Calvin & Hobbes, and the Setting Sun

 
 

Drake Cyanide is back again! Have you missed me?
Yes, I’ve decided that I want to try to blog again. I know that I’ve been the hallmark of inconsistency, I’ve been forgiven for way too much neglect. So let me get you all caught up.
I started my blog when I was working rotating shifts at an ice cream plant (lots of downtime and a free internet connection), and it gave me a means to express my ideas and feelings. I was going through a tough time in my life, trying to find a source of happiness, and having it elude me, while I droned on and on about my past, my family, my experiences.
I left that job for what I thought was a good step for me, a dayshift job with weekends off, company vehicle, and independence as a service specialist for a big company. The stability in my life crumbled, however. I went through a divorce, and money was tight, stealing internet as much as I could at work and in my tiny apartment. With my nice new day job, I was able to finally go to school, as I’ve always wanted to get my degree, so all free time went towards that and my kids. Needless to say, my blogging suffered. And even though I made this major change in my life, that had purpose, I was still frazzled to no end.
It was a year into this new job, and 2 semesters of college classes when I decided I needed another change. What could I do to be happy? I thought maybe it was a lack of companionship. I found myself frantic to ask out every cute girl I saw, to be held, to be loved. But all I got was heartache, and angst at every rejection. And not only girls rejecting me but me rejecting sweet girls who I felt no connection with.
It took me a while to stop and take a deep breath. This love thing is an obsession. I needed to ask myself, what did I truly love doing? I thought back to the times I felt sheer joy. I remember when I rode a helicopter with my dad when I was a kid, and I wanted to be a pilot. I used to pretend I was flying one, even draw them constantly. Even now I’m fascinated with them, and wished I could learn to fly. But that takes money, and money I don’t have.
The epiphany came when I realized that every time I talked to someone about my stint in the Navy, I tell them how much I miss the traveling, seeing new places. I was already in the Navy reserves, and a little 2 week trip I took to Argentina a year before merely wetted my appetite.
I was ready for a new adventure. Not long ago, I volunteered to join a Navy Unit that runs a detention facility in Kuwait. I already went through a month of training in Washington State. After some time back in Houston. I left again, this time to Oklahoma for more training. I saw the last sunset in Houston that I will see in a while yesterday, while I was taking a shuttle to the airport. I was just about to take a pic of this momentous occasion, when a truck passed us, blocking the view. On the passenger side door there was a decal of Calvin and Hobbes.
How rude. Wasn’t Calvin kind of an in-your-face, messy-haired rebel, who speaks his mind in loud decibels and terrorizes his parents? This blocking of my last Houston sunset seemed like something that a maniacal Calvin would do.
But later, as I thought about it, maybe it was a sign, that I’m off on a Calvin-esque adventure, fearless, care-free, away from the constraints that have have bound me and kept me unhappy for many years … and it happened at that instant to block from my mind that the sun is setting on my time in Houston. I should look to the happiness ahead.