Civilian Time

I opened an email this morning and went from placid to pissed off in a millisecond. The email asked me about starting a book group. It wasn't that he wanted to start one right away or at any definite time in the future, he just thought it would be a good idea. His life is swamped right now and he wants to wait until the timing is right.

I have known this guy for years. the timing will never be right. Or if he does get involved he will be less involved over time, because he is the sort of person who life happens to, he does not make life happen. But now when I hear something like this, a voice in my head says, "Make a f-ing decision."

It will be quite a while before I get adjusted to this kind of civilian time: the kind of time that is like Jello, no hard edges, collapses under pressure, and even when it stays in one place, it jiggles.

More than my reaction, I get worried about the different feeling I have about things like this. In the Army everyone is healthy, no one is old--or at least not older than me--and if someone is very sick or badly injured they are MEDEVACed away. It is an unreal world which suits me very well, but the Army is hardly my life and in three years they will toss me out. So I really will be working to adjust to the world I live in where people with money and resources take care of the poor and people who can make an f-ing decision help those who can't.

Otherwise I will be just another rebel who wants to the world that suits his own taste and wants to get rid of everyone he doesn't like. There are enough of those already.