Kelly Smith Weblog Aficionado: Just a guy vs. Life

  “We want to travel baggage-free on this journey. It makes the trip easier.                 Some of the baggage we can let go of is lingering feelings and unfinished business with past relationships:  anger; resentments; feelings of victimization, hurt, or longing.                 If we have not put closure on a relationship, if we cannot walk away in peace, we have not learned our lesson. That may mean we will have to have another go-around with that lesson before we are ready to move on.                 We may want to do a Fourth Step (a written inventory of our relationships) and a Fifth Step (An admission of our wrongs). What feelings did we leave with in a particular relationship? Are we still carrying those feelings around? Do we want the heaviness ...

 

 Drinking bourbon, as of late, has been an attempt at an antidote for the blues that I feel.  That’s progress I suppose.  It used to be the cause.

Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, and Something you give away.

Facebook wiped out my creative energy and my willingness to get on blogger and compose updates.  Pushbutton statuses are great, but I think I have lost a step as of late.  Since my last post I have had four birthdays, been engaged, and now I am 12 days away from remarrying.  Life is curious when you live it...

40... Well, the morning of my 40th birthday has finally arrived, and I feel good.  There have been some pretty astounding, yet humbling changes  in my life as of late.  But, I am dealing with circumstance well, and I think I know the direction that my life needs to go.  I may have lived over half my life at this point, and right now I have no regrets.  I have plenty of "lessons learned", but no regrets.  At the end of the day, all of my choices in life have led me to some sort of positive end thus far.  I am an eternal optimist.  Well, Happy Birthday to me....

Gotta get (back) in shape..... Damn..........what the hell happened? I left Iraq at 175 pounds of lean, mean, fighting machine. Now I am 205 pounds of chubby, tame, couch potato....I gotta get cracking. Check out the tracker that I am using from http://medhelp.org. Wish me luck!

Persona non grata....me. Storytelling: In the days that have passed since I got home from deployment, more than anything people have asked me, "So how was it?" My friends who are not in the military have this notion that every day things were going on like those shows, "Over there", or "the Unit". More often than not I would say, "It sucked..but it could have been worse." For some reason people are inclined to believe that I am downplaying things but really I am not. I had Soldiers wounded, but not one death. Not even a death in our battalion. At one point we were the only battalion in theater to not have had anyone killed. In that regard I consider myself lucky. We were engaged by both Shi'ite and Sunni militia, but more often than not our engagements were because of spillover between factions. I really haven't had the urge to go into a great amount of detail about things. More often than not, people want to know things, but g...

36..... Happy Birthday to me.

Out of the loop.... I have been completely out of the loop since coming off of deployment. I am back into the garrison lifestyle and somehow I am fighting getting used to it. I haven't blogged about anything since I came out of theater, although I have done a lot of things. I had a week's long stay in Miami for vacation, went to a bunch of Pop Warner football games, Road tripped to Camp Lejeune for Thanksgiving, and basically tried to reintegrate into my family lifestyle. Tomorrow, which at the time of this post is in approximately twenty minutes, I will be 36 years old. So, I may not have anything compelling to share, but I will definitely, post the obligatory birthday cake with the age title in bold font. Hopefully I will feel inspired as we get closer to Christmas.

Soon.... I will be whole again.

35 is not 18...... Last night I was entering a compound with a couple of my squads and squad leaders. It was surrounded by about an eight foot wall. In order to breach it, I sent a dismount over with just a pistol to unlatch the gate from the inside. He climbed the wall, lowered himself down by his hands, and dropped. I climbed up on the wall to over watch for him. Once he was inside, he said, "Aw man, it's got a chain on it with a lock." About that time, several dogs started barking. My dismount turned around and pointed his pistol in their direction. In hopes of giving him more support, I jumped off the wall into the courtyard to provide more security. It sounded like a great idea in theory.....until I hit the ground. It was roughly an eight foot drop, and when I landed I was painfully aware of every joint in my body. A weird "ZING" went from my feet to the top of my head, and I crumpled over into a PLF to try and absorb some of the shock. My dismoun...

KELLY'S TOP 100 100 things about me. If they appear to be random and shifting, then you are 100 percent right. I actually wrote these out in my real journal over the course of about a month. I would think about something, and then I would jot them down....1, 2, 3, 7 at a time. So..enjoy if you aren't too bored. 1. My oldest sister used to call me her “chocolate Billy” when I was young. 2. My earliest memories are of Stuttgart, Germany. 3. My first dog’s name was Blacky, I got him in 1978 when I was in first grade. 4. He died in 1992 when I was 21 and stationed at Ft. Knox. 5. I cried for two days. 6. I think soccer is the world’s greatest sport. 7. My older sister Carolyn is the smartest person I know. 8. I love to play Jeopardy and I am good at it. 9. I have a crude working knowledge of Spanish. 10.I had my first girlfriend in 4th grade. 11. She could run faster than me. 12. From 1st through 6th grade I only liked my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Coffman, she was strict but fair. Fair...

