blog@thechrisbrowningexperience

My time on board this ship is coming quickly to an end. Within two weeks, I’ll be on my cheery way back stateside. It feels identical to how it felt last time, going home and all. I feel apprehensive, anxious, happy, stressed, a huge twine ball of different emotions. Compounding this is the fact that my time of service is drawing to its end as well, I feel as if I’m winning the lottery, and I know it.

There are so many things to prepare, paperwork to fill out, appointments to schedule, things to move, people to see. It’s almost overwhelming. Thankfully, though, I’m one step closer to achieving something I desire. Hawaii is right around the corner, my trophy, my prize. I can almost see it now, golden rays of sunlight glinting majestically off it’s polished corners. A marvelous chalice to mark the end of one adventure, and the begining of another.

I know of  a lot of people that are going to be disappointed with my decision to move, once again, so far away. I know of a lot of people who are excited for me to move back to Hawaii. I feel bad that I’m still going to be so far away from home, as I’ve been for the past five years, but I just can’t see myself living anywhere else right now. This is something I need desperately. I’m a lost merchant in the desert, searching for my far-off oasis to quench an imeasurable thirst.

I need this time to do things for myself. I’ve spent much too long doing things for others, sweating and bleeding and putting my heart into other people and things. I’ve got a few scars that I still need to heal.  Unfortunately, I’m a little more calloused and colder than I used to be. I think the embrace of a warm Hawaiian sun and azure-crystal water will wear those callouses away, and once again thaw out my soul.

What will be waiting for me when I’m done? What adventures and new discoveries lie in wait?

I anxiously await the answer…

.//chris

After much deliberation, contemplation, and declaration of the emancipation proclomation, I have decided that I’m going to take a little risk and move to Hawaii. Why is it risky? Well, I’ll be moving to an isolated island, for one. And you never know what might happen. But, I’m overdue for a long vacation, and I really need this. More than anything right now.

After being deployed for so long, I’ve begun to lost sight of a lot of things. I feel like my character is turning gray and flacid from disuse. I don’t have the engagement and stimulus that I need, and I want to get back to the place I used to be happy at and recharge my batteries. I really developed into a person that I enjoyed being in Hawaii, and that’s why my desire to return there is so great.

I think what it boils down to is that I need to remove myself from this enviroment, and soon. I’m doing things I normally wouldn’t do, thinking and dwelling on things that I normally wouldn’t. It wears on you, and grinds your psyche down to a blunt and useless object. I need to sharpen it back up again.

And so it has been decided. I think I’ll find what I’m looking for there.

.//chris

Yesterday I finished Farewell Summer, sequel to the much acclaimed Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (favorite author). So, I started reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a candid (and largely exaggerated) memoir by Bill Bryson (a new favorite author?). Reading these books on adolescence and youthful naïveté got me thinking about when it was in my life when I actually “grew up.” Looking back on it, what a sad time that must have been, forgetting that world of excitement and discovery, when everyday was an adventure with new treasures to find, every block held untold secrets, and imaginations ran as wild as the ivy creepers through the garden. Instead of worrying about which villain I’m going slay or which planet I’m going to visit next, I now worry about how much I’m going to get on my tax return, and if I’ve properly claimed all my deductibles. It’s a troubling thought. I used to want to be an astronomer, paleontologist, ghost hunter, treasure hunter, fighter pilot, private detective, code buster, spy, robot engineer, and a plethora of other exciting and thrilling occupations. Now, I’m a computer technician with slowly fading ambitions of being a writer. Where did all the wonder and overblown ambitions go? How many people actually pursued their childhood dreams and are now astronauts, firemen (because all kids want to be a fireman at some point in their life), cowboys, or rock stars? Why can’t I be the world’s number one expert prehistoric botany, or the leading authority on extrasensory projection? Because there’s a point where reality, like a slow moving cancer, settles in and stifles and quells those explosive ambitions, leaving us boring and mundane husks. With job titles like “Level B Accounting Specialist”, or “Regional Engineering Manager”, it’s no wonder that our imaginations go the way of the do-do bird.

There was a point, when I was a kid, where I could tell you everything you wanted to know (or didn’t want to know) about every species of dinosaur known to man, from their bone structure to their diets and skin color, and during what era they could be found in. I was able to accurately locate and describe in detail the history of every constellation in the sky, and during what seasons they would be visible to our little city. I knew ten different categories of ghosts or hauntings and how to find them, although I was always too scared to look. I could break codes, was an effective spy, knew everything there was to know about space travel, fighting dragons, and building skyscrapers with Lego bricks. Back then we had dreams, whimsical though they were, and passion and enthusiasm, and the time to devote to such endeavors. I remember when my imagination could conjure up fantastic adventures on which me and the pack of boys in the neighborhoods would take part in. Games of tag that lasted until the evening, who could skip a stone the furthest, climb the highest tree and jump onto the roof, and all manner of other potentially unsafe activities. Since kids are made of rubber, anyways, they’re pretty much invincible, and such endeavors usually only ended with scraped knees and peroxide (which always hurt worse than the scrape it was supposed to “heal”). But, as we grow up and learn about the world and hormones change and bodies sprout new things, we lose that little flame we held so dearly as a kid. That inexorable spark, that burst of passion and excitement, gets hidden amongst the rubble of the world of reality and we forget that we still need to kindle it and nurture it and hold it dear, lest we become stagnant, musty shells of the brilliant and shining balls of energy we used to be.

.//chris 

Welp, we’ve been underway for almost two weeks now. The consensus, amongst all of us, is that it feels like months. I’ve gone in to this one with a greater expectation and knowledge of things, and I’m glad to report that it’s much easier this time around. I have no worries, no apprehensions. My heart can’t be broken, my house can’t be taken away, and I have no more debt. Things can still go wrong, to be certain, but I feel much more stable; an impregneble granite boulder.

Things go by quickly now. The days are melting into each other like a snowman tortured by blazing March sun. As soon as it began, it will be over again, and every minute, every second that goes by is just that much closer to the end of this chapter. I’m reading the lines slowly, with growing eagerness to the next adventure I depart on.

.//chris

It’s that time again. Deployment. 

I really, really wanted to do a bunch of updates and post witty and intriguing things, but my entire life has been taken over for pre-deployment preparation. 

The last deployment taught me a lot of things. I learned more about love and its absence, about myself, about others, and about the world. I’m going into this one with a much sturdier outlook on things and expectations on what’s to come. I’ve healed my wounds, reassessed my goals and dreams, and focussed my sights on them. 

I have five months left in the Navy, and a wide open road in front of me. I wonder where it will take me?

Haze, gray, and underway. I’ll be worlds away from you. 

.//chris