what i've been up to and will be up to for 3 weeks

tomorrow evening, joe will have been home for 1 full week.

out of that week, i got to spend 3 full days and two evenings with him. all very successful hangouts and two more weeks to look forward to.

i am enjoying this visit home more than any of his other visits i think for a couple of reasons. the first reason occurred to me in the car as i drove into the city this morning: he's back. on american soil. for good. the odds of him getting deployed again are almost nil and the general anxiety the military induces is now practiced and the norm for my family. i know what he'll be going back to in CA and it's this knowledge that alleviates some of the clenching "he's going back to war or to the unknown" stress usually associated with his visits home. august 13th, 2010, baby. what a celebrated day that will be.

the second reason for the surging joy i've been feeling boils down to the fact that he's growing up. both physically and mentally. physically, he's grown again! he's bulked up and when i look at his face, i can see that he's, well, a man. he was 18 when he went in, and he'll be 22 in just a handful of months...given the fact that we only see him maybe twice a year, these changes are huge and obvious. after i mauled him in the airport, i looked at what he was wearing and noticed he had on the swim trunks he and sam had bought for themselves on my last visit last september. these are the hilarious matching trunks in matching sizes that fit neither of them--for joe, they were too big and would not stay on -- for sam they were too small and were amusingly too tight. i exclaimed to the fact that he had them on and they appeared to be staying up without the aid of his hand or a piece of rope, and he smugly told me that they fit him now since he's gained a lot of weight (but mentioned that he'd actually already lost some pounds in the weeks he'd been back since he stopped his work-out routine). now maybe this is all too much information, but i think it's hilarious and i'm really really really happy to see him heavier and healthier.

mentally too joe has made some strides (not intellectually, he's already supersmart, duh, but i guess emotionally). my brother pretty much summed it up on the car ride home from the airport last week when he mockingly retorted to my jibe about him and sam partying too much and getting in trouble the night before by saying, "sue, we're not like that anymore...we're mature." to which i responded by pointing out his very mature black eye earned the weekend before with sam...haha. but it's true, he is maturing.

all summer long joe's correspondence with me was riddled with maturity--from quitting smoking, to working out and getting healthy, to reading books again and being proud of himself for getting back into that. he starting talking about the future and college and doing responsible things like "studying for entrance exams" or "inquiring about admissions processes for colleges." i'm so excited to see him enter into a new phase of his life. and it's obvious when talking with him that while he's still my baby brother, i don't need to obsess and worry about every little thing--like him getting lost or on the wrong train (well...almost). he's grown up a lot and it's exciting to be able to connect with him on a new level.

he's a bit more candid when asked questions as well it seems. he talked a bit about the difference between his two deployments and about losing a member of his platoon to a road side bomb. he's definitely witnessed some terrible things and i hope he will never be tortured by them and can use those experiences in loss to push him towards understanding and empathy.

but deep down, and through it all, he's still the same joe. still the same goof-ball, still the same sense of humor, the same forgetfulness, the same stoic behavior, the same brother and son, for better or for worse.

and i'm just so happy.