Well, as you may have gathered from the title, it's been one of those nights. it's 0542, by my watch, and I have yet to pass out. That is, yet to pass out and Stay passed out un disturbed. Thus far, i've tried successfully about three times to get some sleep. The problem is, all three times that i get to sleep, i wake up after the same style dream. The fine details vary from one to the other, but other aspects... The neighborhood, the sounds of chaos, the grotesque dispatching- all these remain untouched. Why does this keep happening? What is it that becons these nightmares to my mind? I mean, not to state the obvious, but it just sucks. Simple as that. I mean, really? This is the kind of thing my mind decideds is best when I look forward to sleep the most? I'm trying to understand why. In 'The Conscious Exploration of Dreams ,' it was Janice E. Brooks that wrote, "Instead of looking at one's dreams to understand one's life, it may make more sense to look at one's life to understand one's dreams." So what is it that's messing with my head? All kinds of fun stuff really, but a few things seem connected.

I've got something great with a girl back home, and she means the world to me. Everybody here, though, is either telling me that it isnt going to last through the distance, last through the deployment, or that I should simply just hook up with some chick who "puts out." The latter of the three doesn't do much for me,so an easy out-of-the-question. I'm going along with that whole "straight and narrow path" that used to be a big deal. Maybe You've heard of it, although I already have had issues with a couple old female friends trying to take me off that. Safe to say, I think I've lost their friendship. As for the other two, I try to put those out of my mind ASAP; its not like I haven't realized the possibility, but losing her isnt something I'm going to let happen. Issue with that is one of those old friends has one of those strangely accurate Third-Eyes of the future-telling type, and she's been giving me the idea (ie, flat out describing to me in detail) that I'm not going to live through this next deployment. I understand that that would really suck and would definitely count me as having "lost mine," but that's the risk all of us take by going over there, and that's a risk we feel is worth taking. Not only that, but when you look at it, the odds are in a hell of a lot better favor for us now than some think. Sure, this girl's been right about a lot of stuff in the past, but I think Mevlana Rumi made the point when he said, "How can anyone say what happens, even if each of us dips a pen a hundred million times into ink?"

There have been a lot of death's around base recently... a lot withing the last couple weeks. It's a part of life, but that doesn't mean that the methods are, and nobody said that dealing with natural/otherwise was easy. But the truth still remains that it is a part of life. Nothing can change what happened, so what counts is what happens afterwards. I think I have been taking some of these a bit too much to heart, as I have a lot of things lately. But you know what? That's probably what is getting to me at night, so without further adieu, this morning's quote is:

"The only way to change is by changing your understanding."- Anthony De Mello, 'Awareness'