My brother is back

My brother who has been over in Iraq is back in this country.

I'm so relieved. I have spent the last year with the television grabbing my attention every time I heard about deaths and casualties over there, every time wondering if it was my brother. Sometimes I knew right away it couldn't be him, because it was the wrong branch of the service or the wrong type of job. Other times I just had to remind myself that I'd hear if anything happened and made myself think of other things.

But now he's home, and while the world still has plenty of dangers they are risks that I'm familiar with and more comfortable with, as illogical as that is.

Why do I always cry more when everything's all right than when everything is scary? I have to be in desperate straits before I'll cry when life gets bad. But when the stress finally goes away I immediately break down and sob until my nose is choking me. Or scream and kick things. Which makes me good in an emergency but kind of scary afterward.

Oh well. My family loves me anyway.