Mirror Pic for Christmas.... Well, my post a couple of days before Christmas kind of betrayed the Christmas blues that I was feeling despite the fact that I was trying to pull off the notion that I could have cared less about Christmas. I talked to my parents, my sisters, and my wife today. My kids were too engaged with Christmas presents at the time that I called, and on top of that I got pulled off the phone to take care of some things. I do feel pretty good, however. Today was a normal day in regard to having work, having deadlines, and having the constant threat of AIF. But all in all I feel good. It is Christmas. Nobody can take that from me, no matter how far from home I may be, the celebration of Jesus' birthday is something that kind of helps me focus while I am here so far away from home. Of course the AIF didn't take a break today, but they were a little more quiet than usual. We caught a 60mm earlier today, and I heard a few more explosions in the distance. I took a ...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.... I would have to say that the title of this post is probably one of the most mendacious statements that I have purposefully made on this blog since I started. It really doesn't look like Christmas. This place looks like Tatooine with a monsoon season. It is cold now, sometimes dipping down into the 40's with overcast skies, and a perpetual misty rain coming down. When you have sand that has the consistency of powdered sugar coupled with rain, you have a complete mess. I went to chow the other night, and there were a bunch of Christmas decorations aroound, but I didn't get that Christmas feeling. They even had some members of the Army Band here playing Christmas songs, but I still didn't get the feeling. I feel like telling the big brass that coming up with something special for troops over in a combat zone is pointless. Just a gesture that only seeks to let us know how far from home, and how far away from a plac...

I went to Mass today.... I went to mass today in a small building that sits upon a Peninsula out on blue-green water in a lake in part of Saddam Hussein's old palace complex. Quite a mouthful, yet the sight that I saw was breathtaking. the entire back wall of the building has a huge glass where you can see the water. The sun was hitting on the water and it was one of the most beautiful scenes that I can remember for a long time. The homily was about how we should not promote ourselves above others. We should not step into the spotlight solely for the purpose of self-promotion or self-gain. I took this to heart, and I prayed about that....as well as prayed for the health, benefit, and welfare of my family. Luckily today was a calm day today. It is a strong contrast to how things have been for the past week. Church really made me feel a lot better today. God made me feel better today. God knows I needed him today. He offered himself to me yesterday in the form of my daughter writing...

Block Leave....... "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” The above passage is a quote from Marianne Williamson who is an acclaimed lecturer and author. The passage is particularly poignant to me in regard to how I am feeling about the next missi...

One day and one half... I just woke up in my hotel room after a night of fun and good times with my wife at 4th Street Live. I glanced out the window, and realized that I was facing the sullen reality that I have today and tomorrow on leave, and that Tuesday means the end of my contact with my family for a great while. I have approached this time on leave with the solid intent of not concentrating on how much time I had left, but rather the quality of the time that I was using. Somehow, it just didn't work like I thought that it would. I have noted that these past two weeks have flown by, much quicker than any other two weeks that I have experienced in my life. If deployment were to go like this, the time wouldn't seem so unbearable. But, nonetheless I suppose that I need to get myself prepared for the inevitable. The reality is that my oldest son Devon who just finished the seventh grade will be starting his Freshman year of High School once I get back. Robbie who just ...

Abasement... I wish I could say that I have been having horrible dreams, or that there was a deep foreboding about my upcoming deployment, but there is not. On the contrary, all of the things that trouble me are here. I just have a feeling that perhaps things are not as complete as they need to be. I have been working on continutity books and the hand off of many of my duties. I worry about the people that i am in command over, as I have no idea who my replacement will be. I have those same worries that a parent has when his kid is changing schools. Possibly there is such the feeling that nobody can do what I do, like I do it, and then again perhaps this is the way of me coming to grips with the fact that I am leaving. Perhaps I am clinging to everything here as if I am holding on for my very life. I brought a box into the office to clean out my desk about two weeks ago. During that span of time I have been unable to do much more than place a few pictures and coffee mugs into it. As mu...

Fourth Street Live Last weekend, Renee and I went to Fourth Street Live to hang out for a while. 4th Street Live is an effort that the city of Louisville has made to inject life into the downtown scene. It is located near the waterfront, and consists of several upscale bars, lounges, and restaurants all within about a 2 block area. We attended a First Friday's celebration at a club called "Felt", which is a very nice billiards room. Here is a picture of me, Renee, her friend Derita, and Renee's cousin Howard. I hope to go back at least once before I head to Iraq.