1752 Words Later…
76,028 steps, 29.4 Miles, 462 pullups, 3 hours of Dungeons and Dragons, countless hours of hanging out with my family and talking to my friends, 1752 words and 8 years of honorable service.
I like to quantify and organize things, I like to know what I did, what I’m working on, so I can make it or do it better next time. The ability to track my miles and steps on my watch is an outstanding piece of technology. It sits in many of our minds as an after thought about how active we are, but not with this. It reminds me of training for the Marine Corps, and a recent study Officer Candidate School (OCS) did. They gave the candidates trackers, and logged how much those young men and women were moving. It turns out, we forge officers by walking them around. OCS found that candidates log about 100 miles a week on average during training. A curious piece of information when looking at how many miles I logged between my last post and today. However, now I know the exact numbers, and I shall strive to be better next week, simply because I can.
Pullups, that was an average of 92.4 a day. I want to do at least 1000 a month, with this week and last week, I’m at 654 pullups, or an average of 59.5 pull ups a day. If I keep pushing, I’ll make it to 1000 in 3.7 days, or 5.8 days if I slow back down to my overall average. Now, I have to figure out what I’m going to do with all my extra days, good chance it’s more pullups. Which means, maybe my 1000 pull ups was a comfortable goal, and I need to shift focus. On to 1250? 1500? Either way, I’ll adjust from here.
Dungeons and Dragons, I could absolutely increase that, but I have to type pleas to my dear wife on a blog post to ensure that happens. (I love you!) In all honesty, she is sweet enough to allow me to video call into a game shop to play at a table I love. Every single week I play, and my wife handles putting the kids to bed that evening. We order food that day, and we make sure she has things to distract her too. It’s a great way to break up the week. At the table, we all weave a story together, despite the distance. I could go on a long winded rant about this subject. Suffice to say, it’s nerdy, it’s fun, and having a spouse who lets me get it out of my system and supports my habit, well, it’s second to none.
I swim in the pool with my son and daughter, and spend all day balancing parenting with hanging out with my wife. I chat with people, I go places, I do things. No day is the same, and my wife and I keep our kiddos busy. It’s a blast, and I have the ability to pop in and write, apply for jobs, watch shows, run errands, and many other things. At the end of the day, after the kids are put to bed, the wife and I sit in the same room and just hangout next to one another. Sometimes just being in the same room, sometimes talking to one another - either way, we decompress and then head to bed. There is no correct way to quantify it. It’s the one thing in my life I can’t assign some numbers too, and maybe that's because it's one of the few things where I have no desire to assign numbers to it. Instead, I just enjoy doing it.
Today, June 13th, 2022, marks 8 years of service in the United States Marine Corps. It also marks the end of my active service. My time has come, and I transition out with mixed emotions. A whirlwind of emotions is the most accurate way to describe it. I walked into the recruiters office in 2009, and 13 years later, I’m exiting the service. I didn't take the path I thought I would, not the path I had originally envisioned, but I served. I was able to meet many people, from many backgrounds, people I liked, people I disliked. Leaders, followers, innovators, and just good people. No two people were the same, and I learned something from each interaction. As an officer, I left what mark I could, by leading and mentoring individuals to be better. I’d like to think I helped. Some of those Marines reach out and tell me that I succeeded.
So, I wrote a blog post, gave myself some internal goals, and it was a happy accident that a week passed and I am exiting the Marine Corps. Life is funny like that, circular, filled with chance, but in the chaos of randomness, some things just fall into place. Some pieces of the puzzle we call life never snap together, and on rare and very lucky occasions, they settle when you need them the most.
