Do you hear what I blog?

Or does that blog hear what I write? Who knows. These questions and answers are better left to those who have both the patience of the ages and the coolness of glacial-fed streams. Alas my tummy is full of raw fish and rice and my mind is befilled with raw emotion of late. What emotion? As temperamental as a lap dog whose tail has recently been trod upon by a prize winning cat. My mind winces like the face you make when you smell fresh piles of poo - the doggy or baby kind. Not nice, but not altogether unpleasant. It is this hum-drum melody that wafts though the packed and lopsided halls that are the vaults of my mind. I am afrift from myself and unsure. It like like a moment of time that seems to stretch forever - that moment encapulated when you let go of the rubber float and tread water for the first time and you see it drifting away from you. It is akin to panic but it is worse - because you really have no idea how deep this water is - your life and where you seem to be at any given time. I have been shamelessly petting with Larissa whom I dearly love. She has been enjoying the attention and yet I grimace when I hear that she does not even know if she loves me for she says that she doesn't know the meaning of real love or perhaps has forgotten. Then perhaps it is important just to say that I am stupid. I have clearly trespassed upon a relationship, which while far from perfect was normal in every sense, and have allowed doubt and lust to take hold within. Am I allowed to let go for a moment to take something because I want it? I don't know. On the one hand, I am drawn, comforted and at some ease when I am with Larissa. Yet there is so much that she does not know about me and I sometimes wonder if I am really just meant to be a catalyst for her and not for her - at least not right now. Which really then begs the question, when then? I don't know.

I am at a job which has the potential to challenge me professionally and will give me an opportunity to do something great - and I mean both the army and GTM, but both are beset with problems which can and must be described as gargantuan. Life at GTM is tenuous as best with a status-seeking woman with education envy and recognition hungry who prefers that the lines of communication and responsibility radiate out from her like the spokes of a wheel, which would be fine if she were careful and a leader of people and understands management. She is not and does not. She is, however, very good at what she does for the company, which is "bringing in the business and schmmozing with clients" to quote from her own mouth, but she is also saddled with an unquenchable thirst for power and control and her wheedling meddle-ism makes mountains out of small specks of dirt that are the regular slip-ups of anyone and everyone around her whom she does not recognize as equals - meaning everyone. This, along with her propensity to flit about like an uncultured and unrefined country lass is about as pleasing to the senses as watching your overweight plumber moon you with his hairy back and tattered underpants when he bends over to fix your sink. This person is my boss whom I am to respect and "support", which is in quotes because she has decried this of me; that I should only do what she asks and not fight her. How does one find the discipline to bite one's lip in doing the bidding of one so deranged as to be oblivious to the world around her, and how does one bring this to her attention long enough for it not to be summarily waved off in her mind, if not with a hand gesture born of the schoolground? I don't know.

The army still provides me with some solace and promise of good things to come but the Regiment is preparing for a move which may prove to be its undoing, she is saddled with an adjutant who loves nothing better than to return the unit to a time now long removed - a time backwards some 20 - 30 years when it was acceptable to belittle women - even ones not in the army, and to objectify them only as sexual strumpets, to be gained as trophies and discarded once the drink or fat takes them or when men grow tired of their ranting. Of a time when it is acceptable to do whatever one wants, so long as it can be construed to be for the greater good of morale or traditions. Just because it is something that we have done in the past does not mean by default that it shoudl be something that we continue to expouse or accept - change is good. He does, however, have the ear of the CO, and is beginning to act more and more like one, claiming such and such a task as the way things should be. I am still feeling out my position with him vis-a-vis that of my being PMC of the Officers' Mess. How far I should push back is undecided. His nagging presence there is caused enough for me to leave like Rick, who had the courage to leave when faced with this errant disaster-waiting-to-happen. But I also want to serve - the troops, the CO, the Regiment. What do I do? I don't know.

What I do know is that I have lost a bit of the peace and richness that I had when my life at work was a simple tedium of travel and chore and time spent with Larissa, talking, laughing, thinking, loving. Life is a lifeboat and from fatigue and half-delirium, I seem to have fallen off and into the churning black water of uncertainty and confusion. I bob in and out of the water, my head barely breaking past the surface of financial ruin as I am stirred, but what do I do? Life is rapidly drifting away with the current, which seems to be springing forth in-between. I try to swim forwards, but as anyone who has tried to swim from a vertical position, it is slow going and perhaps I should turn around and head towards the sound of the angry shore when I will find my rest, but to do so will mean swimming past breakers, reef and the inevitable shark. What will I really find on the other side of the wave that seems ready to engulf me in the next crash? Will it be peace? Will it be success? Happiness? Love? Or will it be another wave? I don't know, but I'd better do something soon because I'm getting tired in this huge ocean and I need help to show me the way.