And Off I Go Again!

This might be my last post for awhile.

Not that I mean to abandon everyone, but I'll soon be leaving, and where I'm going, the available internet blocks blogger. I've been batting around the idea of switching to a different site for this purpose, but I feel as though I don't have time between now and departure to have things the way I'd like them.

Picky, picky.

I'm now in the Seattle area. It's beautiful here; I'm looking forward to exploring a lot of these hills when I come back. There are trees EVERYWHERE. I walked past a ten-foot holly bush on my way to church the other day, just growing in someone's yard! I've never SEEN holly before, not actually growing and living.

I've long held a special appreciation for trees.

If any man has a place to sleep,
Clothes to wear,
And food to eat
A few good friends who know his heart
And a place in the woods to walk with God
How much richer can any man be?

I don't know what that's from, but it comes to mind, especially the last line, every time I'm out in the woods and see the riches spilled like the treasures of Aladdin's Cave. "How much richer can any man be?" I love the woods.

I have some apprehension about this deployment, but honestly, far more about being a tech. I feel like a seal trying to learn rock-climbing. I want to protest, "I'm not a waste! There's so much that I'm really very good at, there's just no use for it here! It doesn't show up on paper. But I do some things well!" Younger-me might have supposed that it's good for my humility, but somewhere along the way it clicked that humility didn't mean that I was supposed to worry and fret and be down on myself - it meant that I was supposed to be focused on something, someone, outSIDE myself. Forgetting whether I'm doing good or bad, forgetting ME, as it were, because someone else is here.

And when I'm trying hard to be good, and doing badly, it's very easy for me to start feeling sorry for myself.

So, no, I'm not really worried about the deployment. I will have forgotten things, yes. I will be short on sleep, yes. I will miss my family, and see many unfamiliar things, and endure the stress of living, working, eating, sleeping, and seeking recreation in what is effectively all the same building. But all of that, I can see past it. I will come back, in some condition or another. As long as I'm alive, I can heal from just about anything, so I'm not really concerned about the stress-damage yet.

But being a bad tech? For some reason, that really bothers me. Possibly because I want so much to be a GOOD tech, and I feel hopelessly unqualified. I know, by Navy standards, I went through school, and actually did very well, but I feel like that had far more to do with my test-taking abilities than my technical abilities. Rock-climbing seal.

Mail is a great, great encouragement, always. I won't always have time to respond, but I'll try.