An Eternal Curse

February of 2010 I flew out to San Diego for my grad school interview and I also was in search of a comfortable hole-in-the-wall apartment that I could hopefully call "home" someday.  I was well aware that I would not have the income to legally pay for rent in one of the safer San Diego areas living by myself and since I wasn't too keen to the thought of turning tricks for running water, I was willing to live in the less safe areas of town.  After my short visit to California I returned home feeling confident with my school interview and eager to tell my parents that I found some apartments that would more than likely require me to invest in a weapon of some sort, but that there was hope.

Two months before moving out of Texas and about a week away from stressing myself out of a typically regular and stress-free menstrual cycle, I received a "friend request" on Face Book.  The friendship applicant was a former roommate of mine who I had shared a 3 bedroom condo with 6 years prior to this request.  We had lost complete contact towards the end of my enlistment and I honestly never thought I would speak to him again.  By this point, the last thing on my mind was putting forth the time and energy of rebuilding a friendship that wasn't that significant to start out with.  I accepted his request anyway and didn't hold my breath for much else.

Who would have thought that 2 months after I left-clicked him back into my life I would be traveling back to San Diego and moving into a two bedroom/two bath townhouse with my old roommate gone new Face Book friend?!?  Thinking back to the lack of real friendship that we experienced during our first rooming encounter, neither of us were prepared for what awaited us in the coming months.  Unlike the first time living together, this time we were both single and ready to take on San Diego in the most dangerously yet healthiest way possible.  We instantly began doing absolutely nothing together for the duration of an entire month before my school started and he reported to his new unit on base.  These days that were filled with nothing more than SPF 0 and endless glasses of Sangria, threw our friendship into high gear and motivated us to share our newly tanned bodies with the rest of the single population residing in San Diego.  We both actively started dating people and critiqued our selections for approval or an encouraged early dismissal.  Our friendship couldn't have grown any faster if we had wanted it to.

Fast forwarding this to present day, my roommate and I had already come to terms with the fact that extremely interesting things specifically happen to me that they were well worthy of my starting a blog.  We had already established the idea that our friendship, wrongfully accused of being more intimate than platonic yet guilty for utter awesomeness, was the best foundation for years worth of a successful rooming situation......thus the adoption of the title "Eternal Roommates".

Two weeks ago we added another story to our friendship timeline; my roommate deployed to Afghanistan for the first time with his new unit.  Not only was this going to be a test to my strict refusal of showing tears in public, but it was also a perfect opportunity for God to test my Devil Dog wits.

The night of his deployment farewell, I met up with him and a friend of his on Camp Pendleton at 11:00pm for his estimated 11:30pm bus departure.  Around 11:30pm, and with the buses nowhere in sight, my roommate was one of many anxious Marines collecting his weapons of mass destruction (also known as a rifle and pistol) from the armory.  During this time, my stomach had announced its presence and was strongly encouraging us to walk over to the building that contained the refreshments and drinks for the Marines and their families.

Walking over to the building I was quickly reminded what living on base entailed.  A subtle wilderness smell lingered in the cool air and there was a quiet sound of traffic from the interstate just miles away.  We were greeted by 5 Marine wives sitting at a table set up on one far end of this long and narrow room.  On the opposite end of the room were a few tables with snacks and coolers filled with drinks just calling my tummy's name.  My roommate's friend and I walked over to stock up on an unhealthy midnight snack when it all happened.....

As she was fishing through a cooler of drinks about 10' to the left of me, I was savagely opening a new bag of Chips Ahoy that had to have had a childproof seal installed on it.  As I'm desperately attempting to tear into this packaging, one of Camp Pendleton's un-deployable residents scurried into my limited visual space without a care in the world; a mouse.  Not only was this mouse inches away from my cookies and hands, but it appeared to be the happiest mouse on base.  While other mice would have been running full sprint purposefully avoiding a homicide, this little guy looked to be galloping his way across the table of goodies.  His gallop could have been confused for a skip or possibly even a rain-dance, either way it was clear to see that me and my cookies were in his way.

He twirled himself off the edge of the table and vanished as quickly as his public appearance made me instantly freeze.  You would have thought that this mouse had X-Men powers with the instant cement-like form my body took on the moment I saw him.  In any other situation I would have bolted out of the room and proudly earned my "girl" card, but not this night!  No way, no how was I going to let these Marine wives witness a mental breakdown by a former Marine caused by a mouse all the while theses guys were preparing to go fight terrorism just yards away from us.  "I'm going to act like I didn't just see that" was all I could bring myself to say out loud.  A single female voice from the opposite end of the room heard my comment and replied, "Yes, you just saw that, cause so did I!"  It was clear that this woman had to have been an eagle in her past life simply by her scoping out this mouse like it were her late night feed, because the distance from them to where we were was significantly far. Trying to keep my cool, I managed to peal my feet away from the floor and hurried my friend to leave the room with me.  And to those who are wondering.....yes, I did still take some cookies with me.

We returned back to the farewell grounds and you wouldn't even suspect the traumatic scene I played leading role in just moments ago.  My roommate did eventually deploy at a time that was no where near the original 11:30pm said time.  We shared some final laughs, last minute relationship advice, and one final hug that should have lasted longer.  I turned away, started walking towards my car and never looked back.  That night I experienced the beginning of an absence I have yet to encounter in my prior years, but it has introduced me to knowing what a strong friendship is really about.  One of the two most important promises I've ever made to anyone was to start blogging again, which makes this the first of an 8 month deployment's worth.

Chuy, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing again.