Hero

I made it home from Indianapolis last night. On my way home my friend, Stacy, texts me to come over to he mother's house to see her 21 year old nephew, Nick, who is home on leave from Iraq. He's been gone for 11 months and in that time he has been hit by roadside bombs twice. I felt very strongly about going to see him to hug him and tell him how much I appreciate what he does for me and my country every single day.

As soon as I got there, he ran up and hugged me and told me how gorgeous I was (blush). He and my younger cousin are good friends and had had lunch. My cousin told him that I'd lost a lot of weight. He looked so grown up and buff. I remember changing his diaper for God's sake. So now I'm feeling like a dirty old woman with lustful thoughts of my best friend's nephew.

We sat around and ate and everyone else drank, a lot. Several girls were hanging around Nick. They invited him to a party with all of his old high school friends. Nick was torn since he wanted to spend time with the family so he invited us old folk to come to the party. I decided to go since I was the only one who hadn't been drinking, and drive them all. Even Stacy's mom went.

At this point, it was dark. The party was about a mile off the road on a single lane that I could have used four wheel drive to get down. It was low and full of sticks and mud. I barely made it through.

We parked in a field and walked through a muddy mess to get to a spot in the woods where there was a large fire pit surrounded by tiki torches. There were about 20 kids, I say kids because they were all 21 (at least I hope they were). Boy did I feel old!

It was interesting to watch Nick interact with his friends that hadn't seen him in almost a year. They didn't know what to say to him. After all, they were still the same people stuck in the same little town and Nick has been all over the world, nearly dying so that they had the freedom to sit around a camp fire and drink beer.

Nick also had a tough time because he is so shell shocked that he flinches at any moving object and the fire especially bothered him. He told us how horrible the conditions are in Iraq. I can't imagine the atrocities that he has endured. The hardest part for him has to be that he has to go back to Iraq for 8 more weeks before getting a new assignment.

We got Nick feeling pretty good and so was everyone else. I carried a beer around because people don't understand when someone's not drinking. They don't get it.

There was a 50 foot grapevine hanging from the trees that many took turns swinging on. The drunker they got, the higher they swung.

I enjoyed watching and observing. I've noticed that since losing weight, I spend so much less time worrying about what I look like, that I'm able to completely enjoy myself. I'm not thinking about people staring at me or whispering behind my back so I am able to drink in my complete surroundings and live in the moment. I feel like a completely different person in that aspect.

Stacy and I spent a good part of the night wishing we were younger and single. Every woman, single or not, wants to flirt and feel wanted. They only time I got hit on was when an old guy (ok, he was my age) with a mullet came over and attempted to get me to smoke his cigarette. His shirt said, "Party Animal". He was the most pathetic person I've seen in a long time. I'm not really sure if he was someone's dad or not. He was almost old enough.

I'd had enough of mullet man and rounded up the group. I hugged and kissed Nick (an old lady's got to try, right?) and told him to be safe. I delivered everyone else to their homes safe and sound and made it home in time to take advantage of my hormones with Mr. Sign.