Rainy solace...
Today seems like it needs to be a day of reflection and reckoning. I worked my butt of yesterday, and have decided to take today to collectively get things in order, supposing I can unglue myself from my ergonomic chair long enough to do something useful. Since I've been home I've met some really great people, reaffirmed a few strong friendships and changed the course of my future, I believe. It's pertinent to me to contemplate these things individually...
A year ago today I felt I had no direction whatsoever. I had just recently been let go from my career of four or five years. Financially I was floundering, emotionally I was unsure of myself and mentally I was tired of the stress that the previoous few months had brought me. When I made my decision to enlist in the military (US Army National Guard), I had a lot of input from friends, relatives and acquaintances. Most of it was positive, while a few key people I had been counting on were bringing me negative feedback. Thus began my journey to find myself and learn about those around me. I've always counted myself among the upper-echelon of perceptive people. I feel I have a keen sense of people and their motives and habits. Perhaps that sounds conceited of me, but I honestly don't believe it to be so. It's simply a gift or talent I have a affinity for. Sometimes other things influence my ability to see people for who they really are, or what their true purpose is. Hey, even a world-champion boxer gets punched a few times. My friendscape changed accordingly to this new data and the time for me to leave grew closer.
During my < sarcasm > delightful < /sarcasm > stay at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, many things came to pass that would change me in more ways than I had expected. Of course the military is a world of its own making. The rules, the courtesies, the commonalities are all varying but quite different than everyday civilian life. As, I suppose, it should be. The potential for personal growth is amazing, and after the initial shock, I took to it as best I could. Growing out of my self-induced inadequacies was difficult... fear of heights, of lonliness, of death... but the end result is a combined feeling of accomplishment and self-growth that make the experience utterly worthwhile. I made new friends, lost some old ones permanently (RIP my friendship with Brian... whom I still count among the best friends I had had, even though things have now turned quite sour), and learned a lot about life along the way.
On that note comes the reaffirmation of some of my existing friendships... Sam and Scuba and the whole gang (Dean, Wayne and now George as well) are a group of friends that will be with me, in spirit if not presence, forever. These guys truly make friendship something to strive for. This unusually grouping of several people so absolutely different and at the same time similar is sort of a summation of life itself. I'm very thankful that all of them have come to be around me.
Then there are the new people... several friends I have made since my return whom I am quite grateful for. Of those people, I must say that I am suprised to be most thankful for one in particular. Suprised mostly because of my feeling of kinship by character for someone that I still have yet to get to know as well as I'd like. Jenny, I'm glad I had an opportunity to meet you. The fact that I've missed talking to you these last couple days speaks volumes. A good, insomniacal(?) 0400 IM chat can be quite musing... and amusing for that matter.
It is now after 1600... time for me to make progress, as my digression of these last few months has come to a conclusion. Thank you all for coming along on the ride, for better or worse I wouldn't be where I am, right this very second, without everyone.
A year ago today I felt I had no direction whatsoever. I had just recently been let go from my career of four or five years. Financially I was floundering, emotionally I was unsure of myself and mentally I was tired of the stress that the previoous few months had brought me. When I made my decision to enlist in the military (US Army National Guard), I had a lot of input from friends, relatives and acquaintances. Most of it was positive, while a few key people I had been counting on were bringing me negative feedback. Thus began my journey to find myself and learn about those around me. I've always counted myself among the upper-echelon of perceptive people. I feel I have a keen sense of people and their motives and habits. Perhaps that sounds conceited of me, but I honestly don't believe it to be so. It's simply a gift or talent I have a affinity for. Sometimes other things influence my ability to see people for who they really are, or what their true purpose is. Hey, even a world-champion boxer gets punched a few times. My friendscape changed accordingly to this new data and the time for me to leave grew closer.
During my < sarcasm > delightful < /sarcasm > stay at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, many things came to pass that would change me in more ways than I had expected. Of course the military is a world of its own making. The rules, the courtesies, the commonalities are all varying but quite different than everyday civilian life. As, I suppose, it should be. The potential for personal growth is amazing, and after the initial shock, I took to it as best I could. Growing out of my self-induced inadequacies was difficult... fear of heights, of lonliness, of death... but the end result is a combined feeling of accomplishment and self-growth that make the experience utterly worthwhile. I made new friends, lost some old ones permanently (RIP my friendship with Brian... whom I still count among the best friends I had had, even though things have now turned quite sour), and learned a lot about life along the way.
On that note comes the reaffirmation of some of my existing friendships... Sam and Scuba and the whole gang (Dean, Wayne and now George as well) are a group of friends that will be with me, in spirit if not presence, forever. These guys truly make friendship something to strive for. This unusually grouping of several people so absolutely different and at the same time similar is sort of a summation of life itself. I'm very thankful that all of them have come to be around me.
Then there are the new people... several friends I have made since my return whom I am quite grateful for. Of those people, I must say that I am suprised to be most thankful for one in particular. Suprised mostly because of my feeling of kinship by character for someone that I still have yet to get to know as well as I'd like. Jenny, I'm glad I had an opportunity to meet you. The fact that I've missed talking to you these last couple days speaks volumes. A good, insomniacal(?) 0400 IM chat can be quite musing... and amusing for that matter.
It is now after 1600... time for me to make progress, as my digression of these last few months has come to a conclusion. Thank you all for coming along on the ride, for better or worse I wouldn't be where I am, right this very second, without everyone.