The Month of Saturday: The Clash

Just when I think things are starting to get dull and can’t get any
worse, change comes and it’s usually accompanied with a new challenge.
This time they moved me to work with new people out of a new area.
Though it’s only temporary there has been friction between me and
someone in my new work area. Lucky for me, things have been slower so
the need for me to be where I work is not really necessary. I’ve been
working out of other shops to do the computer based part of my job.
Unfortunately for me, time to access the computers that I borrow is
limited, it also doesn’t help that I’ve been plagued by internet
outages. It’s been a bit better in the sense that my voice is now
heard and that the leadership has been more understanding to my cause.
With that being said, more people have tried to gun me down
because I’ve become a thorn in many people’s side. I wish they knew
that it wasn’t personal, it’s all just business to me. I’m just doing
my job, the only difference is that the leadership is finally backing
me up. It doesn’t matter though, you can’t change people who don’t
want to. Sunday is around the corner, it’s gonna be a quickie.

The Month of Saturday: Resolve and Resolution

The Month of Saturday: Resolve and Resolution

resolve:
I’m barely 1/4 way thru this month but I’ve been finding that things are slowly reverting to the way things were when we first got here. They started breaking down things that we put up to make things easier. Word in the dirt is that they’re planning to move us, but that seems unnecessary for us to do seeing that we’ll be leaving in two months. By the time we get things settled, we’ll be up and gone again. People are once again making stupid and careless mistakes, I guess people started revamping their to do list for when they get back. The other shops are trying to pin their mistakes on me; nothing new. I’ve come to the realization that fear and self-preservation walk together hand in hand for people without honor. I don’t want to deal with the disappointment of being hit with another extention so I cope by telling myself that, I’m not getting home until I’m on the plane headed there. I won’t lie, I too have been rushing but I’m not running like everyone else. My superiors thought it was funny when I tried to report myself for breaking a pressure washer wand on accident. I guess that somewhere deep inside I’m still that same kid that left the note on the car window.

resolution:
I usually wait until February or march to make a resolution because during Christmas and new years there are so many things going on with friends and family because it’s a time of the year that we get together with the people we’re close to. With that being said, I always found that the resolutions I made for the new year would never really last long. I would be like the one timers at 24 hour fitness who would waste their money on a year of gym member ship with the will power to go through a couple weeks of a work out. If there’s anything that I want to accomplish this year, I want to be more open about my personal feelings. I want to know in my heart and mind that I don’t have to do things by myself, because I’m never alone. Though I may feel abandoned sometimes at work, I’m never abandoned in life; I want to be able to know that without a shadow of a doubt. That is my goal for 2010.

The Month of Friday: Calm

So there I stood amongst everyone else in the crowd. It was an informal gathering so everyone was relaxed, and as we all waited people whispered what they anticipated would be good and bad news alike. As our commanding officer exited his tent we all stood at attention. When we recieved the command to go at ease all eyes became fixated on him. As he started to talk we already knew what was coming. All of the talks of what could be turned into what is and what isn’t. What we found out was that we were extended until march. I don’t know the exact date of when I’ll be back but my heart sank. My heart sank deeper than it ever had during my time here so far. I needed time to process and that’s why I had to leave everything in a cliff hanger. I’m sorry if I gave everyone the wrong impression that I might be coming back sooner than expected but then I guess I’m just that good at writing stuff. haha! Well yeah minus the sloppy errors. XP I just needed some time to calm down and decompress a little. Everyone told me for the next couple of days after hearing the news that I looked dead and distracted. I’m not going to lie… I did feel dead inside, I kept on asking myself, why am I pressing on even though I don’t feel like doing it. I then remembered that I have a promise to keep. I chose this so I need to see it through until the end. Me being here longer doesn’t change when I can stop doing this so there’s no reason to mope around and be sad. It’s a little while longer but you all were around for when I found out that I was deploying. Things change, and they’ll continue to change, I’m just going to stick to expecting to be here until I’m up in the sky and on the way home. It’s the only way to do it. In life, we can’t rely on false hope to drive us; doing so will only instigate failure and lead us astray from our path. We need real dreams to give us real direction, only then will we reach the real finish line.

