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When did I grow up?
I took a long look in the mirror today and saw a man I recognized, but he looked far different then I had remembered him. I wondered when was it exactly that I grew up. Not ancient mind you, but well past the time I called myself young. I stared disbelieving into the wrinkles now surrounding my eyes and mouth. They are not smile lines, as I have smiled far too little and frowned far too often. They are the traces of many scowls and worries that have always left me wondering what the future holds and contemplating on the regrets from days gone by.
I stared into eyes that still ask, “what am I supposed to be when I grow up?” When was it that I made that decision? Was there a singular moment in which I made the decision to travel down the road that has led me to this point in time? When did I forgo the dreams of that 3rd grader, when asked by his teacher what will he be in the year 2000, responded confidently- “an astronaut”? When did the Jim Herriot inspired dream of becoming a country veterinarian simply become an unrealistic fantasy.
Yet here I stand, neither of those things, with the days of shaping my future somewhere behind me. Today I am a husband, a father and a soldier; all of whom are noble in their own right, but not at all what I dreamed of becoming, when dreaming of becoming was as good as becoming in and of itself. When did I trade the path of certainty for the path of a Wal-Mart bag caught on the wind?
I wonder still, what will be my destiny. Is this it? Has the sum total of my existence already been added up and now I will just go into deficit spending? Surely there must be a defining moment; one to which others will point and say- that was his finest hour. Will my contribution to humanity be only spending a lifetime as being a good guy? Is my level of greatness defined not by how I change mankind, but rather, that I was a kind man?
Was Albert Camus right? Am I living the Myth of Sisyphus- forever rolling the rock up the hill just to be overcome by its weight and watch helplessly as it rolls back to the bottom? Like the eternal highwayman, endlessly laying pavement on roads already laid with older pavement, am I too, bound by the realities of my existence? Or like Sisyphus, will I embrace my fate and find a quiet dignity in my shackles as they become part of who I am?
My father should have been an actor; he was a better character actor than most of our cinema megastars. Yet he was not an actor, he traded that dream for the harsh realities of night school and government employment. Yet he did not look back on his life and wonder why he was not an actor; he slept well at night knowing that he provided well for his family, helped fight the cold war and won, and took great pride in his children even though they never became the men who changed the world.
Will I change the world? Or maybe, more importantly, have I done my part in making the world a better place? I have to be more than I am today- my father mortgaged his own dreams to insure that I at least had the chance.
When I look back into the mirror tomorrow, will I see a man who has also mortgaged his dreams so that his children might save the world? If that is so, I should learn to yell less, love more, encourage continually and let not a day pass when I don’t tell my sons that a dream is not a dream- it is a path. Regrets are founded on paths not chosen when they were but dreams. I must always remind them how not to wake up one morning and say- “when did I get here?”
I still hope that I have yet to reach my finest hour, that it truly lies somewhere down the path I travel on today. The world has always needed soldiers and certainly our country needs them now more than ever. So maybe if I set my newly wrinkled eyes to the future and decide that my path is to be the best officer the Army has ever had, or the father of the two men who made the world a better place, maybe, just maybe those won’t be just dreams and I am on the right path.