Green Light, Go

I'm at the door, the green light is on and I'm ready to jump out. I've done it a thousand times, or nearly thirty. This time though, is different. Instead of four seconds of free-fall ended by the security of a parachute deploying from the pack on my back, and a twenty feet per second descent--the same scary speed you reach when you leap from a three story building--to the ground now nearing just as fast a speed. My life, an airborne metaphor. I've nearly reached the end of Army life. The last feet of my jump. My feet and knees are together, chin tight into the chest but I'm not landing on a DZ of Fort Bragg. I'm landing on the sands of time in the land of reality.

It's exciting in the same way, sort-of. The leap, the exhilaration can take your breath away. But every paratrooper knows it's not the fall to be afraid of. It's the landing. The ground. How hard is it going to hurt, and where will I land? This exit, my most important, a contrast to the others.

I look forward to going home, a decision that I've almost entirely made concrete. If for at least a semester or a time to sleep on the parents couch and figure out what's really best for me. When the dust has settled from a quarter career in a tough profession. It's exciting to think about, living back at home. Parents and family that I've sparsely seen over the course of training, living in a distant state and two deployments in defense of what you might call this great nations constitution, and which I call brotherhood.

With so many relationships built over the course of the last five plus years, I can't help but feel like a traitor moving back to the west from the east. All of these relationships, some close enough to consider 'like' family. My adult life had been built around these people. They're part of me. I've taken a piece of each of them and learned plenty about myself in the process. It's been a tormenting thing for me. The consideration of leaving all of what I've had in the past few years is something that terrifies me. All the friends that have left over the course of an Army career, they do it so seamlessly. They don't seem to have regret about leaving dear friends. Of course, the plus side is astonishingly greater wherever they move to.

The options have weighed heavily on my shoulders, and to be honest I'm still not totally decided on what happens next. What the next act of my life is, or where it will take place. There's plenty of upside regardless of the question marks stabbing its premeditated beginnings. I've always lived my life best through spontaneity and have yet to live a regret. Perhaps the mystery, the open doors are just a symbol of what has constituted my life. The only for sure choice in the near future, is college. California, Texas, NC, or Florida. So many choices, so little time. Oh, how I wish we had more than one life to live.


one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand