Almost Home

My time here in Iraq has nearly come to a close. Two months from now I will be on a plane bound for home, and to be honest it can't come soon enough. I miss everything about home. My wife, my family, my friends, seeing green things growing, heck even the strange old landlord. I have had my fill of dust, sand, smoke, and rockets for year to come. Iraq, I will be glad to never see you again.
It is strange now when I think of home and it feels so distant, like I have been gone for years. In a strange way it has begun to feel like home here. Everything is so familiar, that only when I focus I remember it has only been a temporary four month stay.
Not everything has been terrible about this place. I have met some really great people, been to a very different part of the world, accomplished a great deal of reading, and had many quiet moments to sit and reflect. In addition, I have started taking courses toward my teaching degree again, which I am very proud of. So I can at least say some good has come of my little vacation.
Still I will be overjoyed to see you all again once I am home.
I'll try not to cry but no guarantees, I am pretty squishy.

Update

So, I must update you, my loyal readers, on a few developments that have taken place recently. The first is that my avocado pit decided to sprout and is now a tiny plant! I was worried that it was not going to do anything, but it finally decided it was time. The second is much bigger and demonstrates the military making a more common of late sensible environmental decision.
When I first arrived here, you had two choices as far as what to put your food on in the dining facility.
The first was all plastic. An individually wrapped set of utensils and a plate, all of which were a one time use, disposable affair. Disposable here means that it is bound for the incinerator and ultimately the atmosphere.
The second choice consisted of a standard plate and silverware, which are washed and reused until breaking.
Sadly, most people decided on the first choice, which amounted to thousands of plastic plates being thrown away and burned every day!
Recently though the military has wisely realized that it is both cheaper and more sensible to offer only the standard plate and silverware. You can already see that the number of trash bags produced daily has fallen to a quarter of what it was previously.
This was a great day for the Earth and also the human beings who have no other choice but to continue inhabiting her. Hopefully, big organizations such as the military will continue to make these seemingly small changes that will yield large compounded gains.