Time Will Pass So Quickly

Just sitting here, writing this post, thinking about these things ... just doing this brings goosebumps up and down my arms. I can't really put a finger on it, but I can FEEL emotion welling up inside of me. So many things are rushing through my mind, and it is hard for me to really know where to begin with this story. And so, I suppose, I'll start with the title and move forward from there.

On February 28, 1999 my Grandfather passed away. I was in Jr. High School at the time, and he and I were rather close. It hurt quite a bit, but the timing was as right, as the timing of those things can be. His passing gave me an impromptu jolt forward, from childhood to a bit of adulthood, and it framed quite a bit of my thinking through the next few years. Since the day of his funeral I have carried the same card in my wallet. It's from his funeral, and has a poem on it, as things of that nature often do. A portion of the poem which I often have focused in on read "Time will pass so quickly, but time will heal the wounds." Throughout many tough times in my life I have meditated on these words as hope for the future and moving forward.

If my Grandfather's death was impact moment number one in my childhood, the first moment which violently moved me towards adulthood, then the second moment occurred September 11, 2001. Sitting in a class room in my High School, taking a standardized test, we had no idea what had just befallen our country. If this were to happen even today I have no doubt that someone in that class would have received a text message, or a facebook update, or a twitter about the goings on. Even in the classroom. But in 2001 I didn't even have a cell phone yet, and those who did were not yet brazen enough to carry them into a class, at least not on.

So we sat, totally unaware of the world shifting under our feet, for a few hours while we took tests that we had to take to be able to graduate. The last moments, as it would be, of our childhood were slipping away, and we had no idea. The world was changing, and the paradigm that had worked since the fall of the USSR, the same basic idea that had encompassed our world view for all of our lives, was almost instantly gone. When Mr. Cook walked into the room with a such a serious look on his face I knew something was up. He told us that we would remember sitting in that class, that day, the same way our parents remembered where they were when JFK was killed, and our Grandparents when Pearl Harbor was bombed. The weight started to pound down on me, but in a calm, strong, articulate manner he managed to convey what had happened. And I jumped forward yet again.

Perhaps it was preordained from birth that I would get into politics, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 9/11 cemented my direction. I finished my remaining years of High School continuing to distance myself from much of what I had held dear, and moving out towards ... something. I wasn't sure then, and I would be lying if I told you that I was any more sure right now. I got involved with Student Government, and we pushed through a number of goals that others had tried and failed to achieve. I was Senior Class President, but by the time I graduated I had burned most of the bridges I had with my various social groups. I moved towards Indiana University with a sense of cautious optimism.

I settled on Political Science as my major while sitting with my roommate to be in a room without air conditioning in Bloomington, in mid-July. It was hot, I was wearing hair down to my shoulders, and had not shaved in about two months. It was my first time to Bloomington in nearly a decade (I never visited, just applied, was accepted, and accepted their acceptance). And I was reading through all the various majors which were offered, and trying to settle on something to tell my "advisor" in the morning. A big state school, particularly a Liberal-Arts one such as IU, gives you every option under the sun. I settled on Political Science for the outward reason that I had always loved History, and wanted something I'd love, yet I also wanted something that would challenge me to grow. And so the die was cast: I would study Political Science.

I suspect that inwardly I was still feeling the aftershocks of 9/11. I had no idea what focus I would have within the department, and I actually had no idea what the department could offer. I signed up for one Political Science class (Intro to US Politics), which I figured would be nice and easy since I had taken AP Government in High School. I wasn't genuinely moved within my major until, on a whim, I signed up for Y109 my second semester. Introduction to International Relations was the name of the class. A portion of my third jump forward was about to occur, although I had no way of knowing at the time.

You see, my freshman year in High School I saw George W. Bush take office by beating Al Gore. I still, to this day, will be honest and tell you I would have voted for Bush whole heartedly if given the chance. My freshman year at IU I again saw Bush win office, this time by beating Kerry. I was voting now, for the first time, and I was genuinely conflicted by my choice. On the one had you had Bush, who was the devil I knew, and who, to that point, had one big strike against him in my book: he had totally, systematically mismanaged the occupation of Iraq. My initial support for the War in Iraq is a story for another day; still, by 2004 I knew that it wasn't going well, and I had determined that Bush was, above all else, not a great Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces. On the other hand you had John F. Kerry, who was nothing if not a worthless joke of candidate. I couldn't envision Kerry as President. I weighed the devil I knew against the devil I didn't, was convinced that in Indiana it wouldn't matter anyway ... and swung with Kerry as a "protest vote."

To be honest, even with everything that befell the Bush Administration since that point I STILL feel dirty about having voted for Kerry. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with that vote. But 9/11 had changed me so much in such a small period of time: I began to delve in to international relations, and I focused on the Middle East. First with Kuwait, and a study of a "close" American ally in the Middle East. Then, after being given a research internship, with the Middle East Northern Tier. Again, the following year, with the Persian Gulf region. And, finally, culminating with a study of diplomacy in the nuclear age, and an Honors Thesis on the Iranian nuclear issue.

My time at IU was quickly shaped by 9/11, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Political Science wasn't even a fleeting thought in my mind on that day, yet by the time that six years had passed I had become knowledgeable on the Middle East, international relations, diplomacy, and nuclear weapons. The world changed that day, and I changed that day, and those changes really do closely parallel one another. There are other things that played integral roles on how I ended up here too, most significantly the reality that Hurricane Katrina brought every American about how unprepared we were to deal with our own problems even as we tried to fix the world's. But, sitting here today, I can honestly say that there are at least dozens of other things I may have ended up doing had those planes not hit the towers, or the Pentagon, or the field in Pennsylvania. It is mind blowing that I can sit here and say that eight years have passed. EIGHT YEARS! On the one hand, it still feels like yesterday to be honest. But, quite on the other, it seems like an eternity has passed. It seems like ancient history, or at least history of the World War II variety where we are still seeing the outcomes but the impact itself seems so long ago.

And now I work with kids, in residential placement, trying to make the world a better place quite literally one life at a time. And, again, I wonder how I got here. This certainly isn't where I thought I would be if you had asked me three years ago. I still can't believe I've been out of school for over a year. On some levels I feel like a failure because I'm not doing what I was "supposed" to do, but on other levels I feel like a success exactly because of that reason. Is grad school a real option for me? I know some people who were born and bred for it. I worked with them at school; hell, I LIVED with them at school. I don't talk to any of them anymore, for a variety of reasons, but I know that I'm not built like them. One thing that I have learned about myself is that no matter how academic I make it, no matter how intellectual I try to keep things, I still feel them too much to truly keep it separate. I work with these kids because this is tangible, and I can see my successes and my failures up close and personal. I'm not sure that I could ever see the results like that in the academic or government settings, and for that reason, perhaps above all others, I can honestly say I'm not sure where I'm going. But today, at least, I know where I've been, and where it has taken me.

I'm still not sure what to make of the world we've been left with following 9/11. Sometimes I feel like Frodo does in The Lord of the Rings: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened." I think we all feel that way from time to time in life, when we get down, when bad things befall us. It is not Frodo's quote we need to remember, however, but instead Gandalf's response: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." Time has passed so quickly, but I can say that, even if time has not quite healed the many wounds that life has left with me, I have also lived a lifetime in the past eight years. Only time will tell what the next eight may bring.