I remember when I was a teenager in Jr. High School and my dad was trying to figure out how to escape the USA borders and work for the Peace Corps in another country. In fact the reason that I am thinking about this is that I found an old application that I kept of my dads, after he died. It was an application to the Peace Corps…
I did not understand why he wanted to leave at that early age of mine. But after several years myself in the armed forces. I understood the why. You see, my dad was in the Korean War and he had very little to say about that war and what he did say was not very good…
I remember the strained look on my dads face when he dropped me off to go to boot camp. He looked like he had aged 20 years over night. That image never left my mind and my dad did not make it many years after that. My dad died at 50. But he saw me come home and saw that I was still alive. My dad also saw my first born (Lyle) and the baby was a boy. That was very important to my dad and he died a few months later knowing that the Keeton’s had another boy to carry on the family. That was a very important thing to my dad and the worry that I would never come home from my escapades weighed heavy on him…
As I worked in America, I had memories of what I had seen around the world. I even worked in a Military College to stay in touch with my past. I kept contacts and I kept my rank alive. I decided after the divorce from the kids mother. That I would think outside of the box, so to speak…
Then one day after years and years of 16 hour days and six heart attacks! I met someone who was not from my world. Someone who was as far away as you could get from my world in America. Call it an accident, fluke, destiny, god intervention and or plain dumb luck. But I met a woman from Russia. This woman was different and unique. She was perfect and I could feel it even through an e-mail message. It turns out that my instinct was correct and it was the same instinct that kept my alive for many years and I learned to trust that instinct…
That same instinct told me to leave the USA and see the world. I severed ties and I mean I severed ties in America. I bought (bribed) my freedom from various parties and buried my past deep. That was the best money I ever spent. Probably the only thing that I did wrong was to not get another passport from another country as a backup. I see issues happening now with having a USA passport and they are not good for long term situations in many other countries. But it is what I have and what I will deal with…
Sometimes that past rears it head in the form of nightmares and dreams: Sometimes it comes in bits of paper from the past, such as an application for the Peace Corps that my dad filled out. I have to shake my head and clear the cobwebs. Then I assimilate myself to the fact that I am no longer dealing with the life that I had in the USA. That always makes me smile… 🙂
It dawned on me today that I achieved what my dad did not. He was from an older generation and they had harder roots to break. I also had wandered around America looking for what you would call, home. I never seemed to find it. I owned land, houses, built homes and moved from city to city. I never found peace because I always had a past dragging me into a pit…
I understand that it was me and only me who had that problem in my life. It could not be blamed on anyone else. I have lived in Moscow longer than anywhere in my life except when I was a kid. I use to buy a new car every year, sometimes two or three a year. I was always searching for an answer and material items seemed to be the American way to solve it. Inside of me, I realize was a person who did not accept the American way of life. The way of life that the media and government presented to us on a daily bases. So when the kids where on their own. I was on my own…
It is strange: I have no desire to leave Moscow. I have no desire to buy a new car. I have someone who really loves me for who I am and not what I am suppose to be according to media, government and social standards…
You know what? That just might be the answer…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!