroom. I just keep the cleaner and sponge in there and clean during my shower. This leads to me smelling slightly like beach, but hey, the tub remains fairly clean.

These days I find myself taking long, deep breaths of air, almost as though I had forgotten to breathe for several moments and all of a sudden feel suffocated. In less than two weeks Keith and I will be at the half way mark of deployment, and I've got to be honest, I don't feel as buoyed up by this knowledge as I had thought I would.

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for every day and moment that has passed by and that I need never go through again; I am grateful for everything that is already behind me. But I feel weighed down by everything yet to move through. Half way point means another half a year.

I'll feel better when I make it through March. Traditionally, I have loved March. I have loved it for its dripping water running off the points of icicles, for its sheets of water running rippling across the road from melting snow banks, for the clumps of soaked and tangled grass that begin to appear on south facing slopes.

I have loved March for the mud, which is traitorous of me, I know; there are some roads in New England that become literally impassable due to mud around that time of year.

I love the tin buckets that appear on the sides of gnarled maple trees. As I child, I would tip toe up to these and in wonder lift the lid. The clear liquid dripped down so slowly into the pail; its taste only hinted at sweetness.

But right now March is like a giant boulder between me and fresh air. It looms on the calender, countless days of snow and grey and nasty gloop on the car.

And Keith keeps calling me to tell me how much he misses me; last night he woke at four thirty in the morning and got out of bed to call me, despite the cold and the dark. And this drives me crazy, because I'm all the way over here and I can't go to him.

And the insurance information about my teeth getting worked on is abominably complicated and I can't understand a word of it and I can't find my last year's AGI number for the taxes, whatever the hell that is; and when I call the IRS they always tell me that due to the volume of calls received in this topic they cannot take my call and hang up on me, and I sorted through the papers that I did manage to save and although I kept the W-2s from last year's taxes, I did not keep a copy of the form itself.

I am terrible at keeping track of papers. It amazes me that at work I have now organized and put into proper order nearly every paperwork system there is in that building. I have audited every chart, put in place ticklers and mass e-mail lists, I have updated emergency files and binders.

However, at home in my expandable file folder I found such assorted things as a recipe for shrimp coconut soup, the manual for my coffee maker, old insurance information from jobs long past, and a birthday card from my parents. What was I thinking? Where is the important stuff? How can I be thirty one years old and have no records?

I am determined to change this. I am going to buy hanging file folders with labels and everything from every random place that currently holds papers (two kitchen drawers, a cupboard, one plastic drawer, the paper file folder, my purse, etc, etc...) will all be consolidated, properly labeled and alphabetized.

In the meantime, I must go and finish up cleaning the kitchen. Maybe I'll try the IRS again, just for the heck of it. Who knows, they might miss hearing from me.