It’s 1 in the morning, and my husband and I are finally signed out and ready to start our 24-hour drive to Iowa.
On a whim, he decides to stop at the convenience store to pick up a pack of chewing gum before we start our journey. I decide to wait in the car with our travel-anxious dog.
Ten minutes later, I peek into the store window, curious as to what’s taking so much time.
I spend the next eight minutes watching my husband walk back and forth through the aisles. Finally, he gets back in our car, holding in his hand the same type of gum we generally chew.
“What took you so long?” I ask him.
He, of course, lets out a long, exasperated sigh and replies:
“There are so many choices, but I was looking for something cinnamon flavored that makes my teeth feel clean, but apparently they don’t make that anymore.”
In retrospect, it’s hard not to compare my husband’s chewing gum dilemma with our life in the military, so far. It seems like there are so many choices — where to live, what friends to hang out with, where to go to school, what to go to school for. Then there are the biggies like, make it a career or just serve the enlistment time?
There are just so many choices. Unfortunately, it often seems like we can never find just exactly what we’re looking for — a chewing gum that’s both cinnamon flavored and makes our teeth feel clean, so to speak.
So we just keep wandering the aisles, hoping something will pop up.
On a whim, he decides to stop at the convenience store to pick up a pack of chewing gum before we start our journey. I decide to wait in the car with our travel-anxious dog.
Ten minutes later, I peek into the store window, curious as to what’s taking so much time.
I spend the next eight minutes watching my husband walk back and forth through the aisles. Finally, he gets back in our car, holding in his hand the same type of gum we generally chew.
“What took you so long?” I ask him.
He, of course, lets out a long, exasperated sigh and replies:
“There are so many choices, but I was looking for something cinnamon flavored that makes my teeth feel clean, but apparently they don’t make that anymore.”
In retrospect, it’s hard not to compare my husband’s chewing gum dilemma with our life in the military, so far. It seems like there are so many choices — where to live, what friends to hang out with, where to go to school, what to go to school for. Then there are the biggies like, make it a career or just serve the enlistment time?
There are just so many choices. Unfortunately, it often seems like we can never find just exactly what we’re looking for — a chewing gum that’s both cinnamon flavored and makes our teeth feel clean, so to speak.
So we just keep wandering the aisles, hoping something will pop up.