You want me to write, so I'll write...

It has been suggested to me that I write more, so I guess I will just write a short story...a short TRUE story.
Sooooo...here is part one of my little story:

Time was quickly going by. I stood in the airport with an extremely sore throat and about 6 million knots in my stomach. What do I say? Should I even be here? Did I wear the right thing? Should I go to the bathroom one more time? The apprehension I was feeling at this exact moment was not unlike the nervousness I had felt in high school track meets just before the starter blew the gun of my 400 meter dash. My coach had always promised me a port-a-potty at the finish line just to ease my nerves. Oh, how I’d wanted that blessed little blue stall right now. In minutes, I was to meet the man, the soldier, the angel, that I had been writing for the past several months.
It all began with a suggestion. My cousin, Chase, was deployed shortly after the events of September 11, 2001. He had just arrived in Baghdad, Iraq, when he wrote my family a letter. In it, he wrote a post script asking if I could “help out a friend” by writing him in order to keep his spirits up. He had recently gone through a lot, and for all I knew, he had no one else. Of course, I agreed. I wanted to do anything I could to help the soldiers that were so bravely fighting against terrorism. How difficult would it be to write a few letters of encouragement? Chase had mentioned that he would give this friend of his my address and I could go from there.
At that particular time in my life, I was not looking for a relationship. In fact, I had pretty much written off that possibility indefinitely. I had a four month old son and was dealing with my own difficulties. My little man was a blessing from above, but I was still struggling with much more than I was equipped to handle at that point in life.
I received my first letter in July. I had immediately noticed that it took about a month to get to me. The soldier introduced himself. He wrote of his interests-interests that were almost identical to mine- and where he came from. I learned that he had a mother and father that were very much involved in his life, and for that, I was grateful. It had killed me to think that this person quite possibly had no one to come home to. However, I was still going to write this soldier, this Wesley.
Writing letters to Wesley was an easy task. With so much in common, we had a lot to “talk” about. With every letter I wrote, he answered, and vise versa. I would look forward to getting the red, white, and blue-lined envelopes every day. After a few weeks, the excitement of receiving a letter would enliven me. I would try to counteract the fluttering excitement in my heart with my head by saying to myself Don’t get so excited. You are just in a small town so you don’t have a lot more to look forward to right now. Get a life! But I didn’t want to get a life. This soldier, this man risking his life every day, was beginning to fill the small holes in my heart left by past hurts and fears. The very words written on the sandy paper from his notebook were beginning to etch into my soul.
I was emailed a picture of my soldier from Chase’s fiancée. I melted. His ocean-blue eyes were eyes that I knew I wanted to look into forever. In the picture, he stood in front of a sandy-brown tent in his desert camouflage uniform holding an M249 S.A.W. This picture really put into perspective what he was looking at every day. The monotony of the desert landscape had to be nothing less than depressing. I went shopping the next day for the first package of goodies I sent.
I had not anticipated what I would encounter with the United States Postal Service while mailing the care package to my soldier. I had not expected the first of what would turn into several meetings with a person that still makes me tremble. I was not prepared for Large Marge, the Post Office Nazi.
Stay tuned...