The Month of Friday: Suspense

it was close to our change of shift when it happened. one of the
things I find odd about myself is that I have a tendency to walk into
the wrong end of conversations and that just what happened… I walked
in on a conversation that I wasn’t supposed to hear partly because
higher-ups don’t believe we should hear stuff until it’s time and or
absolutely necessary for us. that’s the problem with being the low man
on the totem pole in a work place swimming with higher ranked people.
suddenly the announcement was made, we were all to gather outside to
hear the official news about our estimated return time. I never felt
like this in a long time. it was like I was waiting for my grades from
a really hard semester of school. my heart couldn’t stop beating hard,
I was excited, scared, happy, and nervous all at once. my commanding
officer stepped out of his work tent and…………………***to be
continued***

1/4 Thru Friday

wow… for once I’m sitting here trying to think of something to type
up but i can’t really come up with anything. I guess I figured things
would be different but really things never really do change. or if
there are any changes it’s hard to see because it’s not the kind of
change we were looking for. do you ever feel like that sometimes? I
guess life’s weird like that. maybe everything is just too routine.
maybe I’ve been day dreaming too much. just the other day I looked at
my watch and it said 11 p.m. and I just kept on staring at the time
because I brain farted on how to tell time. or maybe it’s my lack of
sleep from forcing myself to wake up earlier because I’ve been craving
breakfast and that’s causing me to get up earlier to go eat. XP yeah I
guess it’s the simple things about normal life that I miss. stuff like
real milk, not that preserved processed stuff that they give us. I
miss eating pancakes. of all things… pancakes?! I rarely eat that
stuff. I guess the whole me waking up earlier is just my futile
attempt to remember what it was life to live life normally like back
home. I started up running again to help take off the edge but nothing
beats the beach. the way I felt free when I was surfing. the way how
surfing made me feel like everything that was bothering me washed
away. all I know is soon, the guys who got here first will be leaving,
and soon our replacements will arrive. I can’t help but feel like I’m
at the home stretch of the race but also at the beginning at the same
time. I feel like I’ve gone beyond running on fumes. maybe I just need
to scream. XP haha! yeah maybe that’s it. maybe I just need to
rediscover my spark. who knows… or maybe it’s just that it’s been a
while since I’ve worked on my secret project. yeah… that’s it…

The Month of Friday: Promotion Special

I always imagined that the day I got promoted would be a grand day for
me. I also envisioned that it would be an event that my family would
get to witness. Today I remained indifferent about being promoted for
a number of reasons but the biggest two was because it wasn’t as I
hoped it would be since my family couldn’t see it, it also wasn’t what
I hoped it would be because the two people I wanted to pin me also
couldn’t be there as well. I feel so bad because I feel like I’m being
ungrateful to the people who helped me get to where I am right now,
people who wanted this for me as much as I did if not more. I know
they’ll probably never see this, I know they’ll probably never
understand why I felt the way I did today all because here, I don’t
let anyone in. Everyone of my friends and family I am grateful for
because I’m able to escape from my cold exterior. Today made me
realize how much I miss you all; today I came to the full
understanding that I feel free when I’m around all of you. It’s the
beginning of friday… Sunday is right around the corner… Thanks for
everything.

Love,

Lester

The Month of Thursday

This month has been pretty weird. I’ve been finding that there has
been a complete role reversal in how things have been going at work. I
don’t feel as lost anymore, nor am I making as much mistakes as I did
when I first got here. It’s funny because I’m catching the mistakes
that others are making, they usually catch mine. Though many people
haven’t realized it right away, I’ve found myself having to stand my
ground a lot more often and defending myself. Yeah… My new boss is
quick to take the other side and not mine. weak sauce huh? What
happened was some people thought that one of my machines weren’t
working properly but everything giving me the ok. So they tried to
make me exchange the machine for a new one but I said, “No, let’s try
it again please.” The guy who requested the new machine came over and
started to heckle me and tried getting under my skin telling me I
failed my mission but I was like what ever. We actually turned on the
aircraft to see if the aircraft was the problem and found that I was
right. There was a broken line in the helicopter. The dude was so
pissed…. People started to looked at him like he got punked out by a
guy who knows nothing about the aircraft. I said that I got lucky and
that I wasn’t looking to prove anyone wrong, I just wanted to verify
if my machine was the problem. no matter. I figure as long as I’m doing
my job I’m all good. I finally received my Grace Bible Church podcast CD in the mail
last week; I blame the United States Postal Service for not being prompt
about it, the main thing is i got it just in time; I just ran out of
devotionals to read.

The Month of Wednesday

sometimes i need to keep myself in check because it just seems like
the light at the end of the tunnel seems closer than it really is.
it’s not my job to cross the lines, but still, what we do here is
inherently dangerous and stressful. I need to keep a cool head but
also stay sharp.

at the beginning of this month my boss got sent to germany for the
second time because he was having heart problems, we all just received
word that he just got back to Hawaii just fine. everyone looks at him
and says that they don’t want to be like him at all. in all honestly i
think if anyone cared about getting their job done then they’d realize
that being like him or utilizing his methods is needed. a lot of times
people fail to accept the fact that they’re already like him.

like I said earlier, the fight isn’t over yet… though I’ve made it
halfway through, a lot can happen in the next 3-4 months. I’m looking
to come home sometime in the first week of February and i need to keep
my head on straight if I’m to come home safe and sound. a squadron
right next to us experienced a great tragedy two weeks ago; about an
hour after i got off of work two helicopters crashed into one another.
there were only two survivors who are currently in critical condition.
they’re blaming the crash on complacency; a false sense of security
and the pilots being absent-minded because they are leaving soon.
every day presents a new danger whether or not we can see it.

