Over the past few months as I have accepted an offer in the US Navy, gotten married, and graduated college among other events, I have stated many times over to family and friends, “life changes quickly!”

I have no real complaints about change.  In fact I welcome it.  If every day were the same as the day before, it would not be a happy life for me.  I like and welcome change.

Today, I was up at my parent’s house cleaning out my old bedroom which they are converting into a nursery for future (starting August (not mine)) grandchildren.  And of course I got all those nostalgic feelings while looking through old school projects, ribbons from the “Olympics” in elementary school, or some random object that I remember so many details about its inception.

A few of the items such as some favorite elementary school projects, awards, and yearbooks made it into a box that has a space in my parent’s basement, but a lot of the items I uncovered did get tossed.  If I had no memory of working on whatever item I was contemplating the fate of, it was gone.  Time to move on.

I’ve done no research in the area, but I wonder if there are other animals beyond humans that are nostalgic.  I believe I once heard that elephants visit the grave sites of family when on journeys.  But what really is the huge deal about keeping random items from the past?

When working at Apple, they refused to celebrate any anniversaries.  Their vision was set on the future, not on that past!  Or at least that’s the story I heard.

And now working for the Navy (even though I have little to no actual experience) there is tradition in every minute of every day, it seems.

Finding a middle ground of knowing who you are and where you’ve been in equal importance to where you are going seems more like the optimum combination.

I love new adventures and am looking forward greatly to the Navy, but I have to say, for the first time ever, my heart was a little saddened at the thought of really moving on from the city of Cincinnati.  I knew Cupertino, California for Apple was temporary, but the Navy is a little more substantial than a 6 month co-op.

Melissa had a number of days off work this past week which we coined “adventure week”.  We started off by going to the dog park, then on a hot air balloon ride, and the next day we went horse back riding and skydiving, and the next day we drove up to Columbus where we went scuba diving and camped that night.  What a week!!!! I know every week wouldn’t be like that if I weren’t going into the Navy, but that week sums up a lot of the difficult emotions that will most likely be abundant when I head to OCS in August.  Missing spending and enjoying time with my wife.

Three months will be quick enough, though!  Enjoying the time I have now and looking forward to the time I have coming up in the future.

Cheers to that!