1st Lt Prifogle’s Blog

It’s close enough to count down now.  Count down the weeks, the days, the workouts, the miles left to run on an empty desert road.  At the chow hall we talk about the first thing we’re going to do when we get home.  What restaurant we’ll eat at, beer we’ll drink, who will be waiting for us at the terminal, the first person we’re going to call, the list goes on forever.  Home.  Will we ever really get there?  I doubt I will at times.  I wait for the order from the CO, asking or telling me I’m staying.  This or that happened and they need me to stay 7 months.  I no longer call it pessimism, its realism.  It could happen and I’m preparing myself for all the possibilities.  Then again maybe I’m secretly hoping I’ll be forced to stay.  This is now familiar to me, home is the unknown.

I don’t know how to define home.  I have my parent’s house.  The same piano I learned to play scales and Minuet’s on, the same pie-safe that I stubbed my toe on every morning on the rush out the door, the same antique bedroom furniture that I slept on and kept my clothes in for 18 years.  Is that home?  Does the comfort of familiarity make somewhere home?  Is it the length of time that makes it home?  I refer to our compound, Rock Ridge, as home now.  Is home simply where you lay your head?  I refer to San Diego as home and I suppose it is – all of my stuff is still there.

I’ve moved 20 times to 13 different cities in the last 8 years.  After 18 years in the same old, farm-house I became a nomad.  Until I moved to San Diego I didn’t even live in the same place for more than a year – seven years straight.  I used to call Scotland home, so I can’t even call the States home anymore.  I am so used to moving that I don’t really unpack anymore.  I set everything on shelves and in dressers in ways that will be easy to pack.  I keep the plastic tubs stored in a shed or garage ready at any moment to pack everything again.

So, home is where you are when you are there.  That makes Iraq home.

I’ve always moved on and never moved back.  Growing up my best friend, Cara, and I dreamed of moving as far away from Indiana as we could.  We grew up.  We moved away.  Now, we only go back on special occasions, because it is where our family is.  There’s nothing left for us in Jay-tucky, P-town, Jay-land.  There’s nothing left for us in Indiana.  There’s never anything left.  I move on, I take with me memories of the places I went and the people I met and try not to look back.

I moved to Aberdeen, NYC, N. Carolina, DC, Quantico, Detroit, Indianapolis, and the list goes on.  Each time I moved it was for the next adventure.  The next chapter.  The next city.  The next apartment.  The next local pub.  The next…The next…The next.  Every time I drive, fly or move away I always know I can go back to visit, but it will never be home again.

It’s not just the physical re-location.  Every time I move I meet new people, I have new experiences, I change.  I grow.  I become a different person then the girl I left in the last city.

I’m not moving on this time.  I’m moving back.  Back to San Diego.  Back to my friends.  My office.  My life.  Six months ago I was packing up my life belongings, that all fit into my Bug, and leaving for war.  I had no idea what to expect and I was afraid.  Now, I know what to expect day to day and I know things could change at any given moment.  I take comfort in knowing I will get up tomorrow and if there’s no sandstorm I will go for a run.  I will watch the same sun break the horizon and heat up the air at 5.  I will walk in the office and be greeted by the same Marines.  Tuesdays are meeting days.  Sundays are easy days.  My days in the desert have become comfortably predictable and now I have to go back.  Back to San Diego.  Back to face the person I was.  People will expect the same Libby that left.  I know this because my family expects the same person that left at 18.  Some things will never change.  I listen to broadway musicals everyday (as I write this I’m listening to Titanic).  I write my sister a letter or email everyday (not the same as a phone call, but it’s all I have right now).  I run.  I drink coffee.  I laugh at myself when I trip over my own feet.  I am still the same person, but I’m not.  The things in me that have changed are invisible even to myself.  When I go home the person I was will have to face the person I am and I have to decide who I want to be.  Moving allows a person to forget the mistakes they made and move on; moving allows a person to forget how they hurt someone they loved.  Moving allows a person to start fresh, not over.  It allows me to forget and forgive and finally let things go.  I can start new habits – for better or worse.  Make new goals with a refreshed sense of momentum to accomplish them this time.

I’ve moved from different countries, to different states, to different jobs, schools, friends and families.  I never move back.  I count down the days now.  Specific events – unit mail out, last run around the perimeter of base, last paycheck, last staff meeting, etc.  I prepare myself to move back.  I cherish the moments I have with the people I’ve met.  The people I may or may not see further down the road.  There is no way to prepare to move away or move back.  There is no time to fully prepare future, just time to enjoy the endless numbered days.

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