I haven't done much "observing from the other side" in quite awhile. I think that's a direct reflection of how full and active my life has been over the past year. Probably fewer melancholy moods too. However, this weekend I found myself tearing up over a mealtime prayer on the 4th of July, and I've done some observing over the past few days as to what that was all about. So I thought it might be a good time to write something down.

My friend, Rocky, whose wife is about to pop with the birth of their first child, recently found out he will be deploying in Feb 2012. He's taking it like a real trooper even though the Air Force is making him go to SERE training and the Army's combat skills training. He gets the pleasure of spending nine days running around the woods of Washington state trying to survive in order to "practice" what it would be like to be captured by the enemy. He even gets to kill an animal (his choice: a sweet innocent bunny rabbit or a chicken; I'd do in the chicken). In the end he knows he'll get captured so they can "practice" torturing him by putting him in a small box with sensory deprivation. All the while, he'll be missing both Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as his son's 1st birthday. He'll end up spending 3 months in training and 6 months in Afghanistan, and then, as he's already told the AF, he will exit the military having paid his dues.

Needless to say, my motivation for licensure is in the toilet. I'm taking this as another sign that I need to quit studying for the EPPP and not worry about the licensure test until the end of my commitment so as to avoid that fate for myself. Okay, study avoidance, I know. In all honesty, I have such mixed feelings about this test and passing it. I can't commit in my mind to doing it. I keep going back and forth.... "Yes, this is what I'm going to do even if it means 8 months of deployment; it's the right thing to do." But, I don't want to study! I want to play with my kids and my very special friend!! I want to read fun books and magazines! I want to ride my bike and do yoga and go for runs and drink coffee and look at Facebook and wash the dog or clean the bathrooms.... anything but study!!! The financial incentive doesn't help. The 'making rank' incentive means nothing to me. However, there was one thing that inspired me... Rocky.

Rocky is one of these guys who is just good as gold! He works hard. He took the EPPP within the first 6 months after internship. He doesn't boast about it, and he totally downplays the significance of the accomplishment. He has applied for the child/adolescent fellowship, and he is working on board certification now. He spent his own money to go to Washington DC for a week to chaperone a bunch of kids around our nation's capitol. Yes, it looks good on his resume, but he spent his own freakin' money to do it! He already has a job lined up once he gets out of the AF, which he was honest about with our "deployment decision maker." He just can't bare the thought of not being around for his not-even-born-yet son. He wants to eventually be the baseball coach and all that other good parenting stuff. He wants to do it all right, and he's willing to make some sacrifices for his child (who isn't even born yet!). Rocky talks about knowing "deployment is part of the deal" and that "if I don't do this, someone else has to." He is selfless. He barely complains (I did finally hear him utter a minimal complaint about the aforementioned deployment decision maker). He will hardly get to meet his little boy before he packs his bags to go live in the dust bowl of Afghanistan, and his little guy won't likely know him much when he gets back.

Then there's my friend, Hannah, who has left her husband and three little kids (ages 8, 6, and 2) behind for the past 6 months while she lives in the 120 degree temperatures of western Afghanistan. In a tent, mind you! I could go on and on.... the point is: these are two stories of highly educated individuals who are giving up their lives and going to austere locations for what? Freedom? I don't think that's quite it. Not our freedom. Freedom for the Afghanie people? Maybe. My friends are doing good work. They are serving the men and women who are serving something so much bigger than "freedom." What is it they're doing this for? I don't know. I guess we all have to figure that out for ourselves. We have to find that thing we hang on to in order to get us through stuff we don't want to do. There has to be a greater purpose. Something so much bigger than ourselves. Maybe for some it's money. Others it might be accomplishment. For others a sense of pride and service.

As for me... the next step is licensure, and it carries such a heavier meaning. I'm still searching for the purpose.