6/4

There are some things about home that I am really starting to miss.

The first one is not having to put clothes on and walk half a mile to go to the bathroom, especially when you have to go in the middle of a deep sleep, which, if you're hydrating properly, is often. That's pretty annoying. Oh well, at least we have toilets that flush.

I also miss not being able to have meals readily available either. I may not stock my fridge very well all the time back home, but I have the sushi restaurant that delivers on speed dial. Here, the chow hall is a good half mile walk away, which is no joke when it’s a hundred and ten degrees. The food is pretty decent, however.

And I miss being able to dress up and do typical girly stuff. I miss dresses and sandals and earrings. So I've devised different looks for work. When I work days, I wear tinted lip gloss and I pin my bangs back. When I'm on nights, I wear my liquid eyeliner and my bangs down and swept to the side. I also bought this super cool leather holster for my 9mm pistol. It's the Michael Kors bag of holsters, and accentuates my figure nicely.

But most of all, I miss being on some sort of schedule. Nursing is already notorious for not having regular hours. That's okay. Put me on days or nights and keep it that way for a while and I'll be fine. But here we work one twelve hour day shift, the next day we work a twelve hour night shift, one day to recover, and repeat. Our bodies never get a chance to fully adjust as we are either sleeping too much or not at all. Add that to the other inconveniences and it makes for some grumpy troops. We are beginning to snap at each other a bit, but we all acknowledge that it is just because we are tired.

However, I am getting into amazing shape. I hit the gym when I’m not working. The gym is usually packed, mostly with Marines. At first, we could barely get sets in as each machine and bench was crowded with three or four dudes. They might ogle us, but they weren't moving over and making room for us. Now that we have been here for a while and it's clear that we are actually there to work out, guys move out of the way for us. Working out, combined with having to walk on gravel almost everywhere we go, has worked wonders on my glutes!

Part 8 of a 13 part miniseries following the personal memoirs of a deployed soldier