Sameness and routine

I’m not sure if this entry is going to make sense to someone who’s not here, but here I go anyway.

The thing that has made this tour the most difficult for me (other than separation from my family) is the sameness of the days. I need to caveat this with the fact that I’m not someone who goes out on a patrol every day, so other Soldiers might have a different perspective than I. But, day in and day out, each day is pretty much like the one before. I attend routine meetings, I work in the same relatively small area, I travel the same routes to eat, to church, to the PX, etc, and, except for the temperature, the environment offers little variation. We work long days and each day seems to be just like the one before.

So, what helps pass the time? Routines! (I told you this might not make sense.) It is odd, but for me, keeping routines helps pass the time. For example, the folks in my office and I eat lunch and dinner at the same times every day (except Sundays when we have a cookout for dinner). We exercise in the afternoon. Every three days we have “cycle of life” (laundry) that we drop off and pick up at lunch (they run on a 72 hour cycle so that’s what we use as well). My mornings are filled with the same meetings (roughly) every day which eats time until a little before lunch when I can get on my computer and get the due-outs from the meetings accomplished. And, amazingly enough, the days move by. Counting down the number of days until my tour is complete always seems a little depressing as the number of days goes down slowly and still seems like a lot of days. Having a routine schedule gives me intermediate goals throughout the day and week to look forward to. It is an interesting phenomenon for me: the days are long but the weeks are short. The weekend (Sunday being the only day that has a different schedule than the others with church, a trip to the PX to get a haircut or buy something I don’t need, and the dinner cookout) suddenly appears after what has seemed to be a short week full of long days.

As you might imagine, I am very much looking forward to breaking my routines with R&R. As a matter of fact, this time next week, I should be in transit home for 15 days of glorious leave!

Cheers, Pearl