This week is almost over, thanks be to God. I have to tell you that this week has been a season of discontent for me professionally. I spent most of my time, managing my own frustrations and disappointments and angers. It has caused me undue stress, loss of sleep and nearly exhausted my pharmacy of things kept for simply that purpose.
The good news is that whatever foreign company bought out Budweiser, made some money, and will make some more before this long weekend. I bet they were Belgians. I don't know why, but I have a perverse dislike for Belgians this morning, a people I usually only consider when I order waffles.
I don't think I am less unsettled professionally. In fact, if anything, in many ways, I am even more conflicted than I started the week. I don't know that I have made any progress down the road I wish to travel, nor in settling things I think need settled. I have come to the point where there is just not enough "give a crap" in my tank to fight through much more this week. That low tank level warning has illuminated on the dashboard and will not go out.
I have been here before. It centered around being told that I would have the fine choice of moving my teenage children to Japan for all of their high school experience, or leaving them where they were and taking myself away to Japan for all of their high school experience. I kept getting those choices given to me by everyone involved, and they all dismissed the third option that I contributed as "idle threat", "stupid", "never going to happen", and my favorite "even you aren't that stubborn a dumbass to do that." I got that last one from most of my closest confidantes and friends. We were not shy about brutal honesty, my circle of associates. And, I am way more stubborn than there is a scale to measure it, and my ass aint all that smart either.
Today, I look back, and while I appreciate the place from which their advice came, and I genuinely regret the real anger some of them felt and expressed at me, I decided to make them accept that third option. I am not all that good with subterfuge. I had just made Master Chief. I was in position to take the job I had spent 21 years working toward, Bull Nuke on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. I was prepared for it, having had the opportunity to spend the previous 6 years working for 2 of the best Bull Nukes I was ever privileged to know. (They were the first and loudest adherents to the dumb ass theory.) But, even though they all lined up to oppose it, I have never yet lost a military encounter on a battlefield of my own choosing. That explains why February 9, 2007, I requested permission to go ashore for the last time, ever in my life.
It was a very good job that very few got the opportunity to consider. It was on a ship that I had previously served on, and knew many of the crew well, and like them. Honestly, there was time enough left to me to take that position, and move on to Force Master Chief for either the Pacific or Atlantic Fleet, and then who knows what kind of Pentagon job. The path was there, and I had fought tooth and nail for it for 21 years.
But, I loved my family way more than I loved the Navy. Do not mistake me, there will never be another second of my life, since I took that initial oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States agains all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I am not a SAILOR. I can't think of a greater compliment than that word, and I am sailor enough to understand when Shipmate is used as a cussword, and I know the attendant cusswords to use back.
Detailers, Satan's spawn, and Community Managers, Satan's, always called you shipmate. They had limited options and issues that precluded them making everyone happy. I got that, and some of them were friends, and the non-cussword version of shipmates of mine. But, in September of 2006, they were all bastards that needed to be beat with a 2 X 4. I even got the bullshit, "you are the only guy we are considering for this job, because you are the only guy that can do it." "You are the guy with the integrated plant and ship understanding. You know how to recruit and build the best team out of whatever resources you have. You know the training required, and you know the politics that will be required."
I got that from a very senior member of the Fleet Staff, who I happened to have worked for previously. Man had not seen me in 10 years, and had absolutely no idea if I was a big bag of ass, or a squared away sailor at that point in my career. But, what I was, is a guy in a rating that was overmanned, who had developed 4 Chiefs under him on the ship I was stationed on (made multiples of my replacement), had completed multiple ORSE examinations as the guy in charge of training and drills, and had a clean record. I was expendable where I was, and everyone else that they really wanted for the job was not.
I don't even know who they assigned to the task. I took Option 3. I rolled out. I got all the things that come with pissing off the establishment. "You will regret this forever." "I refuse to approve it." "You will be trying to get back in a month after you retire." "You will never find a job, except in a power plant." "You are the dumbest bastard I ever thought was smart at one time."
As for not approving it, I told them fine, mark it No and send it on. I had already done my research, I knew that we were 125% manned in the Navy in my specialty, and that I would not be required even at my current command. As for regret, have not found one yet. I miss the people that I have lost touch with, but, God gifted me with great people in my life now in exchange. As for trying to get back in, or not finding a job, I was making a paycheck from the non-power plant company I still work for, while on terminal leave and receiving active duty pay. Since September 10, 1985, I have never not been fully employed a day in my life.
As for the dumb bastard part, well, I know my parents, and that makes me smart enough to not be dumb since I know I am not a bastard.
Point of all this is, I have carried a heavy load for the last few weeks. Things are just not gelling. It has had me nerved up, pissed off, easy to annoy and stressed out. Officially, the hell with all that. I have gotten underway, under my own power before, and never failed to find the pier at the end of the day. I don't think I have the capacity for regret, because I am a life long learner. My worst moments have taught me deep lessons, and I don't regret them, I kind of treasure them.
There is a clarity in confidence. There is a surety in moral authority. There is a peace in the arms of Christ. So I don't know exactly what will happen today, or next week, or next year. But, I won't be going to Japan, for damn sure. And if you don't think I mean that, you are sadly mistaken and far behind the learning curve. Or, maybe I go to Japan because I want to see it, not because I have to be there. Either way, things are going to start working for me, or I am going to have to find a place of peace that I can do my work. There is not enough of my life left, to waste any of it fighting it out, not even for the right reasons.
All this being said, is simply to encourage others, there are forks in the road every single day. The fork that gives you the creeps, that you just cannot even look at without knowing it is a failure, is exactly what it seems, WRONG. Never be afraid to take your own fork in the road. However many, and for whatever reasons they have, there will always be those that can't help but be the ones laying the dumb bastard tag on you. Dumb or smart, choose fulfilled, content and at ease in your soul.
It also will help you to know, God has this already figured out. You are not going to surprise Him in anyway. Even if you were to make the "WRONG" choice, He is still there guiding you. He is the ultimate GPS, because it takes him zero time to reroute, and He does not feel the need to tell you He is doing it, so that you get confirmation you are lost as a goose in a snow storm. Right, wrong or indifferent, if you make the decision in prayer, in faith, and in confidence of your own soul, God will always see you through to Him. I have zero reassurance He will take you to your goal, unless you have the exact right one, which is Him. It might not pass through a promotion, or a relocation, or the removal of the one that aggravates you daily. But, it will pass through every single thing He needs you to have, on your way to Him. Getting to Him is a forever destination.
So, drop the worry. Pray the prayers, believe on Him for your needs, and step on out. Japan is a bad choice, all the way around, and if that is what He is telling you, whatever else you end up doing, it aint Japan. And, that is immediate reward enough to keep you firm on the path.
Hope the tide rises gently beneath you, the winds shift to a favorable quarter, the soundings are clear and deep. And keep it between the navigational beacons, which is somewhere between Genesis 1:1 (In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.) and Revelations 22:21 (The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.) Getting lost between those beacons is just not possible. Stay true to course, even if the water looks better outside the buoys. That is illusion and lie, St Elmo's Fire.
Beyond there, there be dragons.
There are rocks in the channel, but God's angels are the Coast Guard that patrol there. And, in all of the reaches of time, they have never failed to rescue anyone that sent out a distress call. It isn't SOS, it is Lord, help me! Because it is not SOS, you don't even have to send it out in Morse Code, just heartfelt prayer.
GLYASDI
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