The Month of Tuesday

I know that my coming here was where god needed me to be to get to the
next level in my growth. My initial goals being to find myself once
again so that I can become what God needs me to be and to learn how to
surrender once again. I’ve been trying to write this one for the last
two weeks but I didn’t really know where and when to start and to see
who else I should send this out to. For the most part, I do know that
I wanted the small group to see this so please show this to the rest
of the guys when you get the chance.

I’ve been here for two months and as I monitor my checking and credit
card accounts all I could do was think about the things I wanted to
buy and the things I wanted to do when I get back. I then remembered
that I never had the energy to do everything I wanted to do nor did I
have the time to enjoy those things that I bought. It was then that I
remembered that I need to seriously uncomplicate my life if I’m ever
to live it the way that god intended me to.

I would say a couple days after I wrote “The Month of Monday,” I
started to really become challenged in life. My Boss wrote me up for
being unable to do my job without supervision. I didn’t think it was
fair because ever since I’ve been here, I’ve been unable to do my job.
The first few weeks here had been nothing but having me go out and do
other things for other work centers, and by the time I got done it was
time for me to get ready to pass down what ever I had to report to the
person working the day shift.

I never really felt more at a loss than that day; I feel like I’m
doing the best I can but it wasn’t really enough. So at the end of my
shift the next day, there’s this whole fiasco because someone
misinterpreted what I said. What happened was, I believed that a
certain license required a certain qualification and I told that guy
that I was going to find out. He went ahead and complained to the
person that gives out that qualification and there I stood, surrounded
by a hand full of superiors. I’ve never found myself in shark infested
waters while surfing but if there was any feeling to describe what I
felt at that moment, it was something close to that.

There was nothing left for me to do but research the answer and I did.
It turned out that my suspicion was wrong but the fact that I found
the answer on my own gave them enough grace to let me explain what had
happened. It was then that my boss sat down with me and said that I’m
too laid back and easy-going, I need to be more aggressive so that
people won’t push me around and walk all over me.

It was then that it hit me… As my boss was talking to me on how I
should be as a marine I thought to myself, “but that’s not me!” It was
then that I realized that I knew who I was all along. The reason why I
didn’t feel like myself anymore was because I focused more on pleasing
others instead of focusing on the things that really matter in life.
I’m just a guy who want’s to serve god, surf, and spend time with my
friends and family; nothing else to it… I’m one step closer to
uncomplicating what I’ve complicated.

Thanks for your love, friendship, and prayers,

your friend,

Lester

The Month of Monday

Dear Friends,

It’s a week before the end of my first month here in Afghanistan, I
decided to refer to the months here to be days. What happened was
earlier today someone said that we’re going to be here for seven
months and no longer than that because the marine corp. doesn’t like
coughing out more money than it has to so it makes sense that
regardless of when in february we are pulling out, the fact still stand
so. Because of that, I decided to treat each month as a day of the
week.

Last night was probably the worst night I had yet, I spent the entire
shift helping the people who fix the stuff they work on aircraft
with. We went through three pieces of gear and to no avail, nothing
would work properly. I got down really hard on myself for not being
able to provide for my squadron. I knew that all I could do was my
best and if that wasn’t enough then so be it, but it’s different to
know something than it is to accept.

So on the way to work today I started to pray, “Lord, please save me
from myself.” I repeated that phrase constantly and the lord showed me
the issues from my past I have yet to deal with. Things like
sacrificing my happiness to lives to satisfy other people. I used to
live life just to please my parents and did well in school thinking
that if they were happy I would be happy. I never really did anything
for my own happiness until I learned how to surf. The same issue
followed me in the military where I felt discontent with myself due to
my inability to accomplish the mission at times.

The lord also showed me that I need to let go of “Love that was lost
and love that never happened.” I saw images of all of the women that
broke my heart at different parts of my life. I started to wonder to
myself, “Why am I even thinking about them? They forgot about me a
long time ago.”

I talked about all of it with my friend Adrian and realized that I
didn’t care as much as I was making it to be. I started to realize
that it’s ok for me to not be able to do something. If I can’t do it,
then I’ll just find someone else to help me that can do it. I have to
always remember that God never leaves me alone, the only times I feel
alone is when I push God away. I know that God is working in me and I
pray for the strength to just let go of all of it and have faith in
God. Ultimately that is what I feel what the purpose of me being
here, to learn how to surrender… Thank You all For Your Prayers and
Friendship.

Love,

 

Lester Tabucbuc