Stay Safe, Sebastian

Getting ready to say "Stay safe, and take care of yourself", again.

My good friend Sebastian heads off to play in the sand soon. At this point, the off the record rumours he has been hearing, and various things they have been instructed to do in preparation for this deployment, indicate he could be away for a very long time. In the last 6 months, Sebastian has gone from being my rock and my voice of reason, to being a very good friend, to soemone who holds a very special place in my heart.

I have already decided on his "thanks for being you / deployment gift"; he will arrive to a package from me containing, in addition to the usual stuff, a pair of these:


Oakley Polarized Half Jacket XLJ's, with a spare pair of lenses. I figure they are usefull and portable; Sebastian will be outside the wire most of the time, and so I can't load him up with the same types of things I have been sending to the Wolf, who is stationary for the most part. Not only that, I hope he sends a pic back, because he will look pretty hot in them ;-)

We finally had the "lets get all our cards on the table" talk last night, and have decided a potential deployment of over a year is not likely the best thing for a budding relationship; we are "just good friends" at this point, and will stay that way for the duration of the deployment. While we acknowledge we have fairly strong feelings for each other, and all things being equal will see where things are when he comes home, while he is gone we are just good friends. And I am, quite seriously, OK with that. The man has his head screwed on right; this is not separation anxiety, this is reasonable and realistic. We had an honest talk about the way we both feel, and we are comfortable with the way things are. He did not tell me not to feel the way I do, nor did he appologize for or make light of his own feelings. It was very refreshing.

That's not to say I am not going to miss him like crazy, worry about him, or occasionally have some dark days. I am sure I will. I care very deeply for him, and the fact that we are not "in a (romantic) relationship" has absolutely nothing to do with that.

With his job, while he is away communication with him will likely be very sporadic. I have no idea how often I will be able to have interaction with him. I like to think that I will be OK in that, secure in the knowledge that he will contact me when he has a chance, and than he knows I am thinking of him, no matter how often my letters and packages reach him, wherever he may be.

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I was doing some reorganizing of my apartment last night, and wondered briefly if I will ever not have a corner of a room with open cardboard boxes in the process of being filled for various deployed friends. I currently have 3 different boxes going for 3 different folks; when one is full and sent off an empty one replaces it.

In honesty, I likely always will, as long as I have access to someone to send things to (Canada does not allow the "any soldier" parcel any more; you need to send it specifically to someone). The sending of care packages lets those of us that are part of "Task Force: Home Front" feel that we are helping out; allows us to maintain the connection to "our" troops.

From "Ontario Dust", written by Archie Fisher