Some things just do not change.
Last year while hanging out at the pool, a friend and I observed how there seems to be a hotbed of close personal activity between members of the opposite sex and one specific location of the pool. Each summer, couples are drawn to the center of the pool like moths to a flame, to cling to each other and do some close talkin'.
And this is the base family pool of which I write.
We would sit and chuckle over the whys/hows this seems to be a popular hook-up spot. The idea that this kind of interaction would enter their minds as a good one, with splashing goggle-sporting kids within five feet, was completely lost to us. Are they so deprived that they are completely oblivious to the swim diapers, games of Marco Polo, life guards stationed every 25 meters, and families?
While finally deleting texts from my phone yesterday, I came across one from that same friend, sent soon after I moved in July:
Why is there always "that couple" at the pool. I swear if it was adult swim, they would be getting busy. Guess where they are...the middle of the pool!!! Some things never change.
Just as when I first read her message, it made me sad, because if it wasn't for that bleeping PCS, I knew my butt would have been parked right next to her, laughing about the aura of hormones surrounding the couple that can't get a room. But it was a bittersweet sadness, laced with a touch of happy, because it was also a reminder that while my life had changed, some things never would. While people and faces at military installations rotate constantly, the middle of the family pool will always be popular.
Life, and the military, goes on.
