Saturday Soliloquy #4

Part 4: Australia

Do you know I actually felt responsible for the attacks of that day?  I did.  I felt like I should’ve been able to warn someone.  I should’ve been able to help or something.  I believe now, that I was doing exactly what needed to be done and that all good that has come of the evil that was done is exactly the best it could’ve been.  I’m grateful to believe that I may have been able to help.  I’m especially glad that my help (if I was of any help) was completely unnoticed.

I went to school and spent time with my friends a little bit.  Mostly, though, I spent time alone.  I felt unable to benefit anyone else, so I didn’t want to bring them down.  My friends Josefine and Keefe interrupted my lonesomeness many times.  Felicia did as well.  I’m still very grateful for their kindness and care!

The missionary dinners still happened every Sunday.  Those were great times.  It became rather burdensome (financially, especially) after a few weeks because the guest list kept growing!  After a while, I finally asked my friends if they could help by cleaning up afterward.  I think I eventually may have asked for others to bring some food to share, but I can’t remember about that for sure.  I know I asked them to help clean up, though.  I enjoyed preparing the food and eating it with them, but having to clean up by myself (or with only Felicia) was a major bummer.

October was the month, I think, that Jessie returned from his deployment.  I returned to the USA to surprise him.  He was definitely surprised!

Before I went back to the States, I made sure to purchase a camera Jessie’d told me about that he wished he had again.  It was a Nikkon film camera, I think.  I no longer remember how much I spent on that, but I spent a lot.  I also purchased some special lenses for it.  We still have it.  Don’t really use it, but we do have it.  He was very happy to receive it.

The return to the USA was rough.  There were problems with flights connecting and the security was ridiculously altered… it was definitely tougher and to the extreme.  All bags were searched thoroughly… it was super time consuming and really stressful.  One of the funny things that happened as a result of the tighter security is when a guy had to go through my bags.  He was getting in to the camera bag.  Well, I had packed it full of panties and bras because I wanted to keep the camera and lenses safe, but I didn’t have any other small bits of anything to stuff in there to keep it safe.  Well, that poor guy was so flustered.

I finally did get back to the States and my brother Josh and his new wife picked me up from the airport.  Apparently Caroline didn’t (and still doesn’t) remember meeting me the first time we met before I went to Australia.  Crazy, right?

Well, I might not remember meeting her, either, except that I had an experience that made the meeting stick in my head.  When I met her Evelyn was angry with me.  My sister was sitting on the couch with Caroline and Josh, so I didn’t want to go over there because I didn’t want to cause a kerfluffle with Evelyn.  Instead, I stood near the front door.  I remember standing sort of in the corner at one point, a little bit behind a floor to ceiling lamp my parents have/had near there.  When I was introduced to Caroline, I learned that she was from a family of six children, too.  When I learned that her family had two boy and four girls (opposite Josh’s and mine), I thought that was really neat/interesting.  The part I had a difficult time dealing with at the time is that immediately after I learned that information about her, I heard, in my mind, “He will marry her and they will have six children.  Two girls and four boys.”

Please remember, because it is important to understanding my feelings about such an experience, that I was not attending church at all at the time.  In fact, although I believed in God again by then, I did not necessarily believe in all the other stuff I was taught as I grew up.  So, when I heard, in my mind, this information about my brother, I felt like I was going absolutely nuts!  I even remember looking around and trying to figure out if anyone else heard it – even though I knew I didn’t hear it in my ears.

Thus far, Josh and Caroline have one girl and two boys.  Unless they make some radical changes, I’m pretty sure they will not have any more children because my brother, Josh, got himself snipped (commonly referred to in our society as being “fixed,” which is revolting to me since, in fact, someone who does such a thing is actually purposefully breaking the equipment the Lord Himself installed!... but I digress).  They felt and still feel, for all I know, that they did not (do not) want to have any more children.  That's totally fine, of course.

Now I’m going back to the main story.

I had reserved a room for Jess and me in a nice hotel in downtown Norfolk.  We stayed there for a day or two.  It was fun and nice.  We went out and walk around the downtown area and had a meal around there, I think.  Mostly we just spent time together.

Because of the trauma of my experiences, I was really happy to be back and seriously wanted to just stay and not go back to Australia.  It would’ve messed up my education a bit, but I didn’t care.  I just wanted to stay with Jessie and get back to school in the next semester.  Jess talked me in to going back to finish up the semester and my travel plans in Australia.  I’m glad he did and that I listened and did finish up that goal.

The return flight to Australia was not nearly as bad as getting back to the USA.  I remember having a difficult time getting back to campus.  I think I took a Taxi, which was rather strange because the driver wanted me to sit in the passenger seat not the back seat and I thought that was odd.

So I finished the semester.  It went fine.  I cannot remember any problems or anything that went particularly poorly.

My final return flight to the States would depart from Sydney.  The bus pass I’d purchased allowed me to travel as much as I wanted, but I couldn’t back track unless there was no other option.  Setting up my trip back to Sydney was a little bit stressful because I had a certain amount of time to travel and I had to work my needs into the scheduled bus travel times.  I managed it, but barely.