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In retrospect.....

I last committed time to my weblog over a month ago, therefore this is my first weblog post of the New Year. The only thing I resolve to do this year is to not compound my life with the hypocrisy and failure to committ to a set of resolutions. I am just going to live like the best that I can. I'm not sure where the tradition of making resolutions came from, but I am sure that the first guy that came up with this probably failed in keeping with what he resolved to do.

I am, however, taking a moment to look back at my life, look at myself now, and think about where I should be in the future. I never was ambitious enough to have a real long term plan in place....though I should have. But, I am looking at my life now in a different perspective than I ever have before. I am now 33 years old, which is still a considerably young age in many regards, but it is still sobering. I don't have the same qualms and anxiety that many people have about growing older. Rather, I am relatively comfortable with each year, but I do have a feeling of restlessness that tends to gnaw at me from time to time. I suppose I am beginning to understand what the 45 year old guys would call a "mid-life crisis."

Don't get me wrong, I am happy with things such as marriage and kids, but it is the question of my purpose above that which leaves me at a quandary. I suppose that is why I have mixed emotions about being deployed. While I was unsure at 19, I would have many more reasons for reservations now that I am married with children. But, though I know better, I feel as if I am "missing" something. I have no aspirations to be a "hero", or go on a grand adventure, but I do want to play my part...to the hilt. With that, I think about the military, what it has meant to me, done for me, and sometimes done TO me. Nonetheless, I can't help but to feel that there is something out there somewhere that I was meant to do, to accomplish, to pilot, to fix, to save.....something. Yet, I don't know what that something is.

I think that a frank discussion on this would not only give the people closest to me a wrong impression of what I am feeling, or what I am dreaming about, it would also tend to purvey drama into my life. And that is the LAST thing that I want. I, like many other sane men, allow thoughts of family, fortune, and future to be the arbiter of the life choices that they make. Ego notwithstanding, those are the things that will guide most of us. I just want to make the best decisions and not simply respond to that gnawing feeling.

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