I didn't mean for this to be somber, but I'm scared. Sure my brother joined the Air Force because he didn't know what else to do. His first year of college at UND for some reason didn't do it for him, so he turned to the military. Fine. He's been in for going on three years now. He's stationed in Italy. It's all good. However, about a month ago I found out he's being deployed to Afghanistan in May for 5 months. He assured me he's just going to be doing what he does now which is load bombs onto trailors. He won't even be allowed off base. He's not going to be poking around in any caves or anything like that. But I can't help but be scared. He's my only brother. My only sibling. And after visiting him last week I was reminded of how much I love him. Even though we haven't really spent a lot of time together since we were kids, I still have a connection with him. I don't want to lose that. I'm glad I visited, but man. It's making me cry a lot at night now because I miss him a lot even though I haven't really had him in my life on a regular basis since I was 18. I cried when I got on the plane that was leaving Italy too. Maybe it's a big sister thing to cry when leaving your little brother who was once your only playmate in a foreign country, even if he has lived there for over two years. It's not easy. Not when you actually take the time to face the fact that your only brother lives 4,000 miles away from you. I can't help but regret a small part of my trip where I only visited him for a day. I should have made more time for him. He's still there in a small Italian mountain town, preparing to go to an even more remote mountainous landscape that is so much more unforgiving.
Ok. I just had to vent that. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep now. And hopefully the rest of this blog will be less depressing than this entry.
