If living in Iceland was the break from reality that I wish everyone was able to experience, then setting foot back in the states was certainly a wake-up call. I remember after graduating high school thinking that now I was free and there was no one to tell me what to do and I was now able to do whatever I chose to do. I am still unsure why no one told me that those thoughts were completely ridiculous and so untrue, though I am pretty sure that the reality actually was that various people had spent years attempting to make me aware of this fact of life and I in my infinate lack of wisdom decided not to listen.
My father flew back with me on my initial return to states, stayed for a couple of days and helped me to find a car. We both had learned years earlier that my knowledge of anything mechanical and whether or not it was a good vehicle soley relied on his experise. With, I am sure, a splite sense of pride as well as doubts and fears he sent me on my way to Flordia where my two best friends were waiting for me. Looking back now I wish that there had been a three day indoctrination when returning to the states as there had been when we first went to Iceland. If I remember correctly it was not more than three or four months before all three of us realized that we had gotten ourselves in over our heads. Stubborn as I was, and still am, after a few weeks of staying with my best friend Eddie at his parents house, I ventured out on my own, rented my own apartment, had a job and within the month realized that I was in trouble.
I am sure that although I thought it was a wonderful surprise to just show up back in Virginia at my parents house shortly after their return to the states, for them it was probably more of a situation to deal with. My insistence on leaving Iceland before them and having my dad go through all the extra motions of having my belongings sent to Florida, which now he had to travel with me back to retrieve and bring back to Virginia, was at best the first, though not the last time he would save my ass from myself. The one logical and rational decision I had made at this point in my life was to join the military, more so to get away from home than anything, yet thinking that I was a making a very determined and good decision for myself. Though my parents were very proud of my decision I certainly did not make the next few months any easier on anyone by being back under their roof. As I began to look for a job while I waited for new year to ring in and to be sent off to boot-camp, I also began to sink into a depression that I had no clue as how to deal with. I began to realize how much I missed the kids that I had worked with in Iceland and during my brief stint in Florida while volunteering at the Youth Center at NAS Pensacola. I was able to fill that void by finding a job working at LaPetite Academy in nearby Chesapeake.
Working at the academy gave the opportunity to work with children again and to save up the money to pay a trip back up to Iceland for Christmas, which was not cheap by any means. I do not know if anyone in my family really understood how important that was for me, nor any of my friends really knew either with a few exceptions. I think having been able to learn so much about myself from those kids, and the friendships I made not only with them but with several of the parents made it neccessary to see them again, and in some cases knowing that I would never see any of them again. Things were a little different working at La Petite, I was after all back in the states and not on a military base, so the rules were a lot different. I was still lucky enough to work with a great group of kids and when the time came fours months later to leave and head off to boot-camp, I can not say that is was easy. I am pretty sure that when I returned home briefly after graduating boot-camp I went to the academy first to see the kids before I even went to my house.
