More Introspection

So, one of the well-known (er, among staff, anyway) legends of camp is that Firefly is uncatchable. Charting a random course that can be seen but not followed, or certainly not kept up with for any length of time, and even to such a person as COULD match pace, the terrain and direction will prove more challenging than the Iron Man competition (though not the Iditarod, we've decided).

It's been something fun in the identity, a point of pride for some time. And, I'm coming to realize, a very self-serving one.

And, talking with a few girlfriends, I have this long list of dreams and plans for my enlistment and the ten years to follow - but they're all remarkably self-serving. Yes, okay, it's college, and volunteer work, and nursing, but it's all about me. How good it makes me look, while still conveniently not allowing anybody in. Nope, too busy, can't have a partner along on this, sorry!

Because I can live in cramped quarters, and blinding cold, and hundreds of miles away from the people I love most, and not get access to good food or proper showers or stress relief...because it's all me doing it. How cool am I, to be able to pull this off!

Scary thought - if I was married, there'd be somebody else who's REALLY there all the time. Not someone I go visit, or meet up for lunch, or go on dates with. Somebody who actually gets to see how lazy I can be, or how much of an emotional mess I turn into given proper provocation, and realizes that I'm NOT as cool as I think I am. Someone I'd love, and couldn't just shrug it off if they didn't love me back.

Works with everyone else. If someone on base doesn't think I'm a rock star, pshhhh, whatever, I know I am. Anyone else, I can just breezily remind myself that they don't really know me. If I got married, someone conceivably would.

And that's scary. I can surf down mountains, respond to missile attacks, run big races, fight fires, respond to a bedwetter at 2 a.m., take medical threats with a grain of salt, stay up for days at a time (not that I'm entirely sane on the other side of this, but if it's required) - but loving somebody like, giving them all of me without knowing if they'd want it, really letting someone in to all that I am...ay. None of that other stuff is a surrender. I had an understanding with the world - I surrender to God, I obey authority, and I love my friends. Surrender to another person, to someone who's flawed, letting them in where they can hurt you and giving them the ammunition to do so...I did that already, and it didn't work out (not that he got all nasty, but it's like they get to know the best parts of you and then decide that they don't want you), and I don't want to do it again.

In any other challenge, that'd be the point where I'd say, "And that's why I have to." It's scary, it hurts, and I don't wanna do it - that's why I need to stop running from it and face it. Not that this is the best time - A School is nuts on the busy scale, and while I could see starting something maybe after I make ET2 (that'll be a good two years from now, but the process to get ET2 looks fairly challenging)...but I need to stop trying to chuck more "good" things in.

I had a plan that was chock full of good things and picking up every 3-5 years to relocate and wouldn't have really allowed me to settle down before I was 45. And thanks to the gentle remonstration of said friends, I'm beginning to wonder if my agenda had nothing to do with God's direction.

So, it's not just that I'm crazy busy and don't have time for a relationship right now. It's that my ego's vitally important to me, and I don't want anyone to screw it up, so I make sure that there's too much going on to really let another person in. And I honestly have fun with this, I enjoy life - but somebody's been working on me lately, and pointing out that "fun" is not necessarily synonymous with "right".

Liberty isn't "the right to do whatever we want." Liberty is, "the right to do what's right."

And once I realize that I'm somehow running from something I'm afraid of, that's a clue that, while it's not anything that would be harmful for somebody else, what I'm doing right now would fall under, "wrong."

Sighhhhh. Having friends who can call you out on your junk is a pain sometimes. Thankful, but man, learning hurts.