14 August 2024

I was telling my Queen that I’m a lost boy, during this quiet time I don’t have anything that needs to be done and it makes sense to rest as much as possible. Without a purpose I am lost, I could make new purposes to fill the time, but they’ll be abandoned in a couple weeks anyway. I’ll try to finish reading the book I’m currently on before than, that will be some sort of purpose and accomplishment as well as changing my perspective. Mostly I do enjoy this quiet time to be introspective. Always focusing on what to do next is a good way to move forward, but it’s important to take time to meditate on why I move forward and where I would like to go. For the time being I see my life as being given up to my kids, at least until the youngest starts school around age 5. Problems appear to rise in a parent’s life when they want to have their individual life and try to be a parent, it’s easier to accept that myself and my desires are gone for now. All that is ego anyway, if part of who I am is parent to these children, then by caring for them I am satisfying my desires. The hardest part I believe is lack of sleep, we may have a better tactic this time around, still the change of habit will create agitation. I view it all as weight lifting, I’m stronger now because I’ve gone through it before and will come out the other side stronger still. One of the final tests of infantry training was called the stairway to heaven, at the end of a week sleeping in field, we begin a march just after dinner that will take until breakfast. Obstacles we encounter along the way are a downed helicopter where we rescue the injured on stretchers, resupply where we carry cases of ammo an unknown distance down the dark road, and the stairway to heaven. The stairway was a steep climb up hill that seemed to never end, beyond every ridge was another climb. The sides of the road littered with people who had given up, head down, keep moving forward and this too shall pass. Of course once it was over we still had to walk home.