Right now I am listening to the Cure, setting up a pad of paper to write down a to do list, and trying to come up with a good topic today. The title is inspired by this story http://mariovittone.com/2013/04/the-unaccounted-for-variables-where-tough-mudder-failed/
My high school years weren't just spent in a chaotic chasm of depression (although much of the time I was being flung from one emotion to another with little, if any, warning). They were also the years that allowed me to experiment with my look, my beliefs, my friends, my lovers, my education. There is nothing so satisfying as the feeling of extreme beliefs, because that makes everyone else wrong, and how easy is that to believe? Right? My emotional state varied so much, I made friends in one state and then lose them in the next. I felt as if I was always chasing the next "switch", but only to stop it (I learned there are ways, but that's for a later post). I know how unstable I must have looked, much of it attributed to teenage rebellion/hormones. But I knew I really was different when it continued into my college years...and then didn't stop. There were few days in which I felt solidly placed. Everyone else had it all together but being a college student allows for a certain amount of eccentricity, so I fit in. After graduation, I fell apart. I lost focus and direction. I found both in having children.
Why the military reference? Because as my oldest contemplates joining the Air Force, I wonder if my extreme negative views on military service actually kept me from the one thing that might have been able to train me to keep it together. At the very least, those ideas did keep me from appreciating the hard work these individuals do, and in our increasingly violent world, I think maybe we all could benefit from some military training.
How's THAT for a 180 on my previous view that the military is a place people learn to kill one another and is therefore an immoral institution?
Happy Memorial Day. I'm going out to buy a steak now.
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