Last week was a whirlwind, or almost felt surreal because my obligation to house sit and doggy care came to an end, with me tearing up over having to leave  the wonderful pup (I consider him at the age of 5) I bonded with and the house. Which near the end, I felt too scared to leave, because it had become the perfect refuge for me to cope with the changes in my personal life, than the undesired chore it started out to be six weeks before.

I left the house and the dogs and took a flight to the south, Alabama to be exact,  to attend a military graduation for a dear person in my life who, at a crossroad in her life, decided joining the military was the best solution for her new start.  The evening before the graduation, she asked me to pin her rank on her uniform during the ceremony, and while walking up to the stage the day of, I suddenly felt overly humbled by the honor she had bestowed upon me, and in that moment, my eyes welled up, and I did everything in my power not to full-on cry, since I promised her I wouldn’t make a scene nor embarrass her in any way.

The entire process opened my eyes in a sad sort of way, because I looked around at the attendees during the tours, the presentations,  and parades and the pre-graduation dinner and every event planned for the family and friends on base, and I saw a certain blankness in the faces of those invited. A worry, a concern, an unspoken cry of some sort. Hardly anyone smiled or seemed optimistic watching their sons or daughters go up on stage and be sworn in to “protect our country”. Not a single applause felt real, nor a photo taken joyous. We had all become complaisant.

I could only imagine how everyone’s life was changed from that moment on – was all I could think about on my flight back home. Because I knew my life was changed, and what was waiting for me in the coming weeks is not something I ever imagined I would be faced with.

For now, I just want to crawl into bed and hold on to my dog…