Anxiety Dreams; or, GeTMeOutta Here

Today's weather at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: high of 87º and cloudy, then rain, then low of 72º. Get me a jacket; I think I've acclimated!

I've been having awful anxiety dreams, sort of like those you get as a teacher before a year starts or when you are returning from a long winter break.

It's not the "I'm teaching and forgot my pants" variety of dream, but these do cause the same sort of panic. It's the, "I'm praying I'm getting off this island before someone realizes a mistake was made and I am stuck here for three more months" dream.

I officially have cabin fever and I HAVE to get away for a few days.

When we first moved here, people said, after six months, people go crazy. You gotta plan a trip off-island. I didn't realize at the time how absolutely, incredibly difficult that would be, or I would have paid better attention and starting planning then.

I am SO ready to get off this rock.

And getting off and back on is no easy task. It's a little more complicated traveling when you have orders, and even more so when you are flying on and off a military base.

We have to have our passports---not tourist passports, but our fancy "no-fee" ones. As an aside, the fee for processing the no-fee passports was $100 because Fort Hood wasn't able to process them. They couldn't process them because I didn't have orders yet. I didn't have orders because I didn't have my passports. So much for no-fee and welcome back to the world's largest bureaucracy!

Also, if you are making a move overseas with the government, if at all possible, avoid Ft. Hood. Drive one, two, six, or ten hours away. You will probably get everything done in one trip instead of the five or so it took us. They lost our moving paperwork; they didn't return phone calls; they tried to tell me that you can't bring family members to GTMO; it goes on and on. The entire experience made me happy that we were never stationed there.

So back to the passports---these passports can only be used for government travel, which is sort of a drag because you never actually get them stamped leaving or coming back. Remember: GTMO is USA-Cuba, not Cuba-Cuba.

It's so sad to have a passport that's been used but has no stamps in it. That's sort of the beauty of a passport, right? You can go back and look through your stamps and realize how much you've seen and how much more of this big world you still need to visit.

I requested our airline tickets back in January because I knew that the flight would fill early. It's Spring Break next week, yet the only flight during Spring Break week is that Friday. Go figure. So our options were: take 4 days off work and fly out tomorrow (Tuesday); take 1 day off work and fly out on Friday; or take 2 days off and leave Friday of Spring Break and come back on Tuesday of the following week.

Do you see how ridiculously inconvenient and nerve-racking it is to get off this island? Also, it costs a little over $2K just for round trip tickets to Jacksonville.

And nope, that's NOT first class.

Anywho, I have to make sure we have the passports and some paperwork saying we can come back on island, take an early ferry to the airport for weigh-in, and then wait for take-off.

You mean you don't have to sheepishly announce your weight to the ticket clerks and whomever is listening in line behind you when you check-in to fly?

You have to give your weight and the weight of your suitcases when you fly here. Since they won't cut off a pound (or more) of flesh, you will be leaving those bags, if necessary. Also you hope you don't get bumped because they need to weight allowance for mail or because troops are flying in/out on your plane. (Flight movements were the main reason we couldn't get out of here most of last summer using Space A travel).

I'm a nervous wreck and hoping all goes as planned. It's our second trip back in 18 months, and the first time was for only 10 days last summer. Four of those 10 days were spent traveling. It wasn't exactly a relaxing vacation, but I did get to see my little niece whom I had only seen once before our trip. I got to visit with my younger sister; got to hang out with my older niece (I am always partial to those older sisters); spent time talking to and getting to know my little cousins a little better, who were in elementary and middle school last time I saw them; and had some quality time with my big cousin Al who, next to my husband, sons, and father, is my most favorite guy in the world.

Hopefully this time next week we will be enjoying a nice, relaxing (ha!) vacation at Disney World. Never in my entire life have I been so ready to stand in line (wearing my air cast) for hours. Bring on the real world! I can't wait.