Comfort, or Feet

Day two of our Left Behind Series. 10:15 am. I've already had two cups of coffee, went for a bike ride, used the internet, ate a tomato, cucumber and cheese sandwich, showered, shaved and now I'm listening to Amy Mann in bed with the AC on.

If there's one thing I've learned in my three months here, it's that when there is an opportunity to be comfortable and relax, I take full advantage. I'm fairly sure this habit is a direct result of training and will not be so strong once we get to post. The times we've had to relax and feel genuinely comfortable were so few and far between that when they did present themselves, I would really indulge. By indulge, I mean buy things like chocolate or cheese and wine and pay $2 to swim in the hotel pool. But actually being comfortable-shoes off, clean, no sweat-did not happen very often.

I think about the US, where the floors (and my feet especially) are clean and you can control the temperature, and I realize that I will never again take that for granted. I realize that my clean foot fetish (that's not really the right word...) is also not going to go away. All of my life I have been bothered when my feet are not clean-dirt in my sandals, twisted socks, general dirtiness really bothers me. I thought that a few months here would set me straight. There is no way to keep dirt out of shoes or to walk around barefoot without getting ridiculously dirty feet. I still cant stand it. I'm reminded of when I was very young and holding my baby cousin, Danny. I had to bend over to fix my sock because it was twisted and bothering me to no end. As I leaned forward, Danny rolled off my lap to the ground. Sorry kid, it really wasn't my fault.

I feel like a freshman in college who was kept on a tight leash all their life and now I'm living in the dorms and have so much freedom that I don't know how to control myself. Instead of getting drunk and sleeping with everyone, I'm using air conditioning and washing my feet....