Post 1989

How do you choose between every day steadiness and the bright lights of a bronzed tan? Melancholic deep beauty (with a cute little beer belly button) versus joyful, plucky determination, run into a wall aplomb, with those ever irresistible smiling eyes? Both have their differing appeals. So forgive me if there isn't room in my mind to distinguish Murphy the Dog from Buford the dog. With some definite choices to make this week, reflection on where I've been, what I've accomplished and where I want to be are simmering dangerously close to the surface.

What is more important, the security of three years of service and certainty versus a new opportunity to prove myself in a new challenging situation? The ups and downs from the past three years will most certainly color any decision. But to have the option and to see how others really feel has been enlightening. It was clear then, and with a certain amount of "I told you so-ness" I can say that she never knew what she wanted and the choice she was making wasn't going to get her to what she did know she wanted. But she now has the experience, the history and that knowledge is an advantage over another who might have to someday herself go down that same bumpy road of decisions.

She still takes my breath away, every time I see her. There is a connection in each conversation, in each actual experience and there is still so much to get to know. The potential intrigues. But the other melts my heart too. The defenses are down and I know the foundation for something special may lie down that path.

Funny how people looking from the outside in can often give you a different perspective. My chief competitor/comrade recently told me that although she now has her Masters degree, that she envies me because I have a garden and a softball team. This was the first time she ever admitted that there are elements of my life that exceed her own (misguided as this particular envy seems to be). I look at her life and the freedom and knowledge and all that makes her the special one she is, and my admiration still continues to grow.

Those feelings stirred inside are colored with loyalty and the desire to build on the foundation that is already there. But loyalty has to run both ways. They have let me down before, why should I trust in them now? Sometimes it would help to feel some connection, some straight line bridge between people and events. In other words sometimes it feels better to go from point A to point B rather than from point A to another point A. Perhaps that isn't realistic however. The fresh courting of another, the thrill that comes from the first flush of a new opportunity perhaps is what is needed to revitalize the old batteries. To sit down with her on a day to day basis, and really try to get to know one and other, that element of being new has certainly been lacking recently. Didn't I get off track somewhere? Isn't this the opportunity to go back and not start anew, but start from where I should have been? To deny all that was there has been a theme constant in the past three years if not the prior four. She has shown an understanding, an appreciation of that.

But that is not to say I've accomplished all I wanted to at the place I've been. The opportunity of a another option gives a different perspective on where you've been. To renew what was the first attraction to begin with is in itself a rejuvenation of the senses. What is to say if I go with the new that once I arrive I will find what it is I'm looking for? There is uncertainty there too. But it was never my intention to stay where I am the rest of my life and the longer I stay the harder it becomes to walk away.

She has in her own way expressed her regrets for what went down before. To pick up where I left off and to do it right this time appeals. But the regret isn't there with the other. To look forward to what may be and to take what I have learned elsewhere and apply it in a fresh situation intrigues. I am intrigued. They say history often repeats itself and the decisions to be made may not even influence where I eventually will end up. In the end it isn't even just a matter of what they may do for me it is also what I can do for them. The tides of a turning point. Catching my breath while chasing the wind.