Just Keep Swimming

My family and I have found the most eclectic shared collection of movie quotes and moments. We’ve made memories there, and reference them later in what would appear to be vague manner – except in looking around the room, we find understanding in each other’s eyes. All human beings have reached moments or passages in which we felt the only way “through” was to back out all together. The film Finding Nemo depicts a moment like that, in which the character Dory pulls herself through by singing. She sings to herself and Marlin, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…” I playfully assert that so many of my days feel like I need Dory’s reminder. I happily embrace the smile brought on in recollection of the first time I heard her catchy tune and laughed – knowing how well the mantra could serve me most any day of my life.

I have failed to “just keep swimming” here at my duty station. Laundry is piling up in my room; I haven’t swept or mopped my floor in two weeks; remnants of packages and letters from home lie scattered about my 12’ by 12’ abode. It’s time to do more than keep swimming.

I will start with a modest climb, but I’m publicly announcing my intentions. I ask that my friends out there – many of whom I’ve too often forsaken during challenge in my own life – do what you can to hold me accountable to these: I will show perceptible sign of life in my blogging spaces (Sentinel47, Flickr) at least once every 24 hours; I will research graduate programs, with an intent on enrollment in a Fall ’06 program; I will gather the necessary supporting documents for application to these programs; and I will submit my applications, sending them no later than the 15^th of October, earlier if necessary for meeting the deadline.

I don’t think any of you would ever ask for proclamations from me, nor would that particularly feel comfortable to you. I’m attempting to take steps in asserting the next phases of my life. I can gripe and complain in this electronic space from one end of this deployment to the other, but ironically, that behavior locks me in to such a focus on the difficulties, that I never surmount the challenge. I become the one thing I keep swearing not to be: defeated by this beast (the Army, the war, the government – you get the idea).

Enough said. Time to shut up and do something. The laundry is calling my name, and I’m anxious to post some of the pictures I’ve taken in recent weeks. “See” you all again soon.