What I Was Thinking

In my last entry I left a dangler at the beginning about how going to the James River Footbridge had led me on some interesting lines of thought, but then I got so caught up telling the story of the bridge that I never told what I was thinking. So here it goes...

While walking back across the footbridge with my friend Ben, I was telling him how much fun I had had. That sometimes, all you needed in life was warm water and a place to jump into it from. I think that that's a very true sentiment. And there is a part of me that wants that, and wants the things that could give me that. Confession time I suppose.

My dad works at Southern Virginia University. A small college, with a small campus and a good student body. It seems... intimate somehow. Not with the people there, although you get that feeling. But with the school itself. Intimacy in a relationship I suppose is safety and confidence when sharing your feelings. I share my feelings alot, especially to SVU. There is a beauty and a grace to the school, and when I talk to the walls of the 200 year old main hall (I only do this in my head so I don't get weird looks as I walk down the hallways) I really feel like they listen. A very big part of me has decided that my life could take much worse courses of actions than to come back and fill my father's shoes teaching at this school.

But what to do in the mean time? I suppose that I could graduate and go straight to grad school. The familial years of starving grad students are defining times I hear. or get a regular job that would support my family and put the rest on hold. Graphic and web design are things that I'm good at and that I enjoy doing. With that kind of job I would have stability and a more permanent place to live with my wife and raise my family. I'd get a house in a small town, the kind that you never see on the news or that never does anything controversial, and take my kids to go swimming in the river. That seems like a good plan doesn't it? A life well lived, working a job that earns a living, but doesn't affect much of anything outside of who's paying you to do it. Maybe end up teaching. Again those words come back, "a life well lived," "the salt of the Earth." Sounds pretty good. I'm betting that it sounds really good to my soon-to-be wife Kaitlin (who is the best woman in the world) These are things that I want, and that she wants too. I'm already looking forward to the day that I can edit this blog entry and replace the random picture of a family that I found with one of my own. So you can see my kids there, and I can point, smile, and brag, and do all those other things dads are supposed to do. That is exactly the kind of family that I want.

One small hitch, not so deep down inside me there's something else. Call it whatever you want, call it the Call of Duty, a desire to make a larger difference, to be a part of something larger, a thirst for adventure. I think, that to me, calling it the call of duty fits best. When I was talking to my friend Ben, I was telling him how much I enjoyed swimming in the river and jumping the bridge. But at the same time I knew that those were freedoms and opportunities that I had that were not universal. We can talk about the universal right to the pursuit of happiness all we want, but some people are able to come a big step closer because of the things that other people do for them. It's not just a metaphor, that there's a wall out there where good men stand to keep evil at bay. That's a wall built by freedom loving men and women, and maintained by the self-sacrifice of the same. I'm betting that everyone reading this has seen on the news what happens when destruction and hate come over that wall. I don't know why, I don't know the reason that I feel like I have to earn my place in this country, or why I want to make a difference. There are others willing to do the job but I'm pulled toward it. I don't know what it would take to satisfy this feeling. I want to work for my country and I feel pulled toward the Army. We'll see what the future holds, Army, Air Force, FBI, or anything else.

What's a man